Day Two of the Kilimanjaro Trip: To the Falls and Back We Go…

February 19, 2019

Day Two of the Kilimanjaro Trip: To the Falls and Back We Go…

Victor

Victor is the most amazing young man from the Chagga tribe. Like I wrote in Day One, he is the Archbishop’s nephew. He is very enterprising with big ideas, lots of plans and high energy.

First, he manages the Archbishop’s House.  He’s hoping to get more student groups and tourist groups—especially those who have just returned from climbing Kilimanjaro. It is a great place to rest up. That’s why he’s adding a new wing to the house.

Second, Victor has a tourist guide business. You can find it on Trip Advisor under Shimbwe Tours LTD. He has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro 46 times! He started as a porter and, with training, education, and experience, he worked his way up to guide and then started his own company.  He also takes people on Safaris and, in addition, he provides authentic and local kinds of experiences for anyone (like us).

Third, Victor has recently started a new enterprise, reintroducing Kweme (pronounced kway-may) to the area. Kweme is the Swahili name for what he calls Oyster Nuts. More about kweme in Day 3’s post.

So, here are a couple of photos of Victor.  He is only 28 years old!!!

On Monday evening, Victor came to our terrace where I got to meet him.  John and Janet have known him for years so it was a happy reunion for them. We made arrangements to hike to a waterfalls on Tuesday with a start time of 7:30 am.

Kilimanjaro

On Tuesday morning, when I stepped out on the terrace, I was met with a breathtaking view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This mountain is 5,895 meters / 19340 feet above sea level.  It’s the tallest mountain in Africa and the largest free-standing mountain in the world. On that morning it was so clear. Enough words about the mountain. Of course, I took a bajillion photos. Here are some.  I can’t decide which ones are the best so here are all of them. You can even take a look at me with Kili.

Hike to the Falls

Before starting out on our hike to the falls, we ate breakfast—omelettes and crepes.  I also had Milo which is a chocolate malt drink I discovered on safari. It’s great with coffee—malted mocha(?).

Victor showed up and we were ready to go.  We opted for the 1½ hike, not the longer one so we got in the car and off we went over roads that I would dub 4-wheel drive kind of roads but Victor had a rattley sedan and we eventually made it to a place where we could start hiking.

 

Hmmmm. I guess I’d better say a word or two about Janet.  For readers who don’t know John and Janet Yoder, I’ll explain why Janet doesn’t go on any of our walks or hikes.  Many, many winters ago, Janet slipped on the ice and crushed her ankle. After more than a dozen surgeries to try to fix it, she had ankle-replacement surgery.  Last summer, she had her second ankle-replacement surgery to replace some of the worn-out parts. Needless to say, she isn’t strolling down crooked lanes and hopping over logs and streams. She stayed behind and read lots of books.

Back to the hike….

The Falls are the highest ones that come from Kilimanjaro. As we walked along the trail, the mountain loomed over us. Here…I’ll treat you with yet another couple of Kili pics.  Enjoy.

For most of the way, we walked on trails along the canals. The vegetation is incredibly lush and abundant because of all the water that flows from the glaciers of Kili. For hundreds (or thousands?) of years, the villagers on the ridges have built a series of canals that switchback down the ridges in order to provide water to the people and their farms. It’s the villagers’ responsibility to maintain the canals. Everyone is expected to take their turn maintaining the canals. If they don’t show up when scheduled, you can bet that someone will come calling.

As we got closer, we saw the falls in the distance.  Here is that perspective….

And here I am…proof that I actually went.

John made it too, as you can see.

And of course, there is the warning sign….probably for young Americans who don’t have fully developed frontal lobes.

Plant Diversity

One of the most amazing things I noticed is the plant diversity.  Every square inch is a botanist’s delight. I don’t know much about plants but I can see that everywhere I looked, there was more variety than I thought possible. For example, look at this photo with a tree and flowering shrubbery and other plants next to water with Mount Meru in the distance. Awesome!

This is a pine tree. Can you believe it? It’s so different than any we have back home.  You can also notice the other plants surrounding it.

On the way back from the falls, I asked Victor about bananas and I learned everything-I-wanted-to-know about bananas. I mean bananas are e-v-e-r-y-where here and it’s low season at that. Victor said that in Tanzania there are 200 varieties of bananas.  There are green cooking bananas which I’ve had in a kind of beef stew, and a chicken stew.  They are a little like potatoes—not sweet at all.  There are the small sweet finger-long ones that I like; and the medium and larger-sized ones too which are also sweet. There are red bananas and bananas used to make mbege (explained in Day 3). There is a variety called “Mama Don’t Touch Me.” If you pick one from the bunch, then all of the bananas fall off.  There are, of course, lots of other kinds of bananas, too. Dole should be ashamed sending us only one variety at home. Or one that’s reasonably priced.

Anyway, I learned about the life cycle of bananas. They grow upside down.  And there is a kind of purplish pod hanging down from the bananas that is key to their growth.  The pod creates new rows of bananas.  However, the pod has to be pollinated by bees in order to do this. As the bunch of bananas grows, the pods peel off layers that look like flower pedals. When there are enough bananas in the bunch, then the farmer cuts off the pod.  New bananas stop forming and those in the bunch get bigger and begin to get yellow…unless the whole bunch is cut when they’re still green....but then they still turn yellow, of course.  So here are some pictures to show the life cycle of bananas.

Here are bunches of bananas with the pod hanging down. Take a close look.

Here are a couple of pods in a closer view.  They are peeling off in flower-pedal-layers (that’s the only way I can describe it).

Finally, the pod is cut off and after the bananas ripen up a bit, they are cut down.  Here’s one that we saw on the ground.  Can you imagine how much this must weigh?

Finally, the hike to the Falls was over and we went back to the Archbishop’s House by about 10:30. It was such a great hike. When we got back, Alex served up a mid-morning snack of avocadoes, bananas, pineapple and watermelon.  YUM!

Village Visit #2

Since we got back to the house so early, I wanted to explore the village a little more before it got really hot so I asked John if he wanted to take a walk up the road in the opposite direction from the day before.  I don’t think he really wanted to go but he did anyway.  What a nice guy.

Here are a couple of pics from the “business center.” Remember, the villages are along tops of the ridges so the buildings are UP from the road.

We walked as far as the church and a little beyond.  This is Catholic country and the church is really nice.  Of course, this is what you’d expect in the Archbishop’s neighborhood.

Just past the church, we found Mama Tesha’s new house.  Mama Tesha is also a friend of John and Janet.  She helped them find host families and accommodations for students back in the day.  She also has a high quality private school. This is her house.  It’s pretty much finished on the outside but the inside still needs some painting and tile work.  A couple of workers were building a rather large structure next to the house but I didn’t get a photo of it.  I did notice, though, that those bricks were red—not your cinder block type.

On our way back to the Archbishop’s house, we came across some children outside of a school.

Finally, we made it back home in time for lunch at about 1:30.  Alex, the cook, again entertained us, not with pots on his head but with his apparel.  Speaking of Alex, he’s really quite a good cook and only 20 years old. He started out as a cook’s assistant on safari and Victor snatched him up for the Archbishop’s House. He has a promising future….

…and the rest of the day…

For the rest of the afternoon and in to the evening, we sat on the veranda reading and listening to the rain and wind (good thing we went village exploring before lunch). Then at sunset, although Kili was covered in clouds, we looked in the other direction and saw Mt Meru.  Yes, the same Mt Meru we see at close distance from Kundayo.

Day three is coming up…..