Kindoroko Forest Part III

View from the ride to the base village of Usangi. Lake Jipe straddles the border of Kenya and Tanzania to the east. 

We've taken two (one, two) trips to Kindoroko Forest before and we returned this past weekend determined to push as far as we can into the forest. The hike was pretty straightforward as we start in the north end of the forest and hike up to the Kindoroko Peak (2,113 m/6,932 ft.).  This takes about two to three hours though it's a brutal nearly vertical ascent.

From the peak we walked along the ridge-line for about another hour. It was sloping downhill and the trail was less worn than the way up. We realized there were several smaller trails that were bisecting the trial, which we deduced led down to neighboring villages. To the west of us we could see dense forest and to the east of us were small villages. We decided we wanted to explore the western part on our next trip, possibly entering from a different road or starting our hike from the south.

In the end the trip was a success and Kindoroko Forest remains one of my favorite places to go in Tanzania. We are slowly but surely charting out the trails with our GPS and hopefully we'll one day have a guide to the trails of Kindoroko!

View from our ascent to the hiking point. Sub-montane environment!

View inside the forest. 

The peak of Kindoroko Mountain was not very clear in the morning....

...but when we returned in the afternoon it was much clearer!

Lianas invade the trail. There is a section that is basically completely covered by lianas, very Lord of the Rings-esque.

View from the "trail head" which is really someones house.