God bless the German Monks (and their wine)

We thought we had found the monastery but we were wrong. It was still pretty ad peaceful though.
see all photos »

Rather than pay a guide again we decided to see off on our own adventure. We had originally planned to go to Mtai but we missed the bus in the morning. Instead we took a dala dala to Soni and one from there to a point near Sakharani. I don't think many tourists usually travel there which was nice in the sense that we didn't get hassled but we did get quite a few stares. The countryside was breathtakingly beautiful. We stopped many times simply to take in the view (and rest our backs we were carrying all of our stuff with us). We finally found Sakharani - a German Benedictine monastery where they make wine, oil from macadamia nuts and coffee. We were all very excited about the prospect of real coffee but were disappointed to discover that they only roast the beans as needed. Pole sana! We had a wonderful tour conducted in German by one of the monks, luckily I had 2 personal translators. Then we bought some wine and were off. On the way up the mountain I was amazed that the dala dala seemed to have little trouble climbing the winding roads with 30 people crammed in plus their luggage and one more on the roof to make sure the bags didn't fall off. On the way down the mountain I was equally amazed (and pleased) that the dala didn't break in half. To save money on gas the driver turned off the engine and we coasted down the mountain stopping to unload and pick up passengers. One more dala dala ride and we were back in Lushoto just in time to miss the last bus to Mtai. Oh well, maybe the next time I come to the Usambara Mountains (I really might return, I liked it that much and the weather will be a welcomed break from the summer heat in Dar). We were all thoroughly exhausted so we spent the rest of the afternoon lazily walking around the town. We had checked out of the hostel because we thought we would be spending the night elsewhere. The only place with any rooms still available was the same hostel we had vacated in the morning but they no longer had 2 rooms. So, the 3 of us piled into a double. We pushed the beds together and climbed into bed after a delicious dinner of fresh rye bread, cheese and port wine!