It’s A Long Way To Tipperary

Myself and Dara were gloriously unplanned for our trip to Tanzania so we woke up not having a plan for the day at all. We went for a short walk in the morning around Irente which turned out to be really nice.

We got back to Irente Farm just as the rain came down so decided to head off, we had heard about a nice hotel quite close to Irente where you could camp so we headed over there to check it out. Unfortunately the place was expensive and miserable in the rain so we ended up continuing on North through the Usumbaras. Despite Daras constant worry, Betsy (in her permenant 2wd state) managed the slightly slippy roads without a care in the world!

We were heading to a small town called Mtae at the northernmost point of the mountains, which according to the Lonely Planet, has some really incredible views. Along the way we started seeing very nice looking signs about a place called Mambo View Point which even advertised camping, we figured we’d give it a look.

Well!! If we thought the views from Irente were magnificent we were just blown away by Mambo View Point!! The lodge sat at the top of a hill right on the 1100m high cliff edge with 270 degree views out over the great plains of Africa, it was STUNNING!

A Dutch couple had built the lodge from scratch since February which is darned impressive in my book. As well as buildling the lodge they had already started on the community projects they hoped to continue with during their stay in Tanzania. They have trained local guides, helped in the construction of local schools, started micro loan schemes to get locals mobile phones among many other things.

Just after myself and Dara watched the awesome sunset

We had a nice communal dinner before hitting our (non luxury) tents for the decidedly chilly night

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