watchmewander

A couple of weekends ago I took a little trip to Pare Mountains with our house manager, Amani and few of my roomates. Amani is from Pare mountains and organizes weekend trips to his home village which include a canoe trip in Lake Jipe, hiking to Kindoroko peak, visiting local pubs and a homestay at his hospitable Aunty’s house. It took us about 2.5 hours to get to Pare from Moshi by 2 very packed dala dala rides. Once we arrived, we hiked for about an hour up the mountain to Amani’s Aunty’s house. Although we had to hike part of the way in the dark, the view from the mountain was stunning, and the sunset was absolutely beautiful. Once we arrived, we were greeted with welcoming hugs, cold beverages and cheesy Nigerian movies, which I ... read more

I hope that everyone is enjoying their holidays and had a very merry Christmas! I enjoyed my time on the safari, but missed you all dearly! I’m not sure where to even begin with my safari, but one thing I can say is that it was absolutely breathtaking! The feeling of being able to watch wild animals in their natural habitat is indescribable by words, but I’ll try my best! We visited three parks, Tarangire National Park, The Serengeti National Park, and Ngorogoro Conservation Area. Tarangire’s name comes from the Tarangire river that crosses through the park, and is the only source of water for wild animals during dry seasons. “Serengeti” is derived from the Massai word “Serenget” which means “endless plains”, and let me tell you, that is exactly what it is! Ngorogoro is a ... read more

Happy belated Halloween everyone, I can't believe it's already November! I have been here for just a little over a month, 44 days to be exact and time has been flying by! I knew that it would, which is why I want to make the most of my time by seeing as much of this beautiful country as I can. We had a holiday a couple of weeks ago and decided to take a big group trip to the Materuni waterfalls. We hired a driver to take us on a hour long journey to the start of a 1.5 hour hike to the 150 m waterfall. The water was freezing, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to jump in, especially since there was a small cave that we could climb into that would lead us ... read more

Today was the first day since I arrived that Mount Kilimanjaro was visible for the entire day, and let me tell you...she was beautiful! For those of you who don't know, Kili is a dormant volcano and at 5,895 m is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world . The oldest person to ever summit Kili was an 87 year-old man, and the youngest was a 7 year-old boy, if you're interested in reading some other climbing records, check out this site : http://www.climbmountkilimanjaro.com/about-the-mountain/record-climbs/ ...I am so thankful that I have the great pleasure of living right beside the mountain, it's hard to not want to experience something that you get to see everyday, so I've decided to plan my hike for the end of March. I was originally thinking ... read more

I'm finally doing it!! I regret not writing a blog during my adventures in Asia, so I'm doing it now! Better late than never right ? That's exactly how I felt about going back to school, which is actually the reason that I'm in Africa in the first place. Most of you know that I came to Moshi for an internship, but I'm sure a lot of you don't know exactly what it is I'm doing, I guess that's a good place to start... I am currently working for an organization called Anza (previously known as Time to Empower Africa's Children) they have just recently re-branded to better reflect to focus of their projects. "Anza" is the Swahili word for start, begin, initiate, launch, commence. It is a capacity building NGO that is dedicated to strengthening ... read more