Trekking in the Usambaras!

Lushoto, TZ, April 2007

Now most of y’all have never heard of the Usambara Mountains and that, of course, is part of the reason to go, eh? If you drive the Dar-Arusha highway, you’ll see them to the east—an impressive, steep, verdant, granite range. We’d heard that the Usambaras were beautiful. Despite high expectations, we had an even better time than we could have imagined, all told spending four nights in different parts of the mountains and walking upwards of seventy (count ‘em!) km.

Getting to Lushoto, seat of the region, is a bit of a journey, it’s 40 km up winding, yet tarmacked, road. We arrived on Easter (bad idea) and most of the hotels were booked solid. Hence, we ended up in a far more expensive place than we’d previously stayed, not a terrible thing on some levels. The food was way overpriced but the Irente Viewpoint, which basically was our back porch, was fantabulous. Many times I’ve thought that there’s quality rock climbing to be done in TZ, though none apparently exists. This place, omigod! Steep, granite cliffs with world-class views of the Pare Mountains north and west.

The following day, we started a three-day cultural tourism hike through a local organization called TAYODEA. The eleven local guides are from the area, know the place backwards in their sleep, and donate fully 40% of what they charge to various local projects like a school for the blind, carpentry training for local kids, etc. The first day, we hoofed and bused it to Rangwei village. Along the way, we stopped at a bustling market in tiny (yet relatively big), dusty Lukozi; got amazing local coffee and tea spices there. The first night was spent at a convent, yup.

There I experienced one of my better “it’s a small world” stories. While talking with another tourist on a multi-day walk and staying at the convent, we made an incredible discovery. We knew each other! In May 2005, I took a trip to Bolivia. One day outside of Cochabamba, I took a great day-hike to a small Incan ruin with two Peace Corps volunteers who were friends with my friends, Chris and Gloria, whom I was visiting in Bolivia. Elizabeth, one of my hiking companions that day, now was working in the city of Iringa (in central TZ) while we were living in Dar. Cue Disney™ song…

The second day we did maybe 30km, the long way, to another small town, Mtae. We went through indigenous forests and tree farms, visited a women’s pottery collective, ate tremendous local foods (mostly, super-fresh, yummy produce on chapatti), and said hello to hundreds of way-friendly locals, all Sambaa people. Admittedly, it gets a bit tiring to here legions of kids scream (literally) mzungo (white person) from the hillside farms but it has its charm. Without our guide, Said, there was no way we could have gotten to our destination, as we took footpaths, roads, and trails on our walkabout.

The third day, also upwards of 30km, I was waylaid by stomach pains (not related to local food), but we still went up and down and up and down a bunch of ridges and valleys to the town of Mlalo, where we stayed in the worst hotel in our time here in TZ. Dirty in every way and noisy to boot. When people started working outside our day at 4:20AM I was about to freak. Alas, we had to wake up an hour later anyway to catch a bumpy bus (replete with awesome Bob Marley tunes) 90 minutes to Lushoto, to catch a daladala 90 minutes to Mombo (out of the mountains) to catch a 6+ hour, hot bus ride back home to Dar. Twas one of our best safaris in TZ so far. Two rousing thumbs up!