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eCard #116 – Toodling Around Uganda
I had organized a car and driver/guide to take me around to some of the national parks in Uganda after hiking in the Rwenzori Mountains (eCard #115). I used local (Kampala) agent Churchill’s Tailored Safaris – great front-end experience via email and WhatsApp with Ether (EHT-air) putting together an itinerary.
Having bailed out of the mountains trip unexpectedly early, Ether was able to extend my itinerary at the front end very quickly. (It was the low season for tourists.) What was originally a look at the national parks in the southwest of the country became a grand tour. Brighton, picked me up the in the expedition Landcruiser the day after I returned to Kasese from the mountains, and off we went.
The pics on flickr are in two albums:
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part I
I’ve never hired a guide just for me alone for any period of time, so I thought it was going to be a bit weird. The potential weirdness was compounded when checking into the Buffalo Safari Resort in Queen Elizabeth National Park it became apparent that I was the only guest there . It’s a really nice place, and was staffed for a full house. I had the impression that everyone were recent graduates of hospitality training and anxious to put their skills into practice. Four people checked me in, three showed me my room, etc.
This lodge (as for most places I stayed) was within the national park boundaries. There were mongoose and monkeys outside my room. Elephant poo on the walkway. I was instructed to call for an escort to/from my room between 7PM and 7AM. He carried a big flashlight, swinging it around checking the brush on either side of the walk, and he carried a big billy club. I’m not sure what use a billy club is against a charging elephant, but I felt safe. At least he didn’t carry an AK47.
After lunch we headed off for the first game drive of the trip. I told Brighton that I had been to Africa in 2000 for six months and saw many animals, but never saw a leopard (one of the BIG FIVE – lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo). As all guides do, he made no promises, but said we would have several chances to see them on our trip. We hit the road about 3:30PM. At 4:10 we saw the first lion of the trip relaxing from the heat in the branches of a tree. At 4:45 we saw a leopard in a candelabra tree. And at 4:50 saw a second leopard in another tree… Um. Wow! There were loads of elephants, a few hippos and countless antelope-like critters. Not a bad first afternoon.
The overly attentive service didn’t end with check-in. I was told that meals were a fixed menu since the kitchen would be cooking just for me. No problem, I’m easy. Then the waitress listed several choices of appetizer and five choices for the main course for dinner. The meals were superb.
Some of the best food I’ve ever had. Anywhere.
And it wasn’t just due the elephant poo ambience. We were only here for two nights, but I could have luxuriated between the dining room and the pool looking across the valley to the Rwenzori Mountains for quite some time.
Geologic Digression
The valley I looked across to the Rwenzoris is a rift valley. Normally we hear about tectonic plates crashing into each other, either pushing ground up to form mountains (like where the Indian plate crashes northward into the Eurasian plate forming the Himalayas), or where plates slide along or under one another – fault lines and subduction zones like the west coast of the Americas forming chains of uplifted mountains and volcanoes. And all this gnashing of plates generates earthquakes.
Rifts occur where the tectonic plates are pulling apart. As they pull apart they make the crust thinner leaving lowlands between them, and this also allows volcanoes to appear (Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya are on the Eastern African rift). Iceland is still forming this way – it’s at the northern end of Mid-Atlantic Ridge – the separation line of the continuing expansion between the North and South American plates as they pull apart from the Eurasian and African plates.
As a rift valley expands, water intrudes to form lakes and further expansion results in outlets to the sea, or a sea forms. The Atlantic Ocean is the end result of this process. In east Africa this process is in a younger phase (only 20 million years old). The East African Rift extends for almost 6000km and has formed a chain of lakes – The Great Lakes of Africa.
The other Great Lakes are in North America. There are interesting comparisons. The most striking for me is that the lakes in Africa contain 25% of the unfrozen fresh water in the world. The N. American lakes contain 21% (though I don’t think that number includes the Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in Canada).
- Homework: What are the biggest fresh water lakes in the world in terms of surface area? Volume? Depth?
- Hint 1: One lake holds all three records.
- Hint 2: It’s not in Africa.
- Hint 3: It’s not in New Hampshire.
- Hint 4: In area it’s about 50% larger than New Hampshire.
(Reader Jim L. told me I was a frustrated teacher. That may well be. But my only frustration is with the quality of my students 🙂 )
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part II
QENP is on the floor of the western part of the East African Rift Valley – The Albertine Rift Valley (I guess named for it’s proximity to Lake Albert). It’s elevation is low, and it’s on the equator. It’s hot. If not for the vegetation beyond the poolside umbrellas, you could see the 20 mile long Kazinga Channel from the pool at the lodge. This is a natural waterway connecting Lake George and Lake Edward. (Lake Albert is farther north near Murchison Falls.)
The next morning we did a drive paralleling the channel that took us through an area of low volcanic craters. Some of them contain saline lakes, and there is a minor salt industry collecting it. We passed a large herd of elephant in the distance hanging around near the water. (Suggested collective nouns for elephants include herd, parade, memory, trunkful, tusker. For hippos you can use bloat, herd, pod or crash, though I prefer to use “crash” for rhinos. For Tibetan momos I suggest “belch”.)
We turned around in the small town of Katwe after watching a bloat of hippos in the water. One female hippo was floating in the water dead, and several young hippos kept approaching her body and nudging it.
That afternoon I took a boat trip up and down a small section of the channel and saw elephants, hippos, and buffalo from the water. An iguana was prowling the shore for crocodile eggs. We didn’t see any Nile crocs.
There were a few colorful birds. My dad was an avid birder, and I know my folks came to Africa at least once to extend his list, but they didn’t make it to Uganda. There are 1000 native species in the country, plus about 200 varieties that migrate here from the European winter.
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part III
Moving south to the Ishasha section of the park we did afternoon and morning game drives. The park is noted for seeing lions lounging in branches of the big fig trees. We went to all the fig trees Brighton knew of and didn’t see any lions. Didn’t really matter. It’s a pretty place. We saw some topi and a distant view of the big volcano, Mt. Muhabura, on the Rwandan border.
From Ishasha we had a long drive south and a climb in altitude away from the floor of the rift valley to the cool environs of Lake Mulehe which would be the base for a mountain gorilla trek.
One of the striking things about Uganda is how green it is. It’s incredibly lush, though a bit drier on the floor of the rift valley. But in the hills we’re talking Garden of Eden lush. Brighton declared, “Uganda is a poor country, but no one starves because there’s food everywhere!” This was certainly true in the southwest (definitely not true in the northeast…). Bananas are the staple food crop, and coffee and tea the major cash crops. You also see a lot of cassava/manioc growing.
Lake Mulehe Gorilla Lodge was perched on the south facing slopes above the lake with a great view of Mts. Muhabura and Mgahinga. This was the third lodge I stayed in, but the first place that had other guests.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Returning to Uganda I absolutely had to see the mountain gorillas again. My previous visit in 2000 (eCard #9) ranked as the number one or two best hour-long experiences ever. It’s always a risk to go back to a place to try to re-live an experience. It’s usually different and not as great. And I suppose in the intervening 24 years I’ve become a bit jaded in my travels, and not apt to gush enthusiastic without good reason. But I do have to say being in the wild with large wild animals that can easily kill you is a thrill. Even if they are habituated to humans. So this trip, though different in details, was no different in the experience.
This year I saw the gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, and we saw a small family with one silver back, a couple of females and a few juveniles. In 2000 I saw them in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park just a bit farther south right on the border with Rwanda – a group comprised of two big silver backs, females, juveniles and a 3 month old baby. It’s difficult to see them in the dense foliage, but that makes it more fun.
The old eCard noted that we got to within about 15 feet of the animals. Although the sign at the briefing hut says you have to stay 10m away, this time we were within just a few feet of them. At one point the tracking guide had lost track of the big silver back in the dense foliage, and he came rushing past me just a few feet away. Wowzers!
I mentioned in eCard #9 that I shot “several” rolls of film in the hour we had with the gorillas. So that’d be 108 photos (actually a few less). In the hour with the gorillas this year, now armed with a digital camera, I took a hasty 700 pictures and a couple of videos. I took no selfies.
I’ve posted photos from both visits on flickr
On to Murchison Falls National Park
From Lake Mulehe we had a long drive to Murchison Falls which is north of the Rwenzoris. We drove up and down the hilly terrain of the region with one final look back to the volcanoes marching south. The drive was broken up over a couple of days with one night spent on Lake Bunyonyi.
The standout sight on the lake commemorates a milestone in the subjugation of women. Punishment Island is where unmarried girls who became pregnant were abandoned to starve or to drown trying to escape. Single men unable to afford the bride price for an “untainted” woman could rescue them.
Pressing on, we were back to the heat of the rift valley, and we didn’t leave the heat for the rest of the trip.
All the water in the Nile River as it flows north out of Lake Victoria squeezes through a 20 foot wide cleft in a rock escarpment as it drops 150 feet, creating Murchison Falls. I took a boat trip up the Nile to view the falls. Unfortunately, we didn’t get as close as I would have liked, but there was quite a bit of wildlife to see enroute. After the boat trip, Brighton drove us to the top of the falls for the view from above.
The national park is a huge place, and on the game drives we saw many giraffes, elephants, hartebeest, patas monkeys, and baboons. Off in the distance we saw three lions hanging around in the shade, but no leopards.
A Long Jaunt to Karamoja and the Kadepo Valley
Departing Murchison, it was a two day drive to the remote Kadepo Valley National Park in Karamoja – the far northeastern corner of Uganda near the borders of South Sudan and Kenya. This wasn’t on my original itinerary, and I wasn’t too sure what there was to see here.
Security
I have an annual subscription to Global Rescue who will pull you out of a bad situation. I have this for mountain rescue. It is possible to buy coverage from them for extraction for security reasons. I don’t have that coverage, though perhaps I should get it. I generally don’t pay too much attention to travel advisories. But for some reason I felt the need to look up the Uganda “Destination Report” on their app to find out about Uganda:
“Risk Overview. The risk rating for Uganda is High due to a Moderate security risk rating and an Extreme health risk rating.”
So far, so good.
“The northeastern region, especially Karamoja, should be avoided due to banditry and weak law enforcement. The western border with the DRC is unstable.”
Glad I didn’t read this before leaving home! Just for kicks I checked the US State Department Travel Advisory. Uganda is “Level 3 – Reconsider Travel.” Too late, now. It lists general threats due to terrorism and crime, “… especially in the Karamoja region, and along Uganda’s western and northern borders.” Um, that would be Congo and South Sudan – where I was and where I’m going.
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office is responsible for issuing travel advisories for the UK. They are typically less hysterical than the US State Department (Brits tend to think of insecure areas as discount travel opportunities), so I checked to see what they had to say.
“FCDO advises against all but essential travel to: (among other places) Queen Elizabeth National Park.” Ooopsie. “There is an increased security presence in north-east Uganda in the Karamoja sub-region due to cattle theft. Military and civilians have been killed during security operations.” Hmmm.
I raised my concern with Brighton. “No, it’s very safe.”
“Oh. OK, then. Let’s go.”
Kadepo Valley National Park
During the drive we passed many traditional homesteads. Typically there’s a large central circular building made of sticks and mud with a thatched roof. This would be the residence of the first wife. Subsequent wives have smaller versions built around the center home. The compound may be surrounded by a thicket fence so cattle can be kept securely. A man’s income is dependent on the wives, for you see, the men generally don’t work. Wives make you rich. Unless you make the mistake of taking a wife in the city where she’ll end up costing you money, I’m told. I was thinking these people may have hit on it, but then I realized the fatal flaw in the arrangement. Marriage.
We stayed in a tent lodge overlooking Kadepo Valley with hills forming the border with Kenya and South Sudan off in the distance. My tent had ensuite facilities, but no phone. On the night stand there was a whistle I could blow in case of emergency…
It was hot and dry here. We were at the tail end of the dry season in Karamoja. The animals were suffering from it as the water sources were drying up. We did see many elephants and a huge herd of buffalo, hippos, zebra, giraffe, a group of wombats (collective noun “mob”) with a predator hyena eyeing them, and we also stumbled on a group of eland – very skittish and hard to get close to. No lions. No leopards.
My camera shut down one afternoon. This happens occasionally for some unknown reason, but it usually comes back up with a reboot. But it was out for the count one afternoon. At about the same time Brighton’s phone stopped working. We were in the shade, but supposed that the heat was causing the electronics to shut down. I looked up the specs for my camera that evening, and Sony says the max operable temp range is 40C/104F. It was hot, but I would have thought the camera would have been designed to operate a bit warmer than that…
I thought back to other hot experiences. Traveling in Xinjiang province in western China, John and I were visiting the ruins of Gaochang in the Turfan depression – the low point of Asia. It was 50C/122F. I looked down to read a map, and the lenses to my glasses fell out – the metal rims had expanded in the heat. I think the hottest temp I’ve experienced was in Death Valley in California. The temp was reported as 130F/54C. I came back to the campground one evening after being out all day, and I remarked to the ranger that it had really cooled off. He said, “Yeah. It’s only 105 now.”
Moroto and the Karamaojong
We split the two day drive to Kampala/Entebbe by spending the night in Moroto and visited a traditional Karamojong village. The whole northeast was very dry. Farming and agriculture look pretty difficult. The region is very flat except for a few mountains and rocky outcroppings that appear. There were signs for every international aid agency you could think of announcing their projects and involvement in the area. So although it might be true that no one in the southwest of Uganda starves, it is not true in the northeast.
The Karamojong people are actually several different tribes and descendants of the same stock of people who left Ethiopia a long time ago and became known as the Masai in Tanzania. Like the Masai, the Karamojong are semi-nomadic cattle herders. Their other main economic activity is cattle rustling. Your wealth is measured directly in how many head of cattle you own (indirectly by how many wives you have), and you need cattle to pay a bride price – typically 100 cows. This activity often involves murder, so it gives people the opportunity to form tight family circles and feuds.
A flood of guns became available when Idi Amin’s army fell into disarray in the late 1970’s. This transformed the traditional form of rustling using spears into a much more deadly pastime. Starting in 2011 the Ugandan government began disarming the locals and crime and violence has declined. Unfortunately, Kenya is just a stone’s throw away and they have not disarmed their tribes, so there is some cross-border rustling and the associated violence that continues. But there is a fairly large Ugandan military presence trying to keep things under wraps.
Our local Karamojong guide told us that a couple of years ago one of the richest men in the area was killed. He had 36 wives and an equally impressive number of cattle. His herd had been the target of rustlers, so he and his son got some military personnel (he was rich, so had influence) to confront the thieves and was killed along with his son and their escort. Hence the recent travel warnings.
This is the process for getting a wife. After the girl gets pregnant (I think I missed a step), the boy in the company of his friends has to slaughter a sheep at the entrance to her family’s compound. The girl’s family somehow accept this as a down payment for their daughter. The girl then builds two separate houses within the family compound, but somewhat isolated from the rest of the household. One house is for her and the other one for the boy and his friends when they come to visit. When the baby arrives, he’s expected to give her parents a few cows and 40 goats. Finally, when he can come up with 100 cows he can claim her as his wife.
But there’s a potential snag. Anyone else who can come up with 100 cows can come and take her at any time, though he also has to take the child under his care. So there’s a bit of an incentive to steal those cows in order to move the process along. In many societies it is seen as advantageous to have sons. You can see that in this culture daughters are preferred so you can trade them for cows. So I guess if there’s an unmarried girl with a female baby, she’s likely to be snapped up.
Jinja and Entebbe
Continuing the drive to Jinja, the region became more and more green. I wondered why the nomadic Karamojong didn’t migrate just a few hours south so they didn’t have to depend on foreign aid to survive.
Jinja is where the Nile river starts, flowing out of Lake Victoria. There used to be rapids here, but a hydroelectric plant was built in the 1950’s which submerged them. The reliable electricity has made Jinja the industrial hub of Uganda.
So you come here to see the source of the Nile. It’s pretty underwhelming, actually. And Entebbe is the suburb of Kampala where the airport is. It was the scene of the Israeli raid to free some hostages hijacked in an Air France flight in the 1970’s. When I was here in 2000 there were plans to convert the remains of the plane into a cafe, but this never happened. It’s still sitting around, having been stripped of everything but it’s outer skin.
eCard #115 – The Mountains of the Moon
Hiking in the Rwenzoris
Back to Uganda after a 20 year absence. My goal this time was to nab Mts. Emin and Gessi – by my reckoning the 7th and 8th highest summits in Africa – for my “7 7ths by 70” quest. (Different altitude reports put one or the other at 7th…).
OK. I knew it was going to be muddy. There are two dry seasons in Uganda , though “dry” is a very elastic term. One dry spell runs from November-ish until the end of March-ish. The other is in June/July. I was late putting this trip together and couldn’t leave the states until the 2nd of March. I was hoping this would squeeze me in before the wet season began. That may or may not have been the case – all the locals I talked to said the rainy season hadn’t begun. But it was a wet dryness.
I’ve posted some pics here on flickr.
But I’m getting ahead of myself….
We’re going to the Rwenzori mountains in Uganda. In the 4th C. BC Greek philosopher Diogenes wrote of the mythical Mountains of the Moon which were said to be the source of the Nile in East Africa. They remained unknown to Europeans until 1889 when Henry Morton Stanley (of “Dr. Livingston I presume” fame) is credited as being the first to see them. They do indeed provide some waters to the Nile, though it is a trickle compared to the water flowing out of Lake Victoria. Still, they are the highest source of water in the Nile.
The Rwenzoris straddle the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Zaire). In Uganda the mountains form the core of Rwenzori Mountains National Park which is fairly accessible. In the DRC the area is part of Virunga National Park and is mostly not accessible. As you can see, Mt. Emin’s summit is actually over the border in the DRC.
In researching the area I found quite a bit of information about the highest point, Margherita Peak on Mt. Stanley (at 5109m it’s #4 in Africa – it still retains some glaciers). There is much less information on Mts. Speke (#5 at 4890m) and Baker (#6 at 4843m) and essentially no information about Emin and Gessi.
The only photos I could find that I had any confidence were of the two peaks were some fuzzy copies of photos taken by Vittorio Selle during the 1906 expedition led by Luigi de Savoia, the Duke of Abruzzi (of Abruzzi Ridge fame on K2. He was quite an explorer, and was usually accompanied by the renowned photographer Selle who took some exquisite photos around the world using glass plate negatives – an inspiration for Ansel Adams.)
I contacted the Selle Foundation in Turin for some better copies or other views, but they didn’t admit to having anything in their archive – maybe if I had gone there I could have dug something up. The best copies of the 1906 photos I could find showed the two peaks still having glaciers, but were otherwise too fuzzy to be useful for planning a climb. Notes from the 1906 expedition were cursory, “We climbed Emin today.” (They climbed it from a different side, too.) The only other information available indicated that Gessi was non-technical, but wet and slippery. Emin was more technical with some rock pitches requiring being roped, and wet and slippery.
I found reference to a Brit named Henry Osmaston who spent many years in this part of Uganda and was recognized as an expert in many facets of the region. His 1972 guide to the mountains was last updated in 2006 (the year he died), and was out of print. It took a bit of research, but I finally located a used copy in a shop in England and had it shipped to me. He had a sketch of Emin derived from one of Selle’s photos. He also had a photo of Gessi taken in 1963 and included a sketch showing the climbing routes base on that photo.
Then there was the issue of organizing an outfitter.
There’s a good series of guidebooks regions of the world for the more adventurous traveler published as The Bradt Guides. Their Uganda guide summarizes the choice of trekking routes and outfitters:
“Two main hiking circuits traverse Rwenzori Mountains National Park. The longer and newer Southern Circuit is operated exclusively by Rwenzori Trekking Services, an offshoot of Australian-managed Kampala Backpackers. The more established option is the Central Circuit, and is in theory operated exclusively by Rwenzori Mountaineering Services, a community tourism group established in the 1990’s to provide local Bakonjo people with the opportunity to benefit from tourism. Recently, hikes on the Central Circuit, and minor variations, have also been offered by Rwenzori Ranges Hikers Association, a breakaway outfit with reputable backers that aims to offer better-quality services than RMS, and might well do as and when it obtains a UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority) mandate to operate on the mountain, but has to be considered a bit dodgy until that happens.
Comparing the two routes, the main advantages of the Central Circuit are that it is shorter and slightly cheaper. The ascendant Southern Circuit is gaining popularity, however, for the simple reason that RMS, for all its ostensible worthiness, has a dismal record by comparison with RTS when it comes to quality of guides, safety and rescue procedures, transparency with clients, environmental practices, and pretty much every other organizational facet of a successful trek.”
Armed with recommendations like that, I pressed on.
The reputable outfitter, RTS, only operates in the southern region and could not take me to Emin or Gessi.
My front-end experience with RMS aligns with the Bradt review evaluation. Prices seemed to be pulled from thin air with minimal thought about how the program was evolving. Since I wasn’t able to find any good photos of either peak, I requested some from them. They sent me pictures of smiling people standing on top of a mountain, somewhere, nothing useful. I was never able to determine if their guides had actually ever been up either Emin or Gessi. Their first proposed itinerary said we would spend the night at John Matte hut and then summit Emin the next day, returning to the hut. Then bag Gessi the next day. Either peak is actually a two day trip from John Matte hut. (see detail map above)
The third outfit “to be considered a bit dodgy”, Rwenzori Ranges Hikers Association, accesses the park from a recently opened northern approach. Exchanging emails with them I at least had the feeling they knew what they were talking about, so I booked a rather ambitious 13 day trip to hit Emin, Gessi, Speke (reported in Osmaston’s book to provide the best views of the region and would certainly be in the best position for views of Emin and Gessi, should the clouds ever clear) and Mt. Stanley which is the peak everyone heads for. I figured the ambitious schedule would allow me to sacrifice the secondary goals if more time was needed for my primary goals, though I really had little interest in Stanley or Speke (though I schlepped my big mountain boots, crampons and ice axe to Uganda for them).
Getting to Uganda wasn’t very difficult, but flying anywhere continues to be tarnished with improving efforts by the airlines to maximize inconvenience. Turkish Airlines flies from Boston to Uganda via Istanbul and Kigali, Rwanda – a good connection, arriving in Entebbe at 4AM – just 18 hours after boarding the plane in Boston. I organized transport from Entebbe to Kasese ahead of time, so my driver was waiting for me for the eight hour drive, during most of which I slept.
I met my mountain guide, Jethro (pronounced YEH-ther-oh) and cook (Semei) at the RRHA office in Kasese, and we reviewed my kit requirements (I had everything needed, having acquired a new pair of high rubber boots before leaving home!) and discussed the logistics. In addition to Jethro and Semei I would have another guide, Alfred, along with seven porters to do the heavy lifting. Jethro’s English, and perhaps organizational skills were better, while Alfred has climbed everything in the area.
We would be hiking in on the northern route, but my climbing gear and a food re-supply would come in on the central route four days later … should have been a red flag about our route. Three additional porters would do the re-supply run. And we would also have an armed guard accompanying us as we would be trekking very close to the border with Congo. If you’re not aware, Congo was, is and will be a real disaster with ongoing armed conflict. The border with Uganda is “porous”.
I did sense from Israel, RRHA’s manager, a bit of concern about taking care of me in the manner I would be expecting. They were very accommodating.
Off We Go!
The start of the hike was about an hour and a half drive from Kasese up some dirt roads and through some settlements until the road ended. The first day was a nice hike continually gaining altitude to an open camp on a ridge where lunch was waiting. Jethro suggested we alter the itinerary a bit and continue for another hour and a half to a higher camp which would make day 2 a bit shorter. Fine. This camp was under a tree canopy in “huts” – really tent platforms with roofs which are very nice in a wet climate. When it’s raining you don’t have to flee to your tent – you can relax under cover. We walked for just under four hours on this day, gaining about 900m, setting up camp at about 2430m.
There was a young German couple hiking the same route – their only goal was Mt. Stanley. We shared one of the platforms for dinner, though they had a completely different staff accompanying them. He was an engineer for Airbus in Hamburg (where they build the main structures) – I never got around to asking him what he thought about Boeing’s spate of recent problems. She was an architectural engineer.
They were vegans.
The woman asked me if I had seen the goat running up the trail beside some porters, and she noted with bemused surprise that one porter was carrying a live chicken. “Did you see that?”
“Oh, the chicken is for dinner tomorrow. Wait, the goat was running? That means my stew tonight will be tough.”
In addition to goat stew, I was presented with a plate of “Irish” at dinner. These were boiled white potatoes. I found out later that potatoes were introduced to Uganda by the Irish (French fries/chips or mashed potatoes are called fried Irish or mashed Irish). It’s interesting how these things happen since, of course, potatoes were not native to Europe and were unknown until the conquest of the Americas. Did they originally call them “Incas” when they first arrived in Spain?
Day 2 – Mud 101
I knew it would be muddy. The Rwenzoris are notorious for it. But I thought the mud-fest hiking in El Altar in Ecuador earlier in the year would prepare me for it. It did not.
Day 2 was advertised as a six to eight hour hike to cover just under 10km to Kambeho camp at 3288m. I started out in my light hiking boots, but after a few hours it was time to don the rubber boots. The trail had many ups and downs, particularly after we got up onto a higher ridge. You’d think being up high on a ridge would mean less mud, but you’d be wrong. It was pretty strenuous going up and down on a muddy trail, but I managed to arrive in camp at the max end of the estimated time range. As I trudged into camp the German woman proudly stated that they made the hike in seven hours and three minutes! Camp was set up in “huts” again.
Another good dinner. Chicken tonight.
It rained from late that afternoon until the next morning.
Day 3 – Graduate School of Mud
On the third day the mud began in earnest. After breakfast we waited for the rain to stop before heading off at about 8:30. On this day it took nine and a half hours to complete only 6km. More ups and downs with a big climb crossing a pass. And more mud.
Much of the walk was through forest, so the mud pools concealed slippery submerged roots. I’d look where Jethro or Alfred had stepped and tried to step in the same place. More often than not, I’d land my toe on a submerged root, and when I put my weight on my foot it would slip off the root and plunge my foot into a mud hole of, until then, unplumbed depth. This simultaneously threw me off balance, so my trekking pole would be jabbed two feet deep in the mud to prevent a mud face plant while I tried to quickly survey a “dry” place for my other, now uncontrolled, foot to land. Regain some balance. Pull the trekking pole out of the mud. Repeat. Nine and a half hours.
We had a big climb today, crossing a 3800m pass at the northern end of the Portal Peaks Range. I looked at this as a model for the climb up the peaks, and if you look at the lines on the topo maps it had similar steepness to the approaches of Emin and Gessi. It made the mountains a decreasingly appealing prospect. Going up (and then down) the steep sections of mud was quite a challenge. In the worst places there were rusty ladders to assist. I made a mental note that the ascents of Gessi or Emin would be an additional 1000m vertically in mud (just about 2/3 of a mile), and there would be no rusty ladders….
At some point Jethro asked, “Are you enjoying this?”
“Oh, yes,” I lied.
For tonight’s camp my tent which was pitched under a tarp for added security since huts haven’t yet been constructed here. It rained.
Having crossed the pass, we were now in the valley of the Lamya River. This is the traditional border between Uganda and the DRC and, in spite of the straight line of the officially recognized political border shown on maps, it remains the border in the minds of the locals. Hence my armed guard. Lamya Camp was about 300m from the river at an altitude of 3580m. (see map above)
Day 4 – A Mud Post-Doc
In terms of mud, day 4 was worse. We covered about 9km in eight hours crossing several bogs. Well, I think it was actually just one big bog with occasional “dry” spots.
I haven’t mentioned the scenery much, and that’s because I didn’t look at it much. I was mostly looking where to put my feet. There were a couple of nice views on day 3, particularly at the pass. But on day 4 there were also some nice views around, though no mountain tops were visible through the clouds. I never saw the top of any mountain taller than 4000m. Some of the plants look like they’re out of Dr. Seuss – giant lobelia and giant groundsel.
In the afternoon we descended down to Bigo Bog where the park service had built a boardwalk to save hikers from slogging across the bog. It was nice to not be in the mud, but the spacing of the planks on the boardwalk was such that you had to look carefully at every step. The metal Bigo Hut was taken over by the kitchen staff while I had my tent with a tarp pitched over it, and the porters set up camp in a big rock shelter. We were at 3460m here. An Austrian couple who had come up via the Central Circuit joined me in camp that night – he looked as unhappy as I felt.
Day 5 – A Rest Day at Bigo Bog
I had warned Jethro on the previous day that I didn’t think the climbs were going to happen. I was not having fun. So I decided to take an unscheduled rest day here at Bigo Hut both for rest and to decide if I wanted to continue. OK. I had already decided to not continue. This day would give me the opportunity to change my mind. Or not.
It rained the night we arrived and the next morning. There were some sun breaks during the day, and you could see some lower slopes of the nearby mountains. No summits in sight, though. In the mid-morning Jethro and a couple of porters headed out of camp toward the valley between Emin and Gessi. When they returned he told me they were looking for the trail to Skull Cave (the high camp). I don’t think they found it. No one goes there. We would be slogging on an overgrown trail, if that.
That evening I confirmed I wanted to bail out. So we would head down the next day. I knew this decision would probably mean the end of the “7 7ths by 70” challenge – I would be unlikely to return here. But I didn’t care.
Days 6 and 7 – The Walk Out
When we started walking out the sky cleared a bit so the sun could come out and blue skies appeared, briefly. You could see some of the higher slopes of Mt. Speke – the rain we experienced had produced fresh snow up there. There was little chance to get a sunburn – the sun didn’t last long. It rained about half the day walking out. That’s not quite true. I exaggerate. During some of that time it hailed.
Day 6 covered the same ground that would have been the second day coming into the park on the Central Circuit. It was similar in nature to the second day for our route – mud in the higher reaches, but drier at lower altitudes. As we got lower the Mubuku river became a large gushing torrent as it contained the water draining from all the bogs. We crossed the river and climbed up the opposite ridge to Nyabitaba Hut to a new-ish cabin/lodge that hadn’t opened, yet, so my tent was pitched on the balcony. (There were other cabin-ish structures a bit lower down – I think we were saving money.)
On day 7 I was back in my light hiking boots – no more mud! Leaving Nyabitaba we walked past some groups of trekkers going up. I greeted one European family of four with a jaunty “Good morning!” since I was in a good mood – it was dry, I wasn’t wearing rubber boots, and it was downhill. The father looked at me rather gravely, and his jaw slackened a bit. He didn’t say anything to me, and looked a bit aghast. Then I realized that my armed guard was just two steps behind me. The guy must have figured I was a VIP walking with my body guard, or, more likely, a criminal who had just been rounded up. Coming in on the Central Circuit you don’t get near the border so groups coming that way don’t have guards.
This day was very similar to day 1 for my route, though probably not as steep. It was a pleasant walk through forest with occasional river views. Wildlife was spotted – chameleons of several varieties. If I had come in this way, I would have arrived at Bigo Hut after just two days with much less mud to eat at my resolve…
All in all it was a pretty miserable experience. But the organization was good and the food really excellent. Semei is a great cook and prepared some of the best trail food I’ve ever had … though there was a memorable pizza prepared on the Upper Dolpo trek in Nepal… Oh, and a layer cake at basecamp on Kang Yatze in India…
Jethro suggested I return in November or December when it isn’t as wet. “Sometimes, in some places, the mud is almost dry.”
To Sum Up
So I’ve come to liken this experience as the international version of leaving the house at 4AM to drive three hours to the White Mountains for a winter day hike and, once arriving at the trailhead parking lot in the cold and dark, thinking of the warmth and palmier at the Met Cafe in Conway and going there instead.
I think it’s fair to say that my enjoyment of a place is reflected in the number of pictures I take. In four days, I took 66 pictures. (And for many of those I didn’t bother taking out my camera, I just used my phone.) In contrast, during the first four days of the trek to Kang Yatse last year I took over 500 photos.
becklectic Tales 