Times in Tanzania: Lushoto and Maramba Forest Reserve

Map of the Eastern Arc mountains.

Over the Easter holidays we took a trip to yet another of the Eastern Arc Mountains, this time the Western Usambara Mountains. We decided to start our trip in the well-known town of Lushoto, about a five hour ride by motorcycle.

The ride down was beautiful and whenever I pass this way I enjoy the landscape. The mountains rise from the east in stark contrast to the plains in the west and there are usually clouds covering the tops of the mountains. When we reached the town of Mombo we turned up into the mountains.

View of the mountains from the highway.

Coming up the mountain.

Once you turn off into the mountains from Mombo, you begin to climb and the scenery is pretty fantastic. Although the most startling thing to me was the extremity of clearing for agriculture, the mountains formations were still beautiful. The mountains there are a nice combination of rolling and jagged peaks and are small enough that you continually find yourself in different valleys looking at different mountains and peaks.

After passing through the bustling market town of Soni, we headed up to Lushoto. Lushoto is basically a one street town with some basic things (accommodation, bank, post office, police station) and it appears to serve as the "big city" for many of the smaller villages scattered throughout the mountains. There is a brilliant visitors center run by Friends of the Usambaras and guides there were courteous and not pushy. It appeared that many of the multi-day hikes went from village to village but did not actually go into any of the five major forest reserves. I had underestimated the size of the area and I was anxious for us to locate pristine forest. The guides said that as long as we were in Lushoto we could check out Magamba forest reserve but we should eventually head to Mazumbai if we wanted the most well conserved.

We made our way up to a small farm/guesthouse which we heard some very positive things about. The setting was nice enough and there were day hikes and short hikes around, but the "farmstead" vibe didn't seem to fit the mood of our camping/hiking trip. They have an assortment of quaint guesthouse rooms and some bandas, as well as camping. There was a basic camping area which had a shower/toilet (hot water heater!) but basically an open field. They could definitely benefit from having a few secluded camp sites. There were three other groups there and one group was a rambunctious group of Americans that were undoubtedly there to party.

View of the western side of the Usambaras.

Walking the trail.

We got there early enough to set up camp and take an evening stroll, pass through a nearby village, and view the plains from the side of the mountain range. Lushoto is on the far western side of the mountains and they rise sharply and dramatically from the plains below. The area around the farm was obviously familiar with tourists and we weren't exactly thrilled to surrounded by kids begging for money and dodgy "representatives" from the village trying to convince us of one fee or another. Still, the views were spectacular.

Morning view from the farmstead.

Our camp site at the farm. Definitely framed this picture to make it look more isolated. There are like three trucks with 12 American's drinking behind me.

The next day we headed to the recommended forest reserve of Magamba. The official map we had was not to scale and the place is not well marked so the trip took a little longer than anticipated. We stopped at the ranger station and paid 10,000 TZS ($5.25) for entry and drove into the forest.

The forest was initially just a giant pine plantation. We were surprised as there didn't seem to be much primary or even secondary forest for the first half hour. Eventually there started to be patches of forest but there didn't seem to be any trails. The road got pretty rough and eventually led to what looked like a colonial area farm which had a strange ghost town feel to it since it was in the middle of nowhere, seemingly unoccupied, and in need of repair. It was a bit creepy so we just passed through and continued on the road.

Eventually we found a trail leading off the main road and parked the bike. We walked on a trail which climbed up towards the top of a mountain ridge. The forest became less and less disturbed and there was an amazing patch of tropical montane forest. We didn't know where the trail headed but hiked along the ridge until about 1PM. It then looked like it would rain, which we deduced from the richness of the flora. I wasn't too pleased about this, even though we had adequate rain gear.

As we started walking back it started to pour. We realized that no matter what we'd get soaked. We could have waited it out a bit but the vegetation was very thick on the trail and we'd get covered by wet bushes anyway. We marched on and eventually it was only misting. It reminded me of the Pacific Northwest in America and the rain really suited the landscape with all the ferns, moss and lichen covering everything.

We got back to where we parked the motorcycle and some sun came out. We attempted to dry out as we worried about the long trip back, especially while we were wet. The mountains were already much colder than we were used to and I thought we needed to pass a village to get some hot tea or something or we'd probably get sick.

Of course I was still in the mood to be a bit adventurous and I decided to try to loop back to Lushoto instead of following the same route we took. I just found the area to provide so many different views that I couldn't resist. Luckily, the road led to the middle of the forest reserve which just so happened to be a small village called Shume, surrounded by a pine plantation. It was a truly bizarre town, though it did have a small tea house!

The local tea house was great, namely for the cheap chai and mandazi (fried buns like a doughnut). We paid 400 TZS ($0.20) to recharge, much to the amusement of the villagers whom kept peeking their head in to get a glimpse. We realized that many wazungu (foreigners) likely don't stop in for tea and we appreciated their genuine curiosity as opposed to the brash villagers in Lushoto.

The road back went through a few villages (Viti and Lukozi) and we past through highly cultivated landscapes. We were amazed to see farm land literally covering the peaks of the hills. It was even more apparent since it was the beginning of planting season so everywhere was cleared and waiting for the rains. It was still a pretty scenic area and I'm glad we took the long way back. We did eventually reach, at a reasonable time and feeling a reasonable temperature!