Tubing Mgeta River

Have you done this before? Have you seen it done before? These are the questions I get when the topic of tubing to Mgeta come up. Have you heard anyone that has done this? Have you ever seen the river? Can you swim? Do you know you could possibly fail?

Yes, it was the answer to the last question that made me reply regardless of the question, I don’t know; but I am going to try.

The story really starts a few months earlier on a failed attempt to visit a water fall near Bunduki village. The road from Mgeta to Bunduki is in the Mgeta River valley in the Uluguru Mountains and flows down hill to Mgeta. Walking the road you are always with in a few hundred yards of the river, and I remember looking from the road and remembering my Poudre River tubing days in Colorado and said “that river looks like a tube could float down it.” So the idea was born, and when my visitor for Christmas were eager to explore the Ulugurus the first thing in my mind to do was Mgeta River tubing.

After many of the guest (the smart ones) had departed my home either to go back home or continued travel; four of us Bev, Sarah, Matt, and I left for the Bunduki and Mgeta River, on the other side of the mountain from my home in Mzumbe. Day one we left my house and for the first hour we walked through fields of hand planted corn and cassava trees. After crossing a small stream at a field of bee hives kept by locals for their o’so sweet golden honey we started up an old no-longer-passable road through a series of small farms. After another hour we entered an enchanted mountain side known as Mongwe, which is a village/mountain community that exist and prosper because of their ‘banana tree forest’ that has been planted in place of the natural vegetation that thrives because of the high mountain tops of the Ulugurus receive more rain fall then the plains. The people in the community greet us and love all these white people that speak Swahili and are visiting their community, for the next two hours of walking through the mountain side maze of walk ways through Mongwe escorted by the 20 dirt covered self appointed miniature tour guides. As we left Mongwe we reached the main ridge separating Mzumbe and Bunduki our destination, at the top is tundra like bolder field with large rock faces shooting up to the sky. Most of my times on this pass it’s been engulfed in clouds and your visibility is limited but not this day, it was a clear hot Tanzania day where we could look out onto the savanna as far as the eye could see and not a cloud in the sky which made for breath taking views. As we skirted around this ridge and proceeded to climb up we came across a dozen peach trees, ripe with fruit! I had passed these trees never before knowing they were peach trees and now five hours into our hike these peaches are natures candy bar and the answer to our bodies’ craving for sugar. This hike makes all of us marvel at the notion that the Uluguru people live her everyday and carry everything they need on and off this mountain on there heads, and choose to live on the side of a mountain. A life style appreciated over time by some of God’s hardest working and toughest people.

After reaching our high point we started our two hour descent into Bunduki Village and for the first time the group as a whole was able to see Mgeta River, the consensus was it looked floatable but first we had to find lodging in Bunduki, food, and a way to pump four Land Rover inner tubes up to float down the river. Walking into village among many looks from the local villagers as the four white people who just strolled down their mountain with a bucket and four inner tubes slung around their shoulders looking for a place to sleep and beans and rice. We avoided questions about the inner tubes through the night not to shock the locals too much so they would not put us up for the evening. We stayed at a local grandmother’s little shop in the back among corn and the rats, it was nice. What can you expect? Bunduki never has visitors, but we will all agree they were great host and cooked a great delicious dinner for us of ugali, spinach, and eggs which the taste was complimented with a spoonful of hunger which is always the best spice for a late well deserved dinner.
The next morning Matt and I were in search of a bike pump to pump up our inner tubes, with the help of a young lad we got our tubes inflated. By now we had lots of attention from the locals as today was Sunday, great day for God and for a drink. The local bar/benches with a large drum of home made corn wine was busy that day and they couldn’t believe what we were attempting to do and the effort we did to come and swim in their river. My travel mates were finally set assured that there were no snakes or crocodiles in the river by the local people, apparently my word on the matter was not good enough; I told them it was too cold for them in the river but they didn’t believe me. By 11 o’clock we were off down the river, four tubes and one dry bucket bungeed to my inner tube and we were entering the unknown. I have to admit I felt like we had just ported through Brazil and now was floating down a undiscovered tributary of the Amazon, it was cool and for the first two hours it was a blast of small rapids and long lazy stretches of snaking down the river on a inner tube a good time and smiles all around. But like all adventures things don’t always go as planned, the river ahead started to make a low thunderous roar and the river began to pick up speed, Matt yells from behind me “maybe we should’ve walked up the river first to check out the rapids.”

I reply “Matt that sounds like that would have been a good idea.” As the deemed water ox of the group I took the rapids first and guided people from down river where to go and where to avoid large rocks. As I approached a bridge made by the local villagers I could tell by the terrain that we had to portage as the elevation began to drop and the roar of the river was louder than before. I was warning everyone up river to stop and get out their tubes as we had to get out and walk around this section of river. All was fine until my little Korean American friend was stuck in her tub and could not stop her self so I grabbed her tube and got her stopped, but in the skirmish I lost my footing in the fast current and her momentum collided with me, I was off down the river head first on my tube! After a couple four to five foot waterfalls a lost hat and lost sandal I was able to grab on to a fallen tree and to pull my-self out of the water. I only lost my lucky hat I had had it since high school, and a few bumps and bruises. It was all worth it because I gave the thirty something villagers something to talk about who were on they way back home crossing the bridge and watching these white people struggle in the river like we were seals playing in the water exhibit at the zoo and they were studying marveling at our strange behavior and asking themselves why, and wondering when the next show would begin?
It wasn’t until after three or four more portages and a few more bumps and bruises that we started to ask our selves why too. I was tenacious and not willing to give up on our goal of floating to Mgeta village, but the rest of the group thought the road a safer and warmer passage. So after pulling up my boot straps up and admitting remedial defeat on our adventure, we were out of the river and walking the road to Mgeta where there lived another Peace Corps volunteer who would be willing to put us up and feed us. Although we didn’t make it to our final destination floating on the tube we still arrived in Mgeta that evening and jumped off the 10 meter high bridge that spanned the Mgeta River, a nice bath at the end of a long day. The trip was concluded as a big success and a lot of fun stories to be told on our next adventure on Zanzibar and I with the newly titled nickname Water Ox; which I fear will stick for the duration of my time in Tanzania.

After returning back to Mzumbe and a day of rest and laundry we were off to the beach. New Years on Zanzibar, it just sounds good, I like saying it “New Years on Zanzibar.”