Is having one better than none?

The events of the day ended with my contemplation of this very question as I spent the entirety of our hike down the mountain with sadly, just the one shoe.  Is it better to hold on to something that once was, or is it better to give in, offering the opportunity of appreciating what benefits there could be to one's new state of affairs?  To hold on, was still believing that I was the kind of lady who wouldn't just leave the house without her shoes on.  But it was uncomfortable with only one shoe.  The ground felt quite soft and cool beneath the shoe-less foot, yet somehow, if having shoes was the goal, how could I cast away the very object which I desired, and give up the one I had?

This story never intended to be anything more than the tale of a hike through the jungle, up the mountain to see the waterfall, in the foothills of Mt Meru, outside of Arusha, Tanzania.  Pretty run of the mill here folks.

Sitting satisfied at the accomplishment of reaching our end destination, laying in the sun, baking on a warm rock near the base of the 40 ft waterfall, surrounded by cascading cliffs of ferns, roots, vines,  mosses and beauty, our moment of heaven was soon to come to a swift end.

Over the previous few days, we had experienced brief flashes of torrential, classically tropical, monsoon moments.  What this meant for us now; flash floods happening further up the stream hit a breaking point.    Monsoons of water came rushing down the river without a moments notice, causing the volume of water flowing down stream, to double and then triple in size in an instant.  A waterfall of 4 meters wide, quickly transformed into 12m wide.  This of coarse, then turned the river bed which we had hiked up to get there from a 1m deep river to a set of rapids powerful and deep.

Our options, up the cliffs, roots, vines, down the whirlpools rapids?  Stuck between a jungle cliff  and a tourent of slippery rocks and whirlpools, we were really quite stuck.   With much humming, hawing, and circle walking ensued, circling round and around the little rock that was our one solace, the direction we were needing to head was soon clear; up the jungle cliff we went.

Now the ground cover and vegetation growing over our cliff was indeed quite thick, providing all sorts of nooks an handles.  However this mix-mash of textures and depths is not exactly the most stable mass to climb over.  There was a good amount of digging down to the soil below for each foothold and grip.

Digging down for roots and vines, searching for handholds and foot rests, was around the point where, as you've been on the edge of your seat about this whole time, was the last I was to ever see that left shoe.  Enacting the exact fear in Christiano's mind below me, of what would happen to him if one of these roots/vines etc broke free.  Plink, plank, plunk the shoe tumbled down our route and straight into the storming waters below.

We made it up our jungle scramble in good enough time, quite pleased with ourselves for making it this far, onto the flats now, only to realize that we had scrambled ourselves right into the middle of a feild of stinging nettles AND a raspberry-type vines (aka THORNS).  We could see a path in the distance ahead, the first sign of hope for our escape from this dead end mission, but alas, shoeless in the middle of a field of thorns and nettles, there was only one way to go; forward, and quickly!

Screaming and yelling our way through the thorns, we made it to our little trail, sat and laughed at ourselves for a minute.  Noticed the monsoon clouds that had presumably started the whole palava in the first place were now headed our way, and off we went.  Scrambling up our little trail, to another trail and another and another, until at last we reached the first mountain village, and hurrah, a new set of flip flops for the last hours hike down.

So much more to say about the mountains around Arusha, but they'll just have to wait.  I could quite easily spend a few months here, but alas, the tour goes on tomorrow.  Another week on the off road ahead, and oh yes, the rains are here...