Finding Flattop

Internet access in Uganda stinks. What would one expect. At least I’ve had it. It can take upwards of 20-30 minutes to load one page.

Day 6

We made it to Kampala a large city of a little more than a million to replenish food stock and stage for our drive towards a gorilla trek. We pull into a supermarket complex and I find myself wandering through the isles of a very modern store larger than any super Walmart or Sam’s Club I’ve ever seen. For a moment I felt like I was back in the states and not in Africa. A nice surprise.

Since we are in a somewhat civilized city I take the time to find a Chiropractor and end up at local hospital. On the taxi ride to the hospital numerous impressions ran through my head of what weird scenario I might be entering. The experience turned out to be quite pleasant though. Luckily the hospital was clean neat and appeared very modern from the outside, lobby, and rooms I saw. The admission process was fast and efficient. The doctor turns out is the first chiropractor to practice in Uganda and there are only three in the entire country. He’s a native but was educated in the UK. Maybe it’s because I was a foreigner or maybe he’s that slow, I’m not sure. He spent an hour chatting with me exchanging information about a varied array of topics and it felt more like I was having a conversation with a buddy than at a hospital waiting for an adjustment. Anyway, it’s been a huge blessing to get adjusted and my back has been thanking me for days.

Day 7 – 8

We drove for 12 hours over bumpy teeth chattering roads to reach Lake Buyoni in the southwestern area of Uganda near the Rwanda and Congo borders.

Lake Buyoni is stunning to take in. The mountainous area is covered by lush tropical green plants. The lake is fairly narrow with a snaky coastline creating numerous picturesque views with a dozen or more small islands scattered throughout the lake. At 6500 ft deep it’s hard to image the underwater terrain when it appears at it’s widest it’s probably only a quarter mile.

Sam and I rent a Mokoro to explore the lake further. A Mokoro is a large tree trunk hallowed out to make a canoe. We quickly find out sitting in a log refines ones balance as it’s extremely tippy still. Paddling straight proves to be just as challenging as the bottom of the canoe is whatever shape the log is and the water flow makes us go in left hand circles. While others in our group give up trying, Sam and I figure out a balancing paddling act which produces a reasonably straight line and head for one of the nearby islands with the highest peak.

The island is green mostly with a variety of crops farmed by locals living on the island. It’s astonishing we are in an extremely remote area with limited facilities to begin with and there are people even more isolated living in mud huts completely self sufficient. As we hike towards the peak cutting through terraced fields three kids approach cautiously. It’s cute and endearing as they appear to be excited yet somewhat scared. They’re giggling and speaking in hushed whispering hiding behind bushes sneaking peaks at us. Waving and saying hi returns laughter and waves. We’re as much an attraction for them as they are to us. Sam has a chocolate bar and offers them some. They step out from their hiding spot and cautiously creep toward us and I feel like we are trying to coax a wild animal with food to come closer. Once close enough they snatch a piece of candy and immediately retreat. It’s obvious they are not sure what it is as they place a square in the palm of there hands and lick it with delight disappearing quickly. We summit the island peak a few minutes later to absorb a wondrous vista and a few minutes later more kids show up. Uh oh, the words out and we end up divvying the last of the candy to the half dozen kids far more courageous than the initial three.

The group splits up and goes to two different locations so that we might all be able to go on a gorilla trek in the next couple days. Myself and four others head to Nkuringo an exceptionally remote village another three hours from Lake Buyoni. To get here we pile into a small mini van and drive over boulder filled roads covered in a powdery dust as fine as flour. By the time we arrive so much dust has seeped into the van there is a half inch covering our bags and I’m covered from head to toe and look like I’ve crawled out of a vat of brown flour.

Day 9 -10

Our itinerary since the start has been laid out so that we can make it to the remote Biwindi National Park, known as the Impenetrable Forest. This forest is home to half the worlds population of mountain gorillas. There are around 700 gorillas world wide and around 320 live here.

Gorillas live in family packs with one dominate male and move through the forest with their leader. There are 30 different families within Biwindi 8 of which are tracked daily. The other 22 are tracked with a census every 5 years by the Ugandan government. The government sells permits to tourist allowing small groups each day to go along with the trackers to visit the gorillas. Hence why our group was split up so that everyone could do a trek to a different family. Gorillas have been heavily hunted and poached and the program is a conservation effort funded by the likes of me and other tourist willing to shell over the hefty price of $500, by far the most expensive activity I’ll be doing all year. The program was started in the early 2000’s and they have documented a 17% increase in population since that time.

They send a couple trackers into the forest ahead of us to locate where the gorillas where sited the day before. Their job is to track the gorillas movement through footprints, droppings, left over food, and broken branches and report back to our guides so we can cut through the forest more direct to get to them. A half hour into our hike we quickly discover why it’s called the impenetrable forest. We’re climbing, not hiking, nearly vertical slopes with 80-90 degree inclines covered in dense jungle foliage. Branches, head high weeds, vines, and other foliage are interlaced creating a cobweb like barrier everywhere you turn. It’s so thick there isn’t a sign of the sky. Fortunately, our guides have machetes and hack a slow arduous path so we can climb, pull, crawl, and or wiggle our way through.

Two hours into the hike/climb we’re exhausted, dripping sweat, and I can feel my heartbeat racing from all the excursion. We’ve located the Nshongi gorilla family, a pack of 34 gorillas, the largest family in the forest. At first we can hear some of them grunting and rustling bushes. They’re only a few feet away yet the forest is so thick we can’t see them. As we move closer my first sighting is a baby gorilla sliding down a tree like a fireman sliding down a fire pole. We continue to move closer as the guides chop pull and do whatever they can to remove some of the forest cover from where one of the gorillas is sitting picking and eating leaves. We spend the next hour and half crawling around pulling back branches and foliage to get a good view of any of the gorillas. While we’re only sometimes a couple feet away there are branches and vines interlaced through every view making it very difficult for any of us to get good photographs. (fortunately between all of us we ended up with a few good ones). On a couple occasions we get too close and the gorillas charge. The silverback leader roars nashing it’s teeth pounding the ground with its fist only a few feet in front of us while Jarrod who was in front ducks and runs back several feet, just what he’s not supposed to do. We laugh and make fun of him as our guides had instructed us if they charge to stand still and not look them in the eye. A few moments later another of the larger ones stands up pounds it chest with a thunderous scream and a chilling fear runs down your spine

The second day in Nkuringo the other part of our group goes on the gorilla trek and has a completely different experience. The wonders of nature. They only have to trek about 20 minutes and find the gorillas in an open field and not covered by vines, no charging or large roars, just the family sitting around doing nothing for an hour, however it provided them with wonderful photo ops. Thus when I’m able to post I’ll probably use some of theirs.

While the other group was off trekking we go for a drive and randomly stop in a small remote village looking for something to eat. We order cokes and some bread like balls available at the ram-shackled store here. While sitting outside we become the attraction of this village and every local stands a few feet away looking at us strangely in a standoffish way. We notice one guy is working carrying rocks on a his head from a pile down the hill and is dropping them into a trench dug next to the store building placing the foundation for an expansion to the building. We jump in to help and start carrying rocks on our heads and the mood changes to laughter and fun. Next thing you know the other dozen or so men standing around watching us and one guy work join in as we’ve shamed the village into helping and it becomes a competition to see who can carry the biggest heaviest rock on their head. An hour later what would have taken the guy all day to do by himself the foundation trenches are filled. We’re the hit of a lifetime for this village and get pictures with everyone. Having gotten their address, I wish I could be there when they receive the pictures I’m going to mail to them. I’m pretty sure they’ll be the only photographs anyone in the village has.

Day 11-13

Now that our gorilla treks are complete it’s a long haul of hundreds of miles of driving to backtrack and get back to Nairobi to drop off some folks and pick up others to set off again. The past couple days have been filled with 12 hours in the truck and it’s given me the chance to catch up with writing. We stopped briefly at the equator to get pics standing in two hemispheres and moved on to spend the night in Kampala and in a beautiful campsite in Eldoret, Kenya. We’re now on our way to Lake Naivasha for the night and tomorrow will be back in Nairobi.

Day 14

Lake Naivasha is filled with over a thousand hippos and we took a boat ride to explore the lake and I had the wonderful opportunity to see dozens of hippos up close and personal from singles hanging alone to packs of a dozen or more.

I’m now back in Nairobi for a couple down days to do luandry and wait for new folks to show up before we take off on safari to Masi Mari

Day 1-3

Jambo! Hello in Swahili

I successfully made it to Nairobi for a couple days of down time before starting a 58 day safari across southeastern Africa. My post will probably be infrequent as internet access here is limited and speeds are exceptionally slow.

My trip through Africa is with Acacia Africa www.acacia-africa.com Attached here is on overview of the itinerary. This is an overland trip, meaning it’s camping and participation trip. All participants on the tour are expected to participate on a rotational basis from cooking, cleaning, setting up, and taking down camp.

At the pre-departure meeting I met the tour leader, Michelle, a small petite Australian lady (I doubt she’s even 80 lbs) which has been leading tours for seven years through Africa. She’s a small petite package and a spit fire full of energy and passion for the wild. In two days time I can tell we’re gonna have the time of our lives with her as a guide. Letaloi, our driver is Kenyan from the Masi tribe. He looks more like a Jamaican with dreadlocks. While reserved and quite he is a trove of information about local customs etc.

At this stage there are 10 travelers in addition to myself on tour. Only two others, a couple, Lachy and Amanda from Australia are doing the entire tour with me. Sam, a Brit, is my tent mate and he has been on tour for 6 weeks doing my itinerary in reverse and is on his last two weeks of travel. It’s exciting and fun to chat with him as he’s just completed what we’ll be doing and his foaming excitement is quite contagious. Neil and Leslie, from New Zealand are along for two weeks and they had so much fun traveling with Acacia a few years ago this is their second time on tour. Jerrod and Evelyn are Australian however they live in the UAE and are here for a couple weeks as well. Patricia, from Holland, is along for two weeks, more interesting we find she works as a chimpanzee care taker in a refuge facility. David and Emma are Australian but live in London and are along for three weeks. They’re both cardiac technicians and we should be good if anyone has heart problems from our adventures.

Our first day goes straight into the bush in what is considered a small African Park. Lake Nakuru is spread across a valley floor for dozens of miles with the coastline of the lake populated by two million pink flamingos creating a pink fringe as far as the eye can see down the valley. A pungent stench fills the air from all the guano created by eating 50 tons of algae a day. We witness a kill as a stork like looking bird swoops in and stomps on a Flamingo. Nature at it’s rawest form. I wish it where a lion taking something down though. Flocks of Pink Pelicans fly over landing near by. I never knew there was such a think as a pink pelican. Pelicans at home are quite ugly in caparison.

Our campsite lunch stop brings dozens of monkeys lurking jumping from tree to tree surrounding us onlooking like a pack of begging dogs looking for a handout. Everyone is on hi alert as these mischievous cute buggers won’t think twice about sneakily stealing our food.

We continue for a full day of safari driving through Lake Nakuru park where we encounter countless amounts of wildlife. Gazelle’s, Giraffe, Antelope, Buffalo, Warthogs, Jackel’s, Black Rhino’s, White Rhino’s, Monkey’s, Baboons, and Zebras. Topping out the day as we are about finished with Safari we come across a rocky cliff face with three female lions sunning themselves perched just above us in a picturesque scene reminding me of The Lion King.

We bush camp for the first night setting up our tent camp next to a small hill on one side and a river nearby on the other. There are no facilities here and we are in the open with the wild. We sit around a campfire drinking Kenya’s most popular beer, Tusker, exchanging stories and backgrounds getting to know each other. What a rewarding and magical experience I get to enjoy several more times. I can only imagine what friendships will be bound by collectively sharing this time together.

I’m going to have a hard time adjusting as I love sleeping in, however it’s up early at or before the crack of dawn to discover baboons sitting in and around our campsite with buffalo on the hillside just above us. Wow what great photo ops I’m not going to be able to share for some time due to lack of quality internet.

We’re on the truck for a long day of bumpy driving over partially finished roads filled with potholes heading for Uganda for the next week of adventure before returning to Kenya. In the hundreds of miles we’ve already driven looking over fields and small local hut communities excitement from children is apparent. There isn’t a busload of schools kids or kids along the road that don’t grin, wiggle, run along, and wave excitedly as we pass. What’s their overflowing excitement? Is it because we’re white or are they just this energetic? Letaloi, our driver, shares how he remembers seeing a white person for the first time as a child and the awe it brought. Are we the first any of these kids has seen? I’ve never waved so much.

My back is killing me as my thoracic spine is out and I’m wondering if I’ll be able to find a chiropractor for a quick adjustment anytime in the near future. Of more concern however is my camera. Smoke puffs out the cracks of the camera with a scent of electrical burning if I use the flash. I love Cannon, but if this one goes it’ll be the second Cannon to implode on me while traveling. There’s not much I can do at this stage, so I’m going to do my best of avoiding taking pictures in darker environments.

Day 4

We crossed the border of Uganda yesterday and very quickly the topography changes to lush tropical green and the dirt is a deep red. There is limited traffic or cars on the road and most people are either walking or riding bikes. A local offered Patricia 4 cows and a goat to have her for 4 years while we where crossing the border. Letaloi says women are expensive and thus he is single. It will take at least 10 cows for him to secure a wife.

Our stop is at a camp grounds (Nile River Explorers) in Jinja, the city where the Nile river begins. Most of the group choose to go white water rafting on the Nile, me included. I’ve been rafting numerous times in my life and have loved it each time. The Nile however is the best to date I’ve ever traversed. We went through a dozen class five rapids capsizing the raft on most of them and another dozen class 3 and 4’s. Words cannot describe the rush of being pummeled wave after wave having the raft flip end over end.

Day 5

We spent today volunteering for Soft Power Education, a British non profit group setup by a former tour group leader of overland safari trips through Africa. www.softpowereducation.com In the ten or so years the organization has been around they have established 27 schools in the Jinja area. Uganda is primarily an agricultural country where the average women has 7 children and mortality is in ones 50’s. Most people live in tin roofed homes, some grass thatched, built with sticks and red mud. The established education system is very basis and most children go with no schooling. Soft Power is now teaching 3000 kids and turns down ten times that due to capacity. One teacher has about 120 kids, and we worry about classroom size. In general, it’s a very poor country and the exchange rate is 2200 shillings to the dollar. It’s odd to take a quarter million out of an ATM and it only be just over a hundred bucks.

Our job at one of the schools was painting one of the buildings and with 11 of us we finished the inside and out in record time. What an education to see how basic lives these people have. Most children have no shoes. All the girls shave their heads like the boys because they do not have the means to take care of longer hair. The kids are amazing. They have nothing yet they beam with joy to see us. They run into the yard screaming, yelling, waving, and surround us. Pick one up to toss them in the air and you have a dozen lined up right behind them waiting for the same ride. It’s shocking to see that while they have virtually nothing they are exceptionally happy. Such a basic life and they are fulfilled. Why do kids that have so much in America lack the same level of enthusiasm that oozes through the pours of these kids?

The kids drag all of us into one of the classes where we each have two or three kids sitting on our laps while we sit at bench style seating with a blackboard and teacher at the front. There are no books, paper, or pencils. Soft Power is teaching different than I would have expected. They are teaching some of the basics I would expect but mostly life skills to these kids as they will not get it anywhere else. They are teaching the use of talking over violence, basic hygiene from such things as washing ones hands to making and using pads for menstruation, agriculture and how to plant in a way to produce better and larger quantity of crops, ways to make natural pesticides from locally obtained items, arts and crafts such as sowing, basket weaving etc so some might be able to use that as a profession, and pregnancy along with STD’s and how to avoid them. They teach equally to girls and boys in the hopes that these young minds will share the knowledge with brothers, sisters, parents etc. Very few children will make it past a 5th or 6th year education as they will then be working to farm land for their family.

The school prepared us lunch today and we had our first real local meal. Stewed goat with potatoes, beans, and something called pop. Pop is made from maiz some sort of corn type product. It’s mashed and fried and makes a pancake type texture but taste more like plain rice. We get plates but no silverware and eat with our hands. If anyone is getting sick we all are. However it’s well cooked and hot so we think we are safe.

At the end of the school day kids are let out and a football (soccer) game of the kids against us is organized. What a hoot for us to run around with the best players at the school on the field and the other hundred or so lined up around the field cheering on their classmates as they pretty much run circles around us.

We leave the school and it’s satisfying to know we helped in a minor way, yet there is so much more need. The emotions are almost overpowering. It’s been an exceptionally rewarding experience and I’m sooo glad this is part of the trip. Some of the kids faces and eyes I interacted with will forever be imprinted on my memory.

We make it back to camp before sunset and all of us feeling renewed and fortunate we set out for some adventure and bungee jump over the Nile river to top off a wonderful day. While the experience of steeping off a platform plunging 120 feet to have your head and neck dip into the water was exhilarating my mind keeps going back to the day spent with the kids. I’m a self proclaimed non-kid person and I find myself enamored by these kids and my heart goes out to them.

I hope anyone reading this takes the time to look into Soft Power and considers helping them out. From what I’ve seen they need all the volunteers and financial assistance they can get as the need is vastly greater than their current resources.

Tomorrow we get to sleep in as we only have a short drive to our next stop, Kampala.