Ian had his best day of hiking yet, climbing the full four hours to the top of the ridge and back down all by himself with no help and no complaining - and it wasn't an easy trail! .
The scenery was terrific; we ambled through homesteads with fish ponds, turkeys, beautiful fields fill of a variety of vegetables and grains, lovely rural huts painted beautifully, even a grape arbor. .
This seemed like a good place to live: less oppressive heat than in the lowlands, abundant water, lower prevelance of malaria..
The contrast from one side to the other along the frontier ridge was stark: on the Zimbabwe side, plantations of pine eucalyptus trees, a large, neatly laid out and built village, a general sense of order and development, whereas on the Mozambique side, rough mountains, simple scattered housing, and "bush." (You can see a little bit of Zimbabwe in the right side of the group photo - the dark green swath is a pine plantation; Mozambique is to the left.)Theo loved the hike, making barely a noise the whole time. I carried him a sling, and he slept peacefully all the way up and all the way down, just waking to take in the view at the top of the ridge.
