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Published: August 1st 2006
Day 1
Day 1 of our hike...moments before heading into the densely forested usambara mountains...Well as Jas's and Jord's blog pointed out we went to Lushoto after leaving Zanzibar for some hiking through the Usambara Mountains. Lushoto, and the subsequent hike has to be a highlight of my time in Tanzania as touts were few in Lushoto (and less skilled), and non-existent in the countryside. People were genuinely friendly instead of being friendly to try and rip you off. The smiling, and the odd screaming kids (our guide said that grandparents and parents use the 'White Man' as their boogeyman in bed time stories: e.g. eat your peas or the white man will come and take you away. Understandable I guess when you consider the years of colonization) were definately uplifting and I could not help but wonder what goes wrong over the years.
The countryside was simply amazing and upon reaching Mtae one could look down (about 2500m) and across the vast plains and see the Pare mountains on the other side. With the sun just shining through the clouds it was a magnificent site to behold. The hike itself proved to be a lot more tiring than I would have expected, and I barely managed the 27km 6 hour hike on the
So peaceful.
As Jord said, I am pretty sure if I knew I was going to die I would use all my money to get here and die within the embrace of the nuns...so peaceful.. first day. I have never ever considered the side of a road (well sober anyway) as a place to sleep for the night, but on the first day it was extremely appealing. The second and third day were not much better, although the night in the convent definately helped. As you know Jord came down with Malaria on the second night leading me to question the usefulness of our anti-malarial: Larium....I guess it's good for the nightmares if nothing else.
Once back in Lushoto Jord and I headed for the hospital to sort out the malaria situation: myself to see if I still had it, and Jord to get treatment. They took blood samples, drew malarial strands on a napkin and told Jord and I to look through the microscope to see if we had malaria. We were a little confused when neither blood sample showed any signs of malaria (especially since Jord was confirmed to have it the day before) until the doctor reassured us that the tests are only 22% effective: i.e. out of 100 people with malaria, the test will only confirm malaria in 22 patients.
After a day of doing nothing, we then hoped
Welcome
Welcome to the malaria club Jord...sure does suck on a bus to the heart of tout territory: Arusha.
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Hey ... malaria is just an excuse to drink more gin and tonic! The brits are good for something, eh?!