Day Hike

Arusha is located at the base of Mt. Meru which is the second largest mountain in Tanzania. It stretches approximately 13,000ft tall and is a spectacular site when it’s not covered by clouds. Last Sunday I had the opportunity to explore the foothills of this mountain with volunteers from an organization called Global Services Corps.

The volunteers were all women and are here doing HIV awareness training for the local communities. Their backgrounds were all quite different. A FBI agent from NYC, a Google product manager from China, an AIDS clinic administrator from Vancouver, BC, and then a plain old banker from Minneapolis. I’m not sure what the reason is but there doesn’t seem to be many men doing volunteer work here. It’s not a bad thing per se but it is a little strange.

Anyway, the five of us plus our guide took a leisurely 10 mile hike up to a beautiful waterfall where we had lunch. Following lunch we went further up the mountain where we rested at a quaint little village that overlooked all of Arusha and far out into the plains of Tanzania. On the way down we walked thru rows and rows of terraced corn fields which is primarily used for maize here in town.

The hike was a real good one and getting out of town for the day was something I desperately needed. I’m looking forward to venturing out of town a lot more once I finally get settled with my work.

PS - There have been daily power outages here so email and blog might be slow at times.