On our drives to and from Arusha we have gotten to see a lot of the landscape of this area. Though it only takes about 90 minutes to there is a high diversity in the environment.
Mweka is on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro at an elevation of 1400 metres. The landscape is lush up here, fed by the spring and rivers of melting snow of the mountain. Many people in the village grow bananas but there are also fields of corn and beans. And added benefit of the elevation is the cool temperatures that you won’t find anywhere else in Tanzania.
As you head down to Moshi, early on there are several coffee plantations with, as I have been told, the best coffee beans in Tanzania.
Moshi, at 1000 meters, is already quite different than Mweka. Banana farms and tall fig trees give way to corn fields and short, spare acacia trees. It is harvesting time here as it is in Minnesota, though here it is done with machetes instead of machines. The corn stalks are saved and used for cattle feed. The stalks can be seen carted along the road, piled higher than a car on tiny carts pulled by donkeys.
Past Moshi, the landscape becomes even drier. We are nearing the end of the dry season, but this year has been abnormally dry and everyone is hoping for an El Niño to bring extra rains. The short rains will come within a month or so and stay until late December. Then there will be another dry season until the long rains come in March for about three months.
Along the road to Arusha, there is an expanse of flat, parched land that extends to either horizon where you can see low hills though the haze of the heat. Low scrub and short acacia trees dot the landscape. One room mud or cinderblock huts with corrugated metal roofs are interspersed among the trees. Many of them are only the size of some American’s living rooms.
The dirt of Tanzania is unlike the rich dark brown soil of southern Minnesota. Here the dirt is a heavy reddish brown that is prone to packing down. Because it is so dry here, the dust is everywhere, covering everything in a fine red-brown film.
The farther from Moshi you get, the drier the land gets. Corn fields give way to open pasture land if you could call it that. Young boys watch over herds of goats and cattle that graze on what dry scrub is left. As the herds are driven along, big cloud of dust rise behind them.
Nearer to Arusha, dust devils frequent the landscape. Swirling vortexes of dust rise high up into the air. Some of them are skinny and tall, others fatter, and some are gigantic. The ones that get really big can even be deadly if you are not careful. Dust devils are one of the signs that the rains are coming.
Just outside of Arusha, the landscape subtly becomes lush again. Because it is in the rain shadow of Mt. Meru, Arusha has an environment more like Moshi. More trees start to show up and small creeks run through deep valleys. Once I sat two vervet monkeys in a tree along the road. The jacaranda trees are in bloom now, another sign that the rains are coming. The jacaranda trees deserve special attention because of their beauty. When in bloom, the trees loose all of their leaves and are covered in millions of small purple blossoms. There are so many flowers that it looks like the trees have purple leaves. An additional sign of the coming rains are leaves on baobab trees. Despite Mt. Meru, Arusha is still drier than Mweka.
The last notable thing about landscapes is less about the environment and more about people. Everywhere people walk along the road with baskets on their heads (quite a remarkable feat of balance if you ask me) or cattle at their side. In the States, no one walks anymore, but here most people don’t have cars or bicycles. As a result, everyone walks and the roads get especially full with pedestrians in the evenings as people get done with work.