:: Hiking in the Pugu Hills

Tracks in and around Pugu Forest

VISIT FOREST

DESTRUCTION

3 hours

The Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST) established a nature trail in the Pugu Forest. The accessability of the Nature Trail near the Kaoline Quaries is a problem at present (March 2002) and consequently also the upkeep of the trail has come to a halt. The second trail along the Kisarawe-Kazimzumbwi Road is about two to three quarters of an hour drive from Pugu Hills click for map. but the status of this trail is not known. For more in information contact Care International in Dar es Salaam.

From Pugu Hills some tracks are used for hiking which you can try yourself or with an escort from a villager who is selected by Pugu Hills (we do not charge for the escort but a tip for the guide is expected).

One Up

View Point Hike

Water Reservoir

Zaramo Cave

There are many options to hike around the area. Within a time limit of some three hours, four major hikes are recommended. The old view point hike which is the shortest hike of some 45 minutes, from where you can see Dar es Salaam and the Indian Ocean on a clear day. To the south the TAZARA Tower view point hike brings you to a higher vantage point and will take some 2:30 to 3:00 hours. The water reservoir in the forest can be either visited going the same way up and down or by a circuit passing the Minaki School Area (duration 1:30 to 3:00 hours). The fourth hike is to the cave (duration 2:30 hours) which is a sacred place for the Wazaramo. Worshippers visit the cave once a year for a religious ceremony.

Guests who are interested in culture, appreciate a hike to the cattle market at Pugu Stesheni (Station) where the cattle from Mwanza (Sukuma herds) are brought and sold. Before, the central railway line was used for the transport, explaining the location of the market but since 2004 only lorries are allowed to bring in cattle, reducing the travelling time for the poor beasts.

Simple Pleasure Tanzania wrote:

Cattle markets have similarities all over the world – be it in Tanzania, Britain, China or Armenia. It is a men’s thing, there is a lot of money involved, clever middlemen do the business, a lot of suspicion is expressed towards every stranger – and there is good and substantial food available!

We went to Pugu Hill cattle market, some 20km from the centre of the four Million town of Dar es Salaam, the place where meat enters the town still on four legs. In Tanzania, several breads of cows are bread, some more the light Zebu version, others a lot heavier, with impressively long horns. These horns must be so heavy to carry, the elegant ones bent up site, and the odd ones bent down site, giving the respective cow or bull a rather stupid expression into the face. In the nearby stalls still in the animal compound, Chapati – a kind of a pancake, bandazi – something similar to our dough nuts, and later on in the day Ugali – Polenta - with meat and spinach are prepared in abundant quantities; However, in February 2006, in Pugu Hills there was one remarkable difference to other cattle markets in the world. Animals were so thin that they died on the spot, they refuses to stand up for a last time despite being hit and pinched by a dozen of men – the result of an East African drought, partly man made, partly bad luck; There was even a couple of Maasai with their hopelessly thin cattle. Desperation must have run them to do what they are said to never do: sell their cattle;

Before, the Central railway line was used for the transport, explaining the location of the market, but since 2004 only lorries are allowed to bring in cattle, reducing the travelling time for the poor beasts. Do not go on the market without a guide. Cattle trade is about a lot of money, and the presence of strangers with cameras can render people nervous.

The early morning is the best time to see the activities and enjoy a super-sweet tea in one of the shacks.

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The view point track (Old) is the shortest hiking track of about 45 minutes. At the water tank of Pugu Hills you follow the forest fire break to the north. In the third valley you turn left into the forest following the dry creek. When you reach the old forest road, which was the old access road to Pugu Hills you turn left following the road until it turns left again, but you continue straght on a small foot track which starts climbing up the ridge behind Pugu Hills. Half-way the tunnel-like path under the bush cover, there is a short track going to the right where after 50 meters an opening in the forest is allowing a view on the Dar. Few guests actually managed to find the view point without a guide. Returning to the the uphill track you can continue to the top of the ridge, where a second (difficult to distinguish) turn leads downhill again to the left leading you back again to the Pugu Hills Centre click for map

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The water reservoir hike follows either the forest track (Minaki circuit) or the short cut straight through the valley up to the dam and back again the same way. The Minaki Circuit is for the adventurous hiker because the track is often overgrown and can become scratchy business. The Minaki circuit leads along some nice specimen of Millettia Puguensis (click for image) one of the endemic species in Pugu Forest, the corck screw shaped vine. At the junction leaving the path on top of the ridge with a left turn some bamboos indicate the dwelling of a German Researcher who has lived there in the 1970s (?). Following the track we were once (end 90s) surprised by a 3 to 4 meter python which was shining green and incredible fast leaving us like a submarine with his head held up straight. (The one and only observation in Pugu Forest of a python in 12 years of hiking around). Now the difficult part comes finding the way out of the undergrowth until you come in the open where the Minaki Secundary School has been allocated land which is regularly cleared.

Reaching the dirt road to the water supply of Kisarawe at the reservoir, some nice water loving trees and plants can be seen along the road. The leaking pipe line has helped over the years to support the impressive canopy. At the pump house (please do not forget to register) you will enjoy the silence only broken by the sporadic water bird or monkey. After the fence of the pump house erected in 2002 you will have to find the old track which follows the bank of the reservoir. At the dam you descend into the gully which only carries water in the rainy season. Most of the trees along the dammed stream are non-endemic like the green variety of the yellow bamboo (bambusa vulgaris) and the teak trees (Tectona grandis) unmistakable with their hugh leaves, Depending on the season either providing a green house effect, coloring the forest green with sunlight or attracting attention to their presence on the ground by loud cracking under your shoes.

For the hikers using the shortest way to the reservoir there are two important turns to find. After leaving Pugu Hills and following the fire break to the south, the first turn off (into the forest) is at the gully (some 10to 15 minutes from Pugu Hills), which has been dammed upstream. By following the track along the gully which you will keep on your right for the first half you will end up at the water reservoir. The second turn is under the teak trees where three tracks divert from the main track of which the one to the right is followed until you actually end up in the gully. You will immediately after the turn to the right find some abandoned pits for pit-sawing. Follow the gully until the tracks climbs up at the right-bank which will bring you to the dam (Please register at the pump house) click for map

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The cave is reached from the pump house (water reservoir hike) following the the reservoir upstream. The track follows the stream on its north bank. Some matured specimen of Millettia puguensis (click for image) can be seen along this track. An opening in the shrubs and logs for crossing the valley should be looked for, after which the track continues on the opposite bank. In the worst case you will have here a mud bath. When you climb up the bank on the other side you will find a path cut in the slopes claiomed to be from (German) colonial times which leads to the cave. Do not climb up the bedrock which spans the valley because you will miss the cave which is at your right hidden under the slab. Please leave all the rosewater and fanta bottles like you found them because they are sacrifises. The water trickling from under the rock feeds the water reservoir and you can taste its salty taste. click for map

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The New View Point is some 40 minutes from Pugu Hills Centre. The view point, which is providing a view from the University in North, the Indian Ocean stretching to the south-east, to the Tazara Railway disappearing between the hills towards Mbeya in the south-west, is the result of the construction of a communication tower of the Tazara Railway Authorities. Selected is the top of the eastern hill at the south end of the forest reserve (appr. 260 m. above sea level) click for map . There are four watchmen guarding the tower in shifts and Pugu Hills has promised them some "tip"(posho) if they also guard the few remaining tall trees along the steep track to the view point. This should not discourage you from also providing them with some incentive for controlling their and others temptations to cut those few remaining "money-makers" being the last remains of the old forest.

The way to the New View Point is easy to find, you follow the fire break up to the end of the forest reserve in the south and than continue in western direction until the fire break starts a steep descend. Here are two tracks into the forest (to the right) where the communication cables were laid. Only some 300 m. are left of which the last 100 are very steep if you take the right path, but more gently climbing with the left one.

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For those hikers concerned about the future of Pugu Forest which is dissappearing at a frightening pace, a hike to a recent cleared charcoal site will give a shocking impression of the pace in which the remaining old stand of trees is dealt with. The area is close to the TAZARA radio tower and it takes about 1.5 hour to get there with a steep ascend at the end of the hike, which is however rewarded with a beautiful view on dar es salaam and its surroundings.

Guests who are also concerned about the loss of Pugu Forest are welcome to contribute any ideas or join forces with our efforts together with naturalists from the University of Dar es Salaam and Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania to stop the imminent destruction of the Pugu Forest, by alarming the Mininstry of Natural Resources that a different approach for conservation of these unique forests (Pugu and Kazimzumbwi) is urgently required, while all previous efforts have not been able to reverse the increasing pace of destruction

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Both reachable by car (as far as you can get) or by foot is the bat cave which has been dug in the Pugu Hills for mining of Kaolin clay used for medicine, porcelaine and paper filling. At sunset thousands of bats come out and their droppings are sold as manure.

Hiking to the cave from Pugu Hills is 1.5 to 2 hours (one way). By car the hiking can be reduced to half an hour.

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According to Mr. Mwasumbi a former lecturer of the University of Dar es Salaam, there is an old German Trail around the water reservoir of which a part is used when arriving at the cave. Clearly cut out in the slope of the Pugu Hills the major sections of the track are overgrown and impassable. In future with the instensifying efforts to use the Forest for more recreational purposes reopening of the track should be considered, as an historical site of interest for nature lovers aswell.

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