Don't you love the hillsides? They are so sweet, like chocolate

Chameleon

On our hike

In the Magamba Rainforest

Lunch!

The Hike Continues

Waterfall

This morning we woke up and headed to the tour company for our rainforest adventure.  We left around 9:30 and began walking towards the Magamba rainforest, taking a variety of trails and roads to get there.  It was kind of psychotic to get to the rainforest though.  We were climbing up these steep hillsides with narrow trails and we were so winded by the time we got to the top that we couldn’t breathe!  Apparently switchbacks aren’t used here.  We rested for a bit at the top and our guide said to us “I just love the hillsides. They are like chocolate – so sweet!”.  That made us all laugh and we continued to quote him throughout our trip.  On our hike, we got to see several chameleons.  And we even held them! They are such cool creatures.  One of our guides, Mudi, stopped on the trail and said, “There is a chameleon, I can smell it”.  And sure enough, we looked around and there it was!  From then on, he was our chameleon hunter, and was legitimately able to smell the chameleons before he spotted them.  He has a crazy nose and our joke for the whole journey was, “can’t you smell it?”.  He claimed to be able to smell avocado trees, chameleons, and a variety of other items in the forest.  Once we reached the Magamba rainforest, we hiked through it and immediately spotted some huge black and white colobus monkeys!  Now we have seen vervit monkeys in Dar, and red colobus in Zanzibar, but these monkeys were huge and black!  It was crazy to see them all.  The rainforest was awesome and it was interesting to see the vegetation change so rapidly.  Never before have I been in so many vegetation types on one hike.  We saw everything from pine tree forests, to rainforest, to dessert, to villages, to wetlands.  It was all so varied.  After the Magamba rainforest, we travelled to Holland (well not really, our guides just called it Holland because we were finally on flat ground).  We stopped for lunch at a nearby village and ate our packed lunches of homemade guacamole, chapatti, hard boiled eggs, bananas, oranges, rice fritters, and sambusas.  It was delicious!  Their guacamole was slightly different from the Mexican version and included avocadoes, carrots, cucumbers, onions, green pepper, and tomatoes.  Plus, they even let us help cut up the vegetables for it!  Then, we journeyed onwards towards the Mkuzi waterfalls and probably walked for a good 2 or 3 hours before finally reaching it.  It reminded me a lot of the rapids and waterfalls up in Northern Wisconsin.  After sitting at the waterfall for a while and taking in the sights and sounds, we headed back out of the jungle where our van awaited us.  It was slightly crazy to ride in a van on the dirt roads, it felt like Costa Rica all over again!  But, we made it back to the hotel and I got on the internet at the internet cafe.  Colleen and I ate dinner at a bar/restaurant down the street and I had rice and beans and spinach for 2,000 Tsh ($1.25).  They were the best beans I have had here so far!  We have found that many of the restaurants here serve only rice and beef.  There are very few other options, so we have definitely been on the lookout for some variety in our food.  Anyway, off to Soni to visit the market this morning. 

Erin

Swahili word of the day: Wanyama [Wah-nee-ahm-ah] = animals