Hiking Day

It should first be understood that this was not a serious hiker's idea of a one-day expedition.  Which was why I agreed to go in the first place.

One of our translators, a pastor named Mago, agreed to take us to his family's village about an hour outside Musoma.  There we met his brother-in-law, and the two of them--along with an ever-growing number of curious neighbors--led us through the beautiful hill country.

First we had to get there.  Our two 4x4 vehicles were put to the test once we left the main road that winds its way to the Kenyan border.  The road up the hill to Mago's childhood home was little more than a steep ditch.  I don't know how they fared in the other car, but Mitchell certainly embraced the off-roading adventure.  I lauged with his scared-excited kids as we rocked and bumped our way up.

At one point the bushes crowded in a little too close for comfort.  Andrew offered to cut them back... if Mitchell had a machete in the car... and sure enough, he did!

After we reached the home of Mago's sister, we left the cars and went trooping around the plateau.  The smaller members of our party often still rode, though.

When we stopped to rest, I took this picture of the Mara River valley--the river itself is just barely visible as a shimmering ribbon right behind the last trees.

From there we set out to climb one of the neraby peaks.  Three hills rose up in a row before us, and we set out towards the one on the right.  Before we got very high, some guys came up to Mago and the rest of our guides.  The newcomers wanted us to pay them a fee in order to climb the hill.  You could give them points for creativity, I suppose, but we decided to leave it at that and go for the hill on the left.  (No one accosted us there, so the middle hill remained neglected.)

I think we were following an actual trail up the hill, but I'm not sure.  Machetes came in handy, once again.  All part of the adventure--and the view from the top was awesome!

Enjoying the overlook are my friend Ellen and I, together with young hikers extraordinaire Kira and Lianne.  They clambered up the hill with us even though their parents had stayed below with the smaller kids.  In fact, the rest of their family are almost visible in the background, under some trees in front of the building in the distance.

At the top of the hill was a "cave" formed by two giant boulders leaning against each other.  Our friends told us that this hill has served as a lookout post, where the villagers could watch for cattle thieves.  The cave was narrow, but more than spacious enough for our whole group (which had doubled by now).

From the hilltop you could also see the grass-roofed houses scattered around the area.

Having finished our hiking for the day (so we thought), we turned around to head back toward our vehicles.  A few hours passed, however, before we actually buckled our seatbelts.  It would be unthinkable to come out here and not greet family.  So we took a side trip down into a valley to meet Mago's mother.  Given the hospitable culture here, it's a wonder we were able to leave again without having a meal.

This last phase of our hike, under the afternoon sun, was almost too much.  Drinking the last of our water, our minds turned to fantasy.  Ellen started it with her talk of cold drinks from Sonic.  But I continued it, recalling the pitcher of delicious lemon-berry Hawaiian Punch waiting for me in my fridge.  (Hooray for care packages!!)  Every once in a while I comforted myself by muttering "lemon-berry-hawaiian-punch", which gave the added satisfation of driving my companions crazy.

Mago's sister, meanwhile, had been busy.  When we arrived back at her house, we were led to sit down under the trees (no complaints there--I was beat), and out came a small table.  Before long it was set with multiple dishes of brown ugali--a new variety for me--and a pot of chicken in tasty broth.  (We were pretty sure we'd heard them butcher one when we got there that morning.)  I'm afraid we didn't eat enough.  Tanzanians don't eat as often as we do, so they take advantage of meals in a way our little foreigner stomachs just can't manage.  Thinking back, I hope our hostess was not offended by how much food we left.  At the time, I was too tired to think about much besides the rain clouds drifting towards us from across the river.

We made it down past the worst of the ditch-road before the downpour.  And then back towards town through the torrential rain, praying for safety in the low visibility.  Back home I paid for the earlier torment I had caused my friends... by sharing my lemon-berry Hawaiian Punch.