Sorry for not updating in a long time!! i had an interesting week! Morningside goes back all the way to Sunday.. we decided to try climbing the Ulurugu Mountains again which are the ones right outside Morogoro. This time thankfully was a lot more successful! It took us about 3 hours to get to morningside which is just a b-e-a-utiful little house perched on the edge of the mountain that looks into a huge valley. Half of our group decided to book it to morningside, whereas i decided to hang back and enjoy the trek..aaand would have passed out going the speed that they were haha. It was cool at one point because they were looking down at us from up at morningside, as we finished our hike towards them. Morningside is just over half way to the highest peak of the mountain range i believe.. some of the girls talked about climbing to the communication tower (the highest point) another weekend, but making it to morningside is good enough for me! Once we got there, it was amazing, the temperature cooled right down, it was green everywhere, and there was such a nice view.. only thing is that by the time we got there, we were in the clouds so we couldnt see a thing past where it dropped off. we sat and rested for a while and made ourselves a sandwich..and then it started to rain. thankfully there was a covered porch that we were able to sit in until the rain stopped. i was shivering again when it rained, it was amazing! We learned that the house is now pretty much abandoned, but was built around 1918 (i could be totally wrong on that) by some Germans as a base camp/lookout for something or other.. i really didnt get many details on that haha.. none the less, it was super cool.

once the rain stopped, it cleared up so we could see into the valley… we could also see how completely off we were from reaching morningside the first time we attempted to climb these mountains.. ohhh well!! so we took some pictures and then headed back down.. it was only about 11am by this time. we had left early in the morning. the hike down was 100 times easier.. although the sun was out so a bit hotter. once we got to the bottom, we got the group to take us to the rock garden. we had heard a lot about it from past volunteers as it being just a beautiful place to swim…and it was! there are just huge rocks EVERYWHERE…there are probably about 10-15 little nooks that form a little pool between winding riverish areas.. so we just chose one and got into our bathing suits and went for a swim. we ended up staying there for about 30 min and then headed home.. we had a blast while we were there.. a few guys from the drama group were the guys who had been guiding us all day…they decided to swim with us, and although we had been told before, we always forget that most people in Morogoro, and even Tanzania, cant swim!!!! haha.. we forget that everyone takes swimming lessons at home, or at least knows how to float! so we had fun attempting (being the key word) to teach them how to swim..on the way home we grabbed a bite to eat, and then lounged around in our rooms the rest of the day..i was beat!