Photos will follow.  We have very limited WiFi for uploading!

Day 1: June 12

Today we began a four day trek to Mazumbai Forest Reserve.  We woke early and left Irente Farm after breakfast.  Abdullah, a driver, took us to the office of ‘Friends of Usambara’ in the town of Lushoto where we met our guide Issa and discussed our trek.  We left the majority of our stuff with them, taking just two backpacks carried by Joe and myself.

Before launching on our trek, we spent half an hour exploring the colorful Sunday Lushoto market.  There were piles of vegetables, beans and rice sold by vibrant kanga draped women, and a steady stream of shoppers.  Many Muslim men wore a flat topped circular cap and a couple of women were in the full haike with only their eyes showing.  We bought a couple of coconuts and a papaya. Beyond the vegetables were stalls of dried fish, colorful kangas and dress, and then piles of western clothes. Turning a corner, there was an indoor portion of the market mostly full of dried fish including smoked tuna collars.  Beyond that were stalls with mattresses, luggage, and Jane saw a whole stall of Vasoline.

Next we were driven to the a trail outside the town of Soni.  There we began our 5+ hour (10+ mile) hike.  We followed a single track path steeply up through mountainside gardens of banana, coffee and corn punctuated by impressively tall and massive trees.  Ahead was an massive rock faced mountain named ‘growing rock’. Along the way we spotted two chameleons.  Joe and I were streaming in sweat by the time we finally crested the ridge and the path leveled out.  The trek continued on a dirt road passing a village with views to cultivated steep hillsides and occasional buildings.  Everyone we passed was friendly.  

We found a good picnic spot and enjoyed Issa’s guacamole and chapati, samosas and a chickpea fried dough {like a hush puppy) with oranges and bananas. After lunch, we passed a German established monastery compound and a herd of cows before emerging onto a wider dirt road with light traffic.  The last hour we walked along the road passed by occasional motorbikes (piki piki) and vans and passing many villagers, homes and goats.

Footsore and tired we finally turned off the road and took a narrow path down, across a stream, and up to the home where we stayed the night.  Our host was Vincent.  The home was three wattle and daub buildings, two small cow stables, and a two room, three bed homestay accommodation for tourists built in the back underneath a grove of amazing avocado trees.  Vincent had set up a table under the avocado trees and served us hot tea. At random moments avocados would drop with a thud and roll down the slope.

After relaxing a bit, and revived from the tea, we explored the paths around the home.  On a dirt road we found many young children who were very interested in us, especially Ruby and Jane.  After completing our explorations we sat with Issa on some logs by the road and a crowd of children gathered round slowly approaching closer and closer.  The older kids had little babes on their hips. The girls wore there hair very short and were draped in colorful kangas.  Some little boys were more interested their soccer game with a ball made of plastic bags. Another boy chased his rolling tire up and down the path.  When an adult came and greeted us and we successfully responded in Swahili, the kids erupted in laughter and drew in very close sitting on the adjacent logs.  Several girls began to raise their eyebrows up and down at us in a comical way.  Finally we asked to take a picture and they erupted again coming even closer.  Then two woman swooped in from the nearby church and said something and the kids all hustled away after them.

Before a simple dinner in the dark under the avocado trees, we enjoyed a small fire with Issa and Vincent.

Our room is very basic, although of brick and plaster construction unlike our host’s home of wattle and daub.  There is a bathroom with no running water or light.  We use our head lamps and flush by pouring in water from a bucket.

Day 2: June 13

Our 7 hour (13+ mile) trek began after breakfast under the avocado trees.  Vincent our homestay host joined the hike to help Issa carry all our provisions. Immediately we had a steep ascent up a cultivated slope.  There are no switchbacks; instead the footpaths go mercilessly straight up, or perilously straight down.  After a while we left the patchwork cultivated slopes entering a German owned tea plantation. Many hillsides were covered in neat rows of ancient tea plants.  We saw a couple workers picking tea.  Other laborers aggressively trimmed the woody plants with sickle hand tools leaving the plants dead looking, but apparently they will sprout the desired new leaves to be harvested.

Two hours into our hike we reached the edge of the forest with towering trees and cool shade. Soon we left the wider trail and followed a narrow footpath steeply up into the ever darker, cooler, and damper forest.  Tall fern trees, combined with the enormity of the giant trees making the canopy above, gave the forest a prehistoric look.  At first the underbrush was low beneath towering trees covered with mossy vines and epiphytes of all sorts.  The trail climbed relentlessly, the air grew cooler and damper, and the under brush grew taller until it was as if we were in a wet green tunnel with no visibility at all.  Everything was dripping and the ground was like a slippery compost pile. Looking straight up we could see the canopy far above and glimpses of the sky beyond.  Despite the cool air and the wet cold leaves brushing against us, Joe and I were streaming sweat and literally steaming into the air as we labored up the mountain.  I took an embarrassing but harmless spill after slipping on a wet root and needed Joe’s assistance to regain my feet.

Finally when the trail leveled off and widened just a bit we asked Issa and Vincent to stop for our lunch break.  While Joe and I were kept warm by our labor, Ruby who had no backpack and is quite fit, had become freezing in the cold and wetness.  Everyone became cold when we stopped moving, our fingers numb.  We scrambled for coats and hats as Issa prepared guacamole despite being cold and wet himself.  After eating guacamole and sandwich bread, roasted sweet potatoes, bananas, and oranges we felt revived.

The trail now dropped precipitously through the forest. We descended rapidly.  Then Vincent spotted a blue monkey.  The solitary dark monkey looked like a shadow in a tree, but when it moved we saw it fairly well.  A bit later Vincent spotted a group of black and white colobus monkeys in a nearby tree. When I foolishly called to Ruby to be sure she saw, they scampered and took incredible bounds out of the tree to hide elsewhere.

Our path left the deep amazing forest to skirt along its edge and through steep cultivated mountainside at high elevation.  We saw more locals on the very narrow footpath, some carrying wood or grass bundles on their heads, many carrying hoes, sickles or large brush knives.  The day was clear and beautiful with a cool breeze.  The view was amazing of ridge after ridge of Usambara mountains mostly cultivated with forests on top and dotted with homes or small villages.

When Issa finally pointed out the distant red roof of our guest house we were much relieved.  The trek’s rigor had exceeded our expectations, but the experience was totally worth it.  We passed through the small village of Mazumbai before turning into the gate of the Mazumbai Guest House.  By this time even the steep drive up to the rooms was a struggle and I was eager to drop my pack and get off my feet.

The staff greeted us and we found our two huge rooms each with two beds.  After a bit we explored the place and found a living room with a fire going and a lovely young American  woman from Chicago, Stephanie, who was staying for months at the guest house to study the local sunbirds for her dissertation. Stephanie has two assistants: Happy, a Maasai Tanzanian woman, and David, a man from Colombia.  They are one month into a 7 month stay at the Mazumbai Guest House to do research.  They use nets to catch and tag the sunbirds.

We demolished a dinner of ugali, rice, beans, and vegetables with Issa and Vincent and went to bed shortly thereafter.

Day 3: June 14

Refreshed after a good night’s sleep in the Mazumbai Guest House, we had a relaxed morning. Jane read her book on the sunny lawn and Ruby observed the sunbirds while drinking her chai. Then Issa joined us for a breakfast of crepes and omelet.

After breakfast we went for a walk in the forest.  We walked along a dirt road with occasional motorbikes and locals on foot. Enormous trees towered over the road, their canopies a sillouette high above us.  We passed tea fields occasionally.  Issa spotted a chameleon basking in the sun.  As we progressed deeper into the forest it grew darker and cooler in the dense shade.  Issa spotted a group of black and white colobus monkeys high in a giant tree.  Their fur is long and the bright white stripes along either side of their faces and shoulders reminded me of a skunk.  They have long black tails with a white tuft at the end.  They are adorable!  We spent some time watching them with our binoculars.

We followed the road a it further and the took a narrow footpath steeply down.  Many of the huge trees had buttresses of roots sloping down diagonally like the folds of a full skirt.  We came to a tree with the most amazing buttress roots of all.  A handful of buttress roots formed walls 8’-10’ high, travelling out from the wide, tall, straight trunk.  These buttresses went along as much as 30 feet, the longest one ending by spiraling in on itself.  It was an incredible spot and we stayed a bit with the girls climbing all over these incredible roots.

We climbed the steep ascent back to the road, our legs recalling the previous day’s walk.  About halfway back we encountered four more black and white colobus monkeys, this time closer in a tree over the road.  They were unphased as a motorbike with music playing passed by.  We watched them sitting around and grooming each other for a while.  Moving on, Issa spotted a few more chameleons including a rare one the remainder of the walk.

After a lunch of spaghetti and cooked vegetables we each did our own thing. I am writing the blog sitting under an amazing big bottle brush tree at the top of the guest house garden as sunbirds flit about drinking nectar from the blossoms, and the garden’s irrigation stream babbles by.  Jane is likely reading her book in a sunny spot or under the covers of her bed. Ruby and Joe are be perched in the deep windowsill of our room observing the sunbirds as they visit the bush with pink blooms outside the window. At first we thought they were hummingbirds, but apparently there are no humming birds in Africa.  There are many varieties of little metallically colorful sunbirds with long narrow beaks that curve downward at the tip visiting blooms of all sorts.  The ones we are seeing are double collared Usambara sunbirds.

In the late afternoon we have another forest walk with Issa in a different direction.  The walk began following the shallow irrigation canal that feeds the garden irrigation and was built, along with the guest house, by the Germans during the period of German colonization. Then we turned steeply uphill on a narrow path. Again we found the black and white colobus monkeys and huge trees with giant canopies far above and buttressed roots.  There was a steep valley with a beautiful view across the the forest.  Some giant trees filled the valley covered in some epiphyte that hung down like a giant green beaded curtain.

After the walk I had a much needed “bath” with a bucket of warm clear but brownish water.  Now I am writing by the fireplace as the girls run wild outside and Joe updates his journal.

My Chromebook is still going, but two of three cameras and Jane’s Kindle have dead batteries.  We left half our stuff in Lushoto to travel light on the 4 day trek and thought our devices would make it.  Next time we’ll either bring the charging stuff or extra camera batteries.  We also miss the third and fourth pair of binoculars and the colored pencils and paper. Meanwhile raincoats and pairs of the girls shorts have gone unused.

Day 4: June 16

The sound of the sunbird scientist’s early departure to set their nets woke Joe and me early.  Joe spent the early morning stretching and enjoying the garden.  I updated the blog by the fireplace.  Eventually everyone was up, we had breakfast, packed up and said our goodbyes to the guest house staff.

We started out on the road to Bumbuli and soon ran into Happy.  She led us to where Stephanie and David were working with the birds caught that morning.  Stephanie had an Olive Sunbird in hand and weighed and measured it before setting it free.  We said our goodbyes and continued down the dirt road, out of the forest and into cultivated lands.  We left the road to follow footpaths and after 8 r 9 miles we reached the village of Bumbuli.

We had a lunch of whole fish with rice and vegetables in a church.  The old building with walls more than two feet thick was from the German colonial era.  After lunch we had a van ride back to Lushoto.

We stopped by the office of Friends of Usambara to pick up our bags.  We saw the nursery of trees they are producing to share with the community and learned about the Maasai school they helped to build for the Mombo, the community at the foot of the mountains.

We got our rooms at the Tumaini hotel.  We arranged to have laundry done and had dinner in the restaurant including decent pizza.  The showers were a real disappointment with one room having only freezing water and the other only water too hot to touch!  Using buckets we were able to get cleaned up. A black beetle the size of an egg came up from the drain in the girls’ room, luckily after we were done bathing! We fell asleep to the sound of multiple mosques’ call to prayer.  The sounds of the different chanting layer together to make a most exotic sound.