Mbeya, Tukuyu, and Njombe

Our school holiday started in early December and ran for a month, and we decided to use the time to see some more of Tanzania.  The southwest part of the country is said to be very pretty, so that was the area we chose.  It's far from where we live, though, and we didn't like the idea of spending more than half of our vacation on buses, so we started by taking a low-cost flight to Mbeya.

Mbeya is within a couple hours' drive from the borders of both Zambia and Malawi, and it gets a lot of traffic from both travelers and commercial transport. Major roads into and out of the city are congested, but the central city is very pleasant and walk-able.  The altitude is high (about 1700 meters, or 5500 feet), and the surrounding area is lush with plant growth.  It rains 9 months of the year, and the region grows bananas, tea, avocados, and maize.  Cows and goats are fat, unlike in our region, where their ribs are visible even after our shorter rainy seasons.

From Mbeya, we traveled south to the town of Tukuyu, where we hired a guide to take us to the local sights.  Mark wanted to climb to the rim of the Ngozi Crater, an extinct volcano 2629 meters high with a lake in the middle.  Now, I don't have a lot of confidence in my athletic ability, and was originally against the hike, hearing that it was steep.  However, climb we did, through the rainforest, listening to birds and unseen monkeys announcing our progress.  I felt like I was in one of those old movies set in Africa--"King Solomon's Mines" or such--as we clambered over rocks and tree roots, hauled ourselves up by holding on to branches, and teetered along narrow paths next to scary drop-offs.  But we made it to the top and down again, dirty, sweaty, with me puffing like a steam engine, but unscathed.   

                                                        Inside the crater       

The next day our guide took us on a somewhat less challenging hike to Daraja la Mungu (the Bridge of God), a natural bridge formed eons ago after volcanic activity. Upriver from the bridge is the Cooking Pot, where fast-moving water plunges into a hole, comes out a few meters away, then flows into an underground cavern.  It finally emerges several days later.  After this excursion, we went to a local garden restaurant and ate "kitimoto" (pork) for the first time in a year and a half.  (The strange thing about the word is that "kitimoto" also means "hot seat" in Swahili.  No one can explain why it's the word for pork).  The meal was excellent--the meat grilled and served in a tomato, garlic, and onion sauce.  We went back to the hotel after our excursions and collapsed.

The Bridge of God

Near Tukuyu is a village called Bagamoyo.  That is also the name of a town on the east coast of the country from which slaves were shipped out of Africa.  The village was named after the coastal trade center because it was a point where captured people were held for a time during their long trek from central Africa to the coast.     

We moved on to the low-key town of Njombe a few days before Christmas.  Njombe, still in the region of lush growth, has a Duka la Maziwa (milk store) that sells fresh milk, yogurt, and cheese.  Such an amazing thing to us!  In our region, fresh milk and cheese are only available in Arusha at stores that cater to Westerners.  (We don't buy it even there, as our electric service is so erratic that we haven't invested in a refrigerator.)   Njombe also has a lovely waterfall just off the side of the main road into town.  But the most interesting thing I saw there was not part of the town.  The guesthouse we stayed in had a TV turned on in the dining room.  Gospel videos were playing as we ate breakfast, and we watched 2 videos of groups singing "Silent Night" in Swahili.  The first one featured an African female singer and had still shots of a white Madonna and Child in the background.  I found that discordant.  The second video was more moving.  A group of singers stood around African men dressed as shepherds, who were crouched around a campfire and were looking into the dark sky.  I feel that depictions of Bible stories should be personalized to the population, to make the message more meaningful.

After Njombe we went to Iringa, Dodoma, and Singida...but that's a blog for another day.