We had a fairly peaceful night; no party (strange for a Saturday night) and no Sunday morning Muslim service, thankfully this kept the animals sleeping as well. We however, did wake up with rain, so packing up the tent was fun but better than expected. This, however, cemented Gray’s decision to travel north, as we would have had to travel over a sand road mountain pass to go south.
I am no longer going to make statements – I had just commented on the lack of trucks on the road and the possibility that they took Sundays off, when we came upon a long line of them, the cars were waved past and up ahead was a horrific accident. One truck had gone into the back of another. The reason we had seen no on-coming trucks was because they were backed up for kilometres behind the accident. The truck and oil tanker from the previous days accidents had mysteriously been cleared away overnight, a crane moves in and pulls them back onto the road and they are towed away. The next accident was coming around a bend on a downhill, 2 trucks had had a head on and were lying on their sides in the road. This type of accident in S.A. would have closed down a highway for hours but here you just wind your way through the debris and drive on.
We stopped Morogoro, for money and diesel. It is a very busy and disjointed town at the foothills of a beautiful mountain range. The roads were so busy with vehicles of every description from hand driven carts to trucks and busses, all fighting their way around traffic circles, bicycles and pedestrians.
From Morogoro, we headed north east, through Korogwe to Mombo and then took a right turn to travel the 30km to Lushoto; the 30km felt like 300km. Nothing prepared us for the mountain pass up the Usambara Mountains, it was narrow and winding and breathtakingly beautiful. On a normal drive we would have loved it but after a long day on the road, with nowhere to stop, we were tired and wanted to get to our destination, Irente View Cliff Lodge.
Eventually, after travelling for about an hour up the pass, which is surprisingly populated for such a mountainous area, we arrived at Lushoto. It is surrounded by pines and eucalyptus mixed with banana plants and other tropical foliage. From here we took a narrow and badly potholed mud road, through the village, for another 6km to Irente. Along the way we came across a wedding party and we had to try and squeeze past the bridal entourage, all dressed in purple, without splashing them with mud. 450km and 7 ½ hours later we arrived at our destination, in the rain. Gray took one look at the situation and booked into a room for the night. We entered a very dark reception and dining area, as the electricity had been off all day.
We booked in, put on our hiking shoes and headed up to the view point, feeling like a bit of exercise, it was a bit disappointing to discover it was only a 5 minute walk. Fortunately, the rain and clouds lifted and all disappointment in the long day faded – the view was truly spectacular. Perched on the top of a cliff we could see forever; it is amazing to see how abruptly the Usambara Mountains rise up from the plains below. Returning to our room, we went out onto the balcony and we had an equally spectacular view of the cliff faces and valley from the opposite side. As evening approached, we were again enveloped in cloud and it became freezing cold. Our winter clothes were all locked in the bottom of the trailer and due to the lack of electricity there was no hot water, so we huddled up in bed with our head lights and waited to go to dinner – our first meal of the day.
Dinner was pretty average, nothing to write home about but the menu was a real treat:
Cocky-Leekie Soup - made with cocky (sure hope that’s chicken) and leekies
Pork Stir Frie - made with Pock (one confused pock) and shredded veg
Beef Stir Frie - made with Pock (one confused cow) and shredded veg
Lushoto Market
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