‘Watch out for baboon roadkill’
Been watching all three 'Bourne Identity' movies with Dr Bob's, our American friend’s house. Am constantly struck between the similarities of a black ops assassin working for a shadowy government program and my work.
The wife and I had Friday off (as we had worked the Muslim holiday we recently had on Wednesday) so we planned to head west of Moshi. We were going to stay Friday night at a camp on the Rift Valley escarpment before travelling Saturday further on to see where our good friend Intrepid Kat works in the Karatu District. Our volunteer handler was in Moshi to meet with our bosses (p.s they gave us glowing reports-yusss!), so he gave us a ride to Arusha. As we drove we talked about Uganda and travel insurance-or lack thereof- (‘you can buy an AK-47 in Kampala’ he said deadpan) and the ins and outs of volunteer living. Will miss our handler when we leave, he’s a solid guy. It’s all gone so fast, seems just like yesterday he was picking us up from the Kilimanjaro airport in March '10.
In Arusha, we crammed into a ‘speed taxi’ minibus and shot off at speed for Karatu. I got off to a bad first impression with the driver who asked me to open the door as we drove. On me doing so he started screeching in Swahili...other passengers told me he had meant ‘window’. Awkward.
We passed zebras and the town of Mtu-WaMbu (mosquito river) then started trundling up the high escarpment that marks the boundary of the Great Rift Valley (ie the 6000km long trench that extends from Syria to Mozambique.) Nice views of Lake Manyara as we climbed up. We got to the top of the escarpment and following Intrepid Kat’s instructions we jumped out.
(Lake Manyara)
(that escarpment wall is deep, yo)
(the wife taking in the view)
The ‘Panorama Campsite’ was a 500 metres walk off the main road, so we settled in there and chilled out with some beers taking in the dramatic view of the Rift Valley floor.
(not a bad view for a beer)
Intrepid turned up around 6pm with a couple of friends, including one from Uganda. We were soon picking the brains of our new Ugandan chum for information about her home country. It sounds epic.
As the sun set and a red moon rose, we rolled in another friend’s car back down to Mtu-WaMbu dodging a baboon squashed on the escarpment road and grabbed a bite to eat at a local pizza place - the food there was awesome!
Back at the campsite, I didn’t sleep well, Mtu-WaMbu (mosquito river) is well named and despite the height of our campsite there were mosquitoes everywhere. Including in our tent. Efforts to squash them proved fruitless and finally we fell asleep out of exhaustion.
To Be Continued
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