We ploughed through the Usambara Mountains until we reached Lushoto where we were due to camp in the grounds of the Lawns Hotel touted in our trip notes as being one of the earliest in Africa. I'm pretty sure "earliest" was a euphemism for "oldest". Our love of camping was so great by this stage that when offered the opportunity to upgrade to rooms every one of us drew themselves up proudly and shrieked "Yes yes, oh god yes!"
My room was dark, cavernous and had a door so warped that it required an effort to open, close and particularly, lock. Nevertheless it had a bed (oh bliss), hottish water and circumstances proved it was totally waterproof. Those circumstances were rain. Quite a lot of rain actually. It started after midnight (which was when they turfed us out of the bar) and kept going until well into the morning. This put a bit of a crimp in our plans for the day which were supposed to include a bushwalk to a local sightseeing spot and visiting the village. None of us were crazy about doing that in the pouring rain and some of us (me) were not crazy about walking on uneven, mud slicked paths even if the rain stopped.
The rain stopped at about midday and those that were keen went off on a truncated version of the days programme while I and one or two others lounged around the hotel and looked out at the grey and damp scenery. I actually think forests look better like this so I was quite happy. Something else contributing to my happiness was the fact that I was dry, warm and mudfree while I was enjoying the scenery.
The others returned with happy tales of sightseeing and village visiting and I tried to pretend I had missed out on something but I snuggled a little deeper into my chair while doing so so I don't think I convinced anyone.
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