Minja Forest: Part II

Rainbow forms over the North Pare mountains. 

We first visited Minja Forest in October 2014, and it still remains one of our favorite forest reserves in all the Eastern Arc Mountains. It's about a 2 1/2 hour ride from Moshi, with an hour on the highway and the remaining time in the mountains. The last hour or so is the only part that is a struggle.  The roads are frequently filled with water and sharp slopes challenge the driver. This was a concern as this trip is during the peak of the rainy season, but I figured I had good experiences with wet roads. 

Basically woke up in a cloud. 

Driving through the clouds never gets old for me!

Minja forest reserve is located at basically the end of the road going north along the North Pare mountains. The road and villages get smaller and smaller and the road winds deeper and deeper in the mountains. Unlike the denuded landscape of the Usambara Mountains, the North Pares have a healthy amount of forest remaining.

We covered much of the same route we walked before, though we did find some new routes and chose our next area to explore. The forest was absolutely stunning and the overcast morning fit the mood of the wet and lush reserve, with some welcome afternoon sunshine drying things up a bit and giving us some more daylight.

There is an area where it is mostly flooded and full of these gigantic dandelion looking plants.

Very odd plants. 

Here is me for some scale. 

Lush forest. 

This is the smallest snail I have ever seen. 

We tried to walk in the flooded area but unsurprisingly had our shoes flooded. 

A few of the flooded section. 

A view looking south from the ridgeline. One of the higher points we climbed to (1800m/5,900 ft)

View looking east towards Kenya and the Tsavo plains. 

Pretty sure I have almost the identical picture in my first post, but that's because it's an awesome view. 

We stopped at a small lake on the way down the mountain. 

Bird watching at the lake. 

Beautiful morning to be out!

The road down the mountain.