I will preface this post by saying that it is still the "dry season" here in Lushoto, so we didn't expect rain. I thought it would be misty, but not rainy. I was very, very wrong.
Our four hour hiking trip in the rainforest was quite wet. It poured, and poured, and drizzled, then poured. I had my camera on me (regrettably in retrospect because it stressed me out the whole time--I was so scared it would get wet even though I had it in a waterproof stuff sack under my jacket), so I bought an umbrella to attempt to stay dry. That attempt mostly failed, but I wasn't as soaked as the people with no umbrellas, and my camera survived just fine. Several other people bought umbrellas as well, but I'm pretty sure it must have looked absurd as we struggled down the slippery paths with our black, maroon, and green umbrellas. We slid around quite a bit, and got slapped by a lot of wet, huge ferns/thorn bushes. The best part of the trip was watching Brittany slide down an entire hill on her butt. Fortunately she went with it rather than try to cling on to the hill or something, so it was kind of like watching her go down a really dirty slip-and-slide. I fell a couple times, but caught my balance most of the time. I'm extremely happy with the Columbia sneakers I bought before coming here. Thank you, omni-grip!
I'm just glad the rain wasn't cold, although I still lost all the feeling in my hands and feet (common problem for me.) I also seem to have acquired a cough from the whole thing, but on the upside of life, my appetite is back! I have been eating actual full meals! I'm happy that things in my body seem to be fixing themselves. Good news I'd say! Also, I had some delicious guacamole and lowquats. AND ACTUAL BEEF I COULD CHEW!!! IT WAS AMAZING! :))
I also confirmed that fire places do, in fact, exist here. That was a magical discovery.
On an unrelated note, I think I may be washing my clothes in the river for the next two years. Or hiring someone to wash them, but I feel weird doing that. I feel like I should suck it up and do the hard work. We will see how long that philosophy actually lasts...it would be convenient not to scrub for hours every week. But we will see...
It is the end of Ramadan now so many things are closed here, making shopping and dealing with setting up my bank account quite difficult. It also makes travel difficult, as all the buses going out to the villages are super-packed. I'm just happy to have electricity for now. I'm really going to miss it, but I will adjust.
Happy to read that you are on the mend.
ReplyDelete