Mike Hanlon, Stephen King’s ‘IT’ Miniseries
Our good chum, and fellow kiwi volunteer, Intrepid Kat crashed with us Friday night. We were pleased she liked our Kiwi Bach decor. Saturday morning was pancakes (cheers Mke) before we planned to head out the door to meet with ‘the crew from A-Town’ at the hot spring of Maiji Moto. Would be our absolute last chance to see Nico (of the rooftop party last week) before he was back in NZ.
The wife and I had been to Maiji Moto before, way back in May. It’s a tranquil setting, clear water full of marine life surrounded by palms and foliage. Great for relaxing. At least until dark when crocs are reputed to come out.
Well, before getting there we had Moshi errands to do first (boring!); I grew more and more antsy as the day drew on. Wanted to swim! Finally, we were in a dala dala and on the 40 minute drive to the village of Boma Ngombe (House of the Cow, it’s a Masai area). After seeing a drama- a guy’s blatant day time attempt to rob the dala dala conductor of the takings- we met up with our friends. We piled into a small car and headed off on the dirty, rocky road to Maiji Moto.
We got to the spring, paid a guy from the local village the exorbitant fee for being there, met another car of chums from Arusha and got down to some serious ‘bro-ing down’ with each other.We are a random bunch for certain, with different strengths, foibles and experiences. But for some reason we all seem to click. Though we have only known each other a short time, we get along famously. Maybe it’s the situation. Or perhaps the bottle of wine I was quaffing...but I dig these crazy kids. Fellowship with others during the year has sustained my emotional strength in some frustrating/tough times.
Some of us swam in the azure water, some sunbathed, some teased others, some of us drunk irresponsibly and became attention seekers. Guess which I was. C'mon a'Fresh yourself up with Freshup' advert imitation with wine-that's gold! There was a ‘thump’ at one point: a medium sized bright green snake fell out of a tree just behind our group sitting on the ground and raced off. Not sure if it was a highly venomous green mamba or not but it was fun to chase it for a bit. In bare feet.
Franatee got swimming and enjoyed the beauty treatment of the fish in the water that eat dead skin. When I was not strutting for the ladies on the bank, I did some swimming and diving myself. Plenty of ‘Ram Jams’ ie flying elbow drops into the water. Though I was too chicken to jump in from high branches as some others did. I was swimming when I saw a huge Monitor Lizard coming down to the water. It’s not what we are drinking, it is the terrible ‘Crocodile Hunter’ imitations we are doing and our attempts to grab the tails of massive reptiles. All fun, but kinda glad in hindsight I couldn’t get to its tail in time as it ducked up a tree.
Time was going fast and soon it was dusk. Beautiful views of snow covered Kili in the distance as the cows ambled off home for the night.
We stayed longer (think I was last out of the pool?) and finally got back to the main road about 730pm. I was still feeling quite merry. The wife and I farewelled our Arusha friends and got on a dala dala heading for Moshi. I think we were the entertainment for the drive. The locals busted a gut at our Swahili attempts and at my mock dancing to the African beat tunes on the bus sound systems. Two people took a secretive stroke of Franatee’s hair. All fun. Got home and pretty much fell into a dead sleep.
Sunday, I did some hill runs with the wife (so unfit still) then we hung out with Bibi Stones and another Kiwi ex-volunteer at the Green Bamboo BBQ pit.
A short swim at the YMCA pool, then it was off home to start trying on random items of gear for Kili we have borrowed off people. I look quite fetching in my pink fleece. Kinda weird planning what gear to take for a minus zero top of a mountain...will my Nintendo work up there?
7 days to go...
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