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A Letter from the Southern Pare Mountains
Filed Under (Articles) by admin on 27-08-2006
There are no hotels or lodges in the Southern Pare; it is difficult to reach this part of Tanzania; that is difficult for a tourist. This area does not cater for westerners; and this for me was the attraction. I had been on a Serengeti safari, climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and even traveled to Zanzibar. All this was a fantastic adventure but I was in Africa and wanted to experience as much of Tanzania as I could. It was time to visit somewhere where there were no tourists, where I would experience the real culture of Africa.
My chance came; unfortunately, it was under tragic circumstances that I would finally get to visit the Pare Mountains. I was living in Arusha for a short time and had been befriended by a young couple along with their eight-year-old son - William. One day William was bitten by a dog - we thought the dog free from rabbis - it was not. William died very quickly. William’s parents asked me to accompany them to the funeral; William would not be buried in the town but taken “home” to the Pare Mountains.
We left on a couple of battered 25 seater buses, especially hired for this trip. We left in the evening at 10 pm. About thirty of us squeezed onto each bus. We raced through the darkness, out of Arusha, then through Moshi town and after passing Kilimanjaro, we then turned south toward the Pare. After about four hours of travel, we turned into a
