I traveled with my intrepid friends Abby, Mat, and Noah to the Usumbara Mountains in Northern Tanzania. The first few days were spent at Irente Farm, which was also a conservation reserve, several kilometers outside of Lushoto. I could definately feel the altitude there and the weather was actually cold at night. I am not exaggerating when I say that this farm was idyllic - every morning we had coffee "plungers", cheese and fresh baked bread, "quark", fresh milk, and veggies; all of the food was from the farm. We also could hike to the rainforest from the farm, and saw colobus monkeys and many, many chameleons. One was tight-rope walking across a telephone line, obviously to impress the ladies hiding in the trees.
We took an uncomfortably cramped and hot bus ride to Amani Nature Reserve for the second half of break, and our bus was so tightly packed that we had to jump out the window to exit! The next day we hiked aimlessly through the rainforest, and ended up in this small town at the top of a mountain. We met a man there who recognized us from the bus ride the day before - "I remember you! You jumped out of the bus window!" - and he was kind enough to show us around the area, including teaching us that you can eat young cinnamon bark straight from the tree, and it tastes really good! We also picked up a pet dog, Bwana Nyama the yellow lab, and unsuccessfully tried to barter him to school children and couldn't even ditch him by throwing chapati and running into the rainforest! He turned out to be a pretty chill dog though, and accompianied us on our river excursions. He survived falling down a pretty substantial waterfall on one occasion.
The rainforest was very different from the Western Usumbaras, it was a warmer, more constant temperature and the flora and fauna were completely different. I felt like I was an ant compared to the enormous bamboo, palms, and strangler fig trees. It was an incredbly beautiful forest with a stunning diversity of insects - we found giant millipedes over eight inches long! There were monkeys everywhere too, and lots of birds although they were very difficult to find in the thick canopy. Every afternoon we went swimming in the river to cool off after our hikes. There were lots of beautiful waterfalls and crazy vines.
Now the whole group is in Arusha, trading stories from break and getting ready to go to the field. We are heading to Lake Manyara first and then Serengeti before ending up in Tarangire. As this is the last time we will be in a major city for six weeks, I have been taking advantage of a nearby coffee shop that has really good ice cream shakes and cake.
