Despite being out last Friday night for JT's leaving party, we decided
nonetheless to power on through and wake up early the following
morning to hike up the Marangu waterfalls. We made our way to the bus
station and met up with our friend Ignus (probably the nicest
Tanzanian/human I've ever met) before jumping on a dalla dalla. We got
amazingly lucky with the dalla; not only did I have a seat, I didn't
even have a single armpit or crotch in my face (this is nothing short
of a miracle). Marangu is situated at the base of Kilimanjaro and is
one of the starting points for people who feel that a thousand dollars
is a reasonable price for altitude sickness and frost bite. (Incase
you haven't figured it out yet - no I'm not going to climb it). We
walked for about an hour before reaching the start of our descent to
the base of the waterfall.

The walk down was absolutely beautiful. The beauty of the scenery is
only intensified by the feeling that it may actually be the last time
you ever experience it as your foot slides from underneath you and you
cling onto a bit of old rickety bamboo to stop you tumbling down the
rock face (sorry Mum). The best is yet to come however, as you arrive
at the base of the waterfalls and jump from slippery stepping stone to
slippery stepping stone. I would like to say I didn't fall in and
spend the rest of the day soaking wet. I really would. However, even
including this brief moment of malcoordination, the walk was
definitely worth it. It was amazing to see this sheer tower of water
bursting out of the cliff face and we even got an educational
waterfall lecture from our local geology expert Ignus.

The ride home was unfortunately not quite as charmed as the ride there
and I spent an hour with head hanging over my knees and a sweaty
armpit pressing into my ear. I thought it couldn't get much worse but
David decided to add the icing on the cake by spending the hour
telling us about his Tanzanian bowel problems. Fantastic.

On Sunday Lian, Naomi and I woke up early to go to church (of all
places). We felt a little bit of a fraud walking in as a Jew, an
agnostic and an atheist but we'd heard lots about the church services
they have here and wanted to see one for ourselves. The church was
really beautiful and looked even better as everyone arrived in their
brightly coloured Sunday best. The choir was made up of children from
Moshi and they were amazing. I only wished I had known some of the
words so I could have sung along (and not looked quite so heathen).
Later that day we went for lunch at Ignus' house and met his lovely
family. After filling up on pasta and bananas we sat around watching
Shakira music videos (why not) and embarrassing ourselves with our
pitiful attempts at Swahili.

After dinner we got home and decided, for once, to watch a DVD. We
managed a whole half an hour before the power cut off and we were
suspended in silence and darkness. Oh Africa!