Hands up, weekend

Saturday, 08/25/2018

Women alone in Africa.

Typical woman: you have an idea in mind, how to implement it is secondary.

Annika, Juliet, and I read something about cave paintings in Iringa, also known as Igeleke. Directions: none. We had a rough direction that we were familiar with and knew that we could get there by bus. It is impossible to find out which bus and when it leaves, since we are in Africa after all.

Who adheres to a schedule? Structure? A system?

So we took a tuk-tuk into town and asked around. As luck would have it, we met a Tanzanian, Morris, who happens to work as a guide in addition to his studies. He not only could describe it to us, but also wanted to accompany us and bring us there. Jackpot!

After a 15-minute bus ride, called 'Daladala' here, and about a 40-minute hike with climbing, we reached the rock with the paintings that are over 40,000 years old.

Impressive!

Morris explained a lot of history to us and had a lot of information about flora & fauna.

We had a nice day.

Afterwards, we went shopping and cooked together: spaghetti bolognese - it was like a little piece of home 😅 And then Ines (she comes from Austria and is currently traveling the world alone - there are still crazier women than me 😉) made Kaiserschmarrn for us. A dream!

Sunday, 08/26/2018

We made plans to meet Morris, the guide from the day before, again. We agreed to meet at 12 o'clock. At half past twelve we called him, he will come in 20 minutes. In the end, we met at 1:15 p.m., which means being on time for a Tanzanian. Exhausting for us Germans.

The next hurdle was finding a bus that would take us to the destination, the hot springs.

We found a.. well.. vehicle. It had an engine and a few seats, the rest was (excuse me) junk. The door couldn't be closed either, but whatever. It somehow drove.

Seats: 10

People in the bus: about 22 (people can fit on top of each other too)

After over an hour's drive for 9km, we reached the destination. (Road = sand/gravel)

Another 45-minute walk through the wilderness and climbing over rocks awaited us, but we finally arrived at a beautiful, almost mystical place, a kind of oasis. The water was actually warm, heated by lava. Quite fascinating.

The way back was even more spectacular, as the last bus was already so full that we had to walk 4km first and it got dark. But Hakuna Matata! No stress! 😅

We're still alive and had a great day, as you can see in the photos.