Hiking Magambe

7/15

Nik and I were scheduled for the Magambe Rainforest hike on Saturday, but woke up to rain pounding against the roof of the hotel. So after grabbing a great free breakfast- corn flakes, milk, bananas, eggs to order, toast, papaya- we called up Cocafa and rescheduled our hike for the next day. I spent the rest of the day researching cheap hostels in Zanzibar for our last-week-in-Africa-so-let's-vacation trip. After hours of scanning web pages, I found a place that has backpacker-style bungalows on the beach for $12 a night. Score.

The next morning (sunny and clear skies, thank goodness), we walked into town and met with our two guides who took us to the edge of town towards the mountains. As we trekked through a few villages, our guides explained the historical importance of a few of the villages. One guide (unfortunately, I do not remember either of their names) described when the Germans arrived in the area, they destroyed the chiefdom but introduced hospitals and schools. He also showed us an "apple tree" plant, with roots that can cure for malaria and leaves that can be used for a multivitamin tea. As we walked past some huts, children ran up to us yelling "picha picha!" so, of course, I felt it necessary to take their picture.

We continued our trek into the rainforest and within ten minutes saw a black and white colobus monkey for a split second in a fig tree. It's actually really easy to tell when there are colobus monkeys around because their bodies are so big they make a lot of noise when moving around in trees. Unfortunately, monkeys do not stay still for very long so I didn't see much more than a figure moving through the tree and a face poke out from above. I was unable to get any photos, but hopefully this video shows how awesome these creatures are.

Enormous trees just outside of the rainforest

As we continued on our hike, our guide stopped us suddenly, pointing to a tree and saying "chameleon". Either I need a new prescription for my contacts or am terrible at picking out green things among green things, but I could not find this chameleon for the life of me. The guide finally grabbed a stick and had to physically point out the chameleon to me. It was awesome seeing a wild chameleon instead of the usual Petco chameleon behind a glass wall. Surprisingly enough, the guides offered that Nik and I could hold the chameleon. As the chameleon walked across my hand with his zygodactyly feet, I felt sad for the countless animals trapped in small glass boxes at pet stores in America. After the chameleon began hissing at us (the flash on my camera probably didn't help), we put him back in his bush and continued on our way. 

Our walk through the rainforest quickly turned into a hike up the rainforest. Good thing I've been doing 5am workouts at the gym every morning (not). I was breathing hard by the end of it, but I noticed I was not as tired on this hike as on the Sapuk waterfall hike. So, ignore my heavy breathing on this video during the hike and enjoy the views!

Near the end of our time in the rainforest, I heard crashing through the trees. Sure enough, 5 black and white colobus monkeys were running around in the trees above us. Again, they moved too fast for me to get out my camera but I got much better views of the animals as they chased each other around. I had never thought I would see so many monkeys (in the wild) in one day, but then I saw more as we exited the forest into a village where there were two vervets hanging around in a tree above a hut. Seeing  these animals in the wild reminded me of the amazing field research done by primatologists. This experience combined with my enjoyment of Anthropology class (Lemurs, Monkeys, and Apes) in the winter makes me seriously consider creating some sort of a minor related to primatology. Studying monkeys all day for work? I think yes!

After reaching the peak, we stopped for a quick lunch of bread and oranges under a tree. The hike was shorter than I expected (3.5 hours) but I saw everything I wanted to see- great views and monkeys. If anyone is planning on coming to Tanzania, I would recommend going to Lushoto and doing this hike (plus Irente, which you definitely don't need a guide for). The guides are very helpful and the views of the mountains are incredible.