Day 21, 25 July 2012, Zanzibar to Lushoto, the main centre of the Usambara Mountains - half way between the coast and the parks -
In the immortal words of John Denver - "Some days are diamonds, some days are stone..." Well today was one whole truckload of stones. We left Stone Town at 6.30 to catch the 7 am ferry back to Dar es Salaam. That's the point we should have gone back to bed. The disastrous illness on the dive boat was caused in great part by our otherwise excellent anti-malarial medication, Melarone. Note to manufacturers - please place on outside of box massive warning. WILL EXACERBATE SEASICKNESS 100 TIMES OVER. Seems the compressed air used during a dive doesn't help either and experienced divers such as moi are often devastated by its effects. (Well at least I'm not alone.) By the by, having barely recovered from that, the wind changed significantly half an hour prior to the ferry reaching Dar and I was a very sick chicken again. James wasn't far behind but did manage to corral his cookies successfully, though others in our group were not so lucky. So, what do you think would be the best medicine? Why 9 hours in the truck to cover 360 kms of course! We reached our overnight stop at 7 pm - a mere 12 and a half inglorious hours travelling. We have certainly left the tropical coast far behind and the climb to Lushoto via winding roads clinging precipitously to the Usambara Mountains was breathtaking. Lush greenery abounded and the sun tucking itself into bed coyly behind a mountain made our arrival in the early evening worthwhile. Making haste to our room at The Lawns Hotel, Lushoto (www.lawnshotel.com) we found it pretty good by East African standards - spacious rooms, en-suite, comfy twin beds with clean linen and hot (albeit very, very short) showers. The hotel hasn't seen the bloom of youth in a long while - possibly never - but excellent sleep was had. In fact, when I left the table pretty smartly after dinner for an early night, one of our German friends said "Same procedure as last year then?" and proceeded to make us smile all the way to the room with his rendition of "Dinner for One" - a world famous (in Germany) sketch that is played on TV every year at St Sylvestre / New Years eve. It is on youtube and is in English if anyone wants a giggle. Tomorrow we head to Karatu via Arusha - the Serengeti is beckoning!