28 Miles, 3 days, 2 Peaks

One of the goals of Peace Corps is to have the American volunteers experience their host country and bring it back to America. In fact, two of the three goals of PC are simply cultural exchange on the part of the volunteer. Part of that process is seeing what your community has to offer. Now, granted, what I, as a westerner, want to see and what the local community wants to see seem vastly different. In Mbeya, we have a long list of quite impressive natural wonders and, in my experience, I’ve seen at least twice as many of them as my fellow Tanzanians. Perhaps this is a work issue, where we have defined off days but the pattern here seems to be just take a little time off each day. Or maybe it’s just an appreciation thing. I can understand how the work required to get to some of these sites is not worth the effort if you’re not terribly interested. Anyway, given that this week is as complete a break as we have in Tanzania, as all forms were off school (save form 4 who are taking their national exam but that doesn’t involve me at all), it was (technically still is!) the perfect week for outdoor activities. I completed two hikes, Ngozi Crater Lake and Rungwe Mountain. According to Google Earth, the land that I walked over during those three days amounted to 28 miles, 24-25 of which was in two distinct hikes. Needless to say I’m quite sore and my feet don’t want to touch the ground.

Saturday we took a coaster to the stop on the side of the road, where we began the Ngozi hike. It is a substantial walk on a dirt road before finding a path off into the forest. Walking along this path continues for 45 minutes or so before coming to a staging area of sorts and the path continues, in much smaller form up the side of the mountain. The first time we did this, which was outside of hiking season, we were required to push through vegetation that was in our way, while this time the path was very clear. I suppose that money that we pay to enter really does get some of the path cleared. Anyway, after rising for maybe 30 minutes you walk along with ups and downs, with understandably more ups, until you reach the overlook. At this point you can see the entire lake within the crater. The area looks like some untouched oasis, and to some degree it is. The last time we did this, however, we didn’t get to go down into the crater, while this time we figured it out. Of course, descending 200m in a short distance requires a lot of climbing, but there is a path and plenty of vines and roots. It felt very Tarzan. Then at the lake shore we sat for a while, throwing volcanic rocks into the water and watching them float. After a while, we climbed back to the overlook and returned to the road. All in all, that day was around 9 miles of hiking.

The final climb up to the rim:

The view from the outlook:

Climbing down to the shore:

At the lake shore:

Sunday I took off to recover, for the most part. I did have to hike to a friend’s house to start prepare for the Rungwe hike, which was another 2 miles or so. But I felt reasonably recovered by the time we left Monday morning and headed up the mountain. The Rungwe hike is an interesting one as you start out hiking through modern rural Africa, then get to a less modern rural Africa, then in the matter of about 5 feet you’re in Jungle Africa. It’s kind of amusing because upon entering the forest, you immediately drop down probably 50-75 feet to reach a creek (and yes you can drink from it!). It’s the gorgeous setting with trees everywhere and birds calling. There is an occasional monkey (as rungwe has its own species) but they aren’t always around. Anyway, the upward hike begins and goes on forever it seems. Eventually, the trees thin and you start to get peeks of your surroundings. It’s about this time my stomach seems to realize that it’s out of food. So eating is a priority. Then as the trees continue to thin, they eventually give way to bamboo, which is a really cool setting. After some time in the bamboo, you find yourself in a group of scratchy scrub bushes and the last segment of vegetation. Finally, escaping the bushes, it’s a quick climb to the summit of the peak through short grasses and rocks. All in all it takes between 4-5 hours to get up to the summit. However, this time, my Ngozi weakened legs had to rest quite frequently near the end. At the onset of the bamboo, I had to let Andrew, my hiking partner (yes it was two Andrews hiking together :P) go ahead and I came along at a slower pace. Regardless, it was a lovely hike, and although it was hazy we could see Tukuyu, although not all the way to Lake Malawi. Anyway, after an hour or so we returned to my friends, and then continued to the road to catch a dala dala (remnants of a van that acts as a bus). All in all, that hike was around 17 miles giving me my 28 miles in three days. Thank you Google Earth :P

The bamboo forest:

The view from the top:

The monkey is from my first hike of Rungwe but still quite exciting to see!

And here you can see the hike almost in its entirety. We start just out of the picture to the right and work our way up the ridge on the right side of the picture until reaching the summit.

In other news, there was a massive fire in Tukuyu. Some PC friends and I were visiting an acquaintance that does work in the Tukuyu area and were walking back when we met a group of people on the road who were walking into town saying there was a fire at a hardware store. When we reached the top of the hill in town, you could see red colored smoke rising from main street. The flames were about two stories tall by the time we got there and the entire town, it seemed, was out to watch or empty the stores adjacent to the fire. The experience gave me a new perspective on the dangers of fire. For the first time in my life, I actually could see the fire getting out of control. I’ve seen the forest fires on TV but in real life I’ve always felt like fire was something that could be contained to what it already had affected. Here I could see people scrambling to save whatever they could from a building a block away and I couldn’t argue with their logic because the fire did not seem as though it could be stopped from reaching those buildings. Fortunately, it ran out of fuel before it spread too far and only the hardware store burned, but it was a humbling experience knowing the town was at the mercy of the fire. The firetruck from Mbeya even made an appearance although it was after the fire had subsided to well within control. Fortunately, I don’t think anyone was injured and only one store was lost. The area is already back to normal, just with one less business.