Despite having a few drinkees last night, four of us decided to do a high altitude (Karatu is at 1800 metres) run near the dense bush that marks the border of the Ngorogoro Conservation Area. One of us is doing the half marathon next weekend, the other three have ambitiously decided to do the full marathon.
Commence 45 minutes of puffing and panting through wet grass, over muddy roads and past some beautiful views of rolling bush.
(The Elite are on the move)
(a banda(hut) and bush stretching off into Ngorogoro as we huff and puff along)
Lots of fresh elephant dung on the trail. The tembo come foraging at local farms at night before melting back into the Ngorogoro bush. A source of major annoyance to the local farmers and coffee growers (while tembo will not eat the coffee they will stamp all over it to get to other tasty greens.) Lamentably, we did not run across any stray elephant.
(c'mon mke!)
Later we went for a walk and took in Intrepid’s classroom she’s put together. I felt proud to see where she taught. In a very Kiwi, roll up your sleeves and get on with it kind of way, she’s really made something out of nothing there and is making a real difference to the learning of some poor as hell kids.
(class is in session)
Respect, Intrepid. We saw some local kids shyly watching us doing our tour as they collected water from a local tap. Coffee fields stretching and rolling off into the distance. Can I say again this is such a tranquil setting?! Might be due to the recent heavy rain and greenness. They will need more of it though if the maize crop is going to do well though.
(trays for gathered coffee beans to be placed on to dry)
After a lunch in Karatu-where Franatee enjoyed the chance to have a captive dog audience for petting-we said goodbye to Intrepid and with Bexter at the helm we drove off. Bexter, being a novelty of a blonde woman driver attracted a fair share of comments from other road users. My favourite was the ‘Kwa Nini? (Why?!)’ a guy yelled at us as we drove past and pointed at Bexter. Otherwise, a nice dusk drive back to Arusha, watching the colourful Masai and their herds that wander the plains.
‘Attack of the Zombie Child Swarm’
On getting into Arusha we dropped our gear at Daudi’s house (we were going to stay the night) and went to local bar for some beers and chipsi mayai. In retrospect my omission to change from shorts into longs was probably unwise. My Hawaiian shirt/shorts combo drew a lot of attention from a nearby group (gang) of children. Soon we were swarmed by the cheeky youngsters, begging for soda, money anything. Hope they weren’t the same kids that Bexter saw stoning a stray dog this one time. They followed us for a ways back to Daudi’s flat. Guess you haven’t lived till you’ve been swarmed in the dark by a gang of feral children. Maybe ‘feral’ is too strong a word. Ah, they were just trying their luck. But don’t turn your back on those cheeky tykes (shudder)!
Our stay at Chateau Daudi was certainly proceeding eventfully. But after getting back inside and nailing every door and window shut to stop the little horrors getting in (kidding. but not really) we watched a movie and relaxed. Had a great night’s sleep. Said goodbye to Daudi and Bexter and bussed back to Moshi for a cheeky late start to work Monday under a vista of Kilimanjaro covered in snow (due to the recent short burst of heavy rains).
Great weekend. I felt sad though on Monday. Gonna miss the friends I have made here. Quite a bit.
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