Ndolage Waterfall

Passing shambas on our hike.  Our goal was
 the rise in the distance.

Last weekend I ventured out to Katoke, about an hour south of Bukoba where I met a fellow volunteer, named Rhona, to hike to the Ndolage waterfall which is just barely visible across and up the valley from her house. We walked down the hill towards the river on red dirt paths with tall brown grasses on either side, passing a small cluster of houses and their green banana leaved shambas. As we reached the river, the grasses grew short and green. Crossing the sluggish river was a small hand built bridge with half logs as the planks and stripped branches for rails. According to Rhona there are hippos that live in this river. Because they are so dangerous and women often come to wash clothes in the river, a hunter was hired and killed a hippo. Because it was shot on a shamba, the owners got to keep a large portion of the hippo meat - I wonder what that tastes like.

Approaching the bridge.

After crossing the river, we slowly worked our way along and up the other side of the valley. We passed through one village, and reaching a rise and a perfect sitting rock, we paused to drink some water and look out over the village and the river snaking and curving below. During this break we noticed two small children. They did not come out to greet us, or call us wazungus ("white person" or "European" - it is quite common to get this from people as you walk by), but they hid behind a nearby rock, peaking their heads out every once and a while to look at us. If you turned to look at them, they would quickly pull behind the rock, thinking that they were well hidden (you could still see a bit of their shirts). There is nothing like being the local entertainment for an afternoon! When we left, they came out to the path and waved goodbye. Further up the trail we passed a group of women travelling in the opposite direction. Wearing kangas and carrying green bananas on their heads (these are not the sweet kind) they broke into chatter as they passed us. Greetings were exchanged and hands were grasped. They were shocked that we had travelled all the way from Katoke.

Our first view of the waterfall.

After walking for about three hours we finally reached the waterfall - a single stream of water pouring over the sheer cliff face. When the wind blew it caught the falling water, arcing it into a diagonal spray. Reaching the actual river, almost every crossing point was occupied with women washing their clothes. Crouched on the rocks they rubbed their clothes with bars of soap and swished them in the river. When they finished with that article of clothing, it was spread out on the bushes nearby transforming the green foliage into bursts of bright color. Moving closer to the waterfall, we finally found a place that was unoccupied and dipped our hot feet into the water - it was so refreshing. Having reached our destination and enjoyed the river, we finally headed down to the nearest town to wait and catch the dalla dalla back to Katoke. This was my first trip in a dalla dalla. A minibus, a dalla is probably meant to carry 9-12 people in the back. We must have had at least 20. One guy squeezed onto the floor and placed his fishy smelling box right on top of his knees. All in all it was not the most comfortable trip back, but it was certainly an interesting end to a great hike.

These red flowers belong to the Coral Tree, adding

bright splashes of color all over the hillsides.

Looking up at the banana leaves. 
Who would need an umbrella?