Geert Luiken

Netherlands - 07-Mar-23 -

If there is one site that should be designated as a World Heritage Site as soon as possible, it is this one. During my visit to Udzungwa Mountains National Park, I was greatly impressed by the natural beauty of the area. I stayed at the Hondo Hondo camp and went on a 4-hour trek to the Sanje Waterfall, which is a very popular tourist attraction. The exceptional value of the site lies in the many species that are unique to this area, including two endemic birds (the Udzungwa Forest Partridge and the Rufous-winged Sunbird) and two species of monkeys (the recently discovered Sanje Crested Mangabey and the Udzungwa Red Colobus).

In my opinion, this area should be given the highest level of protection, if only for the Udzungwa Red Colobus, which is a beautiful monkey with impressive playful behavior. Unfortunately, on the east side of the park, the villages with large rice and sugarcane plantations are encroaching on the border of the national park, which detracts from the natural beauty and disrupts the peace with loud music.

It is concerning to hear the park ranger talk about how good the Udzungwa Forest Partridge tastes, as it is a red-listed species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Additionally, it is surprising for Dutch visitors to see many pictures of the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands around the visitor center, and even waterfalls named after him, as he officially opened the park in 1992.

I hope that this area will remain intact in the future and that it will soon be designated as a World Heritage Site.

Patrik

Netherlands - 12-Apr-21 -

I visited the Amani forest reserve in januari 2019. I traveled by bus from the coastal town of Tanga and changed in Muheza. There is a daladala (local small bus) up to Amani around 13.00h. The daladala does not depart from the main road but a bit further. A motorbike taxi brought me to the daladala. I thought I was lucky to have caught the daladala just on time but luggage and goods kept being stocked into the daladala. It was not until 15.00h before we started moving. There was a discussion and two women were left behind, looking very upset. I just hoped the discussion was not about me for occupying their seat.

The road up was very bumpy and it seemed quite miraculous how the full daladala was able to make it's way up so steadily. Going up, the oppressive heat started to give way to a fresh coolness and a beautiful green forest.

Up in Amani, I stayed in the Amani Rest House, next to the Conservation Centre. I had contacted them before (details are on reviews on Tripadvisor). The wooden resthouse is pleasant and clean enough, just the room was not used for a long time and the bathtub was full of leaves. The one time entrance fee to the forest was USD 10 and the half board stay was around USD 20, the food was basic but plentiful and tasty. Guides could be hired for USD 15 a day but I did not use their services. There was a bird specialist staying though and he was impressed by the expertise of the local guides. I thought staying in such a pleasant surroundings, it was quite a good deal.

The village of Amani is rather big, there is an interesting historical malaria center and a park. The main tree in the village was full of toucans (I thought toucans are solitary birds but they gathered here in big groups). I sat for a while next to the road watching them.

Next few days I walked around in the hills. There are many small villages in the forest, and there are also tracks. I had no map but by just going and asking around, I could find my way back. I also walked along the main track but found there are many motorcycles and I found it disturbing. I also found large tea plantations nearby where the workers were picking the leaves. It seemed a very heavy job.

After 3 nights, I went down. As the daladala leaves at 5 am, I decided to have a leisurely breakfast and try my luck and find a motorcycle taxi. I asked around and was assured I need an experienced driver, and waited for a while for him to become available. It seemed like a good idea as I was carrying my backpack and I was quite exhausted after more than an hour on the back of a motorcycle on the bumpy track. With less cautious driver, I could have fallen off quite easily.

I continued to Lushoto, which lies in the West Usumbara Mountains. I stayed in the wonderfully oldfashioned Lawn hotel, in a budget room but the grounds are nice and the restaurant stylish, it has a colonial feel to it. It is a stop for overland Africa trips as well, but they camped in the garden and had a barbecue there, which was just as well, as this kept the rest of the hotel quiet and peaceful.

Lushoto itself is not in the forest but one can walk to the viewpoints in the forest which give a wonderful view over the plains and have a lunch at Irente farm.

I decided to go deeper into the forest and went by bus up to Mambo where I stayed in the Cliff Inn, very basic accomodation where I was the only guest. I thought it was a bit expensive but I imagined the owner has very little business. The place has no electricity but the lines do seem to get to Mambo which has few recently built high end villas. The Cliff Inn is really on the edge of the mountains and one can look down on the plains deep down and once I was able to spot Kilimanjaro just before sunset.

I walked around here too, but much of the forest is cultivated  farmland with the original trees kept to give shadow and perhaps to keep the soil from washing away. I was drawing big crowds of children here, shouting Mzungu ecstatically wherever I went, and this was a bit tiring.

I took the bus down in the morning while it was still dark. We seemed to be well on time until at some point the back suspension broke. I now understood why we had three conductors on the bus, they actualy did the repairs. A new suspension was brought by motorcycle after a few hours and after 6 hours we continued our journey. At this point many passengers had left and had found other means of transport. Now the driver refused to pick up any passengers, so we drove very speedy and quite comfortably with our fancy new suspension and reached Moshi just after dusk.