One of Africa's Greatest Journeys, Part 1 (for real)

To begin:

I was planning on writing more today but then Tony introduced me to the fun that is Garage Band and we have been playing with it for a long while instead of writing blogs. My apologies. I am going to try to give a day-by-day recap of my trip this past week. Overall, the trip was absolutely the biggest adventure of my life. For sure, not everything went "well" per say, all the time, but the overall experience was amazing. Its funny to think how happy I am though to be "home" in the dorms in Dar. Essentially the trip was the 5 of us (5 of 6 Brown Program people) bought a bus ticket to the south of Tanzania and headed down with our "Rough Guide" book and clothes and money. For the sake of stories and pictures, Julie is the one with the cute short blonde hair, Conner is the other girl (not boy) with the brown hair, Megan is the girl with the kick-ass African braids, and Tony is the one, very good sported, male. He very often allowed us to pretend that we were his polygamist wives in order to prevent us from getting painfully hit on. Usually men asked for one of us and he kindly refused. Ok, enough chatter…

Friday, August 15

Thursday was actually our last day of Swahili classes. I am by no means fluent in Swahili, but I can carry on a conversation and get around, especially when it comes to asking for something or buying stuff. I am working on it.

Friday, Megan and I went on a wile goose chase into the city center to find an ATM that takes MasterCard. We also had lunch with some of the leaving American students (summer is almost over?). Other than that we just packed up and went to sleep early to prepare for the day.

Saturday, August 16

Saturday we woke up early to catch the 14 hour bus to Mbeya, The bus company we took is called Scandinavian Express and is relatively nice, so the seats were comfy enough. We stopped a few times along the way for "bathroom" breaks and for lunch. Also, many people use buses as an opportunity to sell things, so we were able to buy snacks through eh bus windows. Our favorite snack is roasted corn, though the sellers decided that we would continue to buy if they shoved as many corns as possible through the window into poor Conner's face. (See photo coming soon) I spent a good amount of time next to a nice but perhaps out-of-it old man (since there are five of us one person is with the stranger…) We also passed by Mikumi national park again, and saw elephants and giraffes as we drove past! After a long day of iPodding, sleeping, eating, chatting and 20 questions, we arrived in Mbeya and stayed the night at the Morovian Church hostel. It was nice ($7 per room) and Julie and I shared a bed since we didn't want to have to buy a whole room for one person. A tight squeeze but not a problem J .

Sunday, August 16

Sunday was the first day that we discovered that perhaps our trusty guidebook was going to steer us wrong. The book suggested several hikes and day trips around Mbeya and said that the only legitimate would be through the program "Sisi kwa Sisi." After an hours of searching and befriending a random German-Polish Priest living in TZ, we found the Sisi kwa Sisi building (closed for Sunday) with 4 different numbers painted on the building, all which did not work at all. Instead, we used our Swahili to chat up the man at the bus office who found us a random guide on the street who took us up the mountain to the crater lake (Ngosi Crater lake). Jack (the guide) was the first Tanzanian I have ever met who likes President Bush (they are all OBSESSED with Obama here), which should have made us weary of him (he ended up overcharging us quite lot.) Plus, he led us on a crazy hike wearing white, pointed men's dress shoes. Oy Tanzania. We took a crazy crowded bus (see photo of Julie on my lap with a Tanzania baby on her lap… The hike was beautiful, challenging, and we met a bunch of interesting kids at the top of the mountain who go down and collect water from the late for locals who believe the water has healing power. On the way back we met a villager, who had us come over to her home for a break. We literally sat in the house while a zillion kids peered in through the window and doors at us. I feel bad for zoo animals, dude, it was awkward. Check out the photos of the day, below.

Ok I am getting tired…more tomorrow!

With Love,

RQ