Uganda Chapter 14: Out of Africa

Don't you dare roll your eyes! You totally knew that I would use that title at some point.

Firstly, some house cleaning. Should you want to pass my Africa revelations on to your friends, or bookmark them for your future reference so that you can read them over and over and over again (tears welling, no doubt, at the emotion they evoke), or whatnot, there is now an index. Here. Click here.

If you want a reference point for ALL the GAZILLION photos of Africa, you can click here.

And now, this is hard.

It's hard to write the Africa "wrap-up" entry, because in some ways, once I've transferred everything out of my written journal and into this online one, the trip ends a second time. The process of getting to transfer my journal and incorporate the photos, that was almost like reliving the trip and all of its amazing magical moments. And I'm finding that I'm having just as difficult a time with the "virtual" ending of my trip as I did with the actual, real-life ending of my trip. I cried and cried and cried on the plane ride from London to New York. I had a SUPER HARD bout of depression when I got home. Like, the type of depression that causes people who know me to seriously worry that we're on our way to someplace very bad. I know several people who have gone to Africa, and I'm told that the adjustment back, from the most soulful area of the world to probably the most soul-less area of the world (and, for certain, Las Vegas is the single most soul-les place on earth), is hard. I struggled. I'm still struggling in some moments. There are moments where I just can't help it. I imagine Africa, and I'm pained to be here. And I am not untraveled or inexperienced with adjusting back to normal life. After a long exploration-trip, I usually have some adjustment issues for about a week, but not the type of soul crushing, crying at night, listless type of loss I'm still trying to cope with a bit after Africa. I'm glad I took that trip when I did. It's the end of the year, and that means thinking about the changes you want to make in the next year, and I have a feeling that my next year, based largely on how this trip impacted me, will have bigger changes than any year previously.

I don't know though how to explain the difference in me. British Nick the Lawyer has referenced a couple of times in email that the trip probably changed me in ways I didn't think it would - and I keep wanting to tell him that he's right and explain how it did. But I can't find the words - and I'm good with words! That place is just closer to God in all ways. The people share their souls openly, the land is different, the sky is different, the energy that passes through it is different. Ashleigh - JenR, help me here. No, you two probably can't describe it either, because when you got back you were the same way. You could say that the feeling in Africa is different, but you couldn't explain how. I'm working on the words, but I think that Ashleigh said it best when she got back. She believes that anybody who's been to Africa carries a piece of Africa in their soul when they come back. And I would take it one step further. I would say that you carry a piece of Africa in your soul that is a little more vibrant than the rest of your soul, and you just want to find a way to make everything about you feel like that one part does.

This is probably making no sense, and it's making me cry to write it, so let's move on.

On the morning we leave, I am not in any way joking when I say that the animals come out to say goodbye to us. As we are driving out of Lake Mburo, herds of antelope, zebra, warthogs and even a group of black vervet monkeys run alongside the truck. And as we pull out, I look at Lisa and say, "This was a near perfect trip. It really was."

Uganda, Africa really, is a hard place. It is hard to see such a warm, loving population with so much less than you have in material ways so that everything is a struggle on basic levels, and it's hard to then have to face the fact that they have so much more than you do in spiritual ways, and that really gives them more. It is hard to think of the seemingly timeless tragedies that befall that continent: disease, natural disaster, the inability of a gentle population to truly defend themselves against aggressors like Idi Amin. It is hard to feel helpless there, knowing that even if you gave up everything you had and spent the rest of your life trying to improve the situation of Africa, you wouldn't even be able to scrape the surface. And, yes, Eric, to struggle with the idea that even if you did help, you'd be making them weaker and dependent. It is hard not to hate some of what British colonization meant to Africa, it is hard not to think that a little more British colonization wouldn't have been a good thing, too. It is hard to be around a people who will open up love to you within thirty seconds of meeting you and who smile more freely than any other people I have ever known and who honestly carry kindness in their hearts so evidently that it almost glows, and then to return to your home where everybody wears armor at all times.

Maybe, what I'm realizing, is the fact that it is so hard there yet so much more beautiful in every way than my life (and my life is pretty beautiful) is what changes you. It opens you up to the awareness that there is a whole different way of feeling something and that that amazing, open, kind, warm beautiful way of feeling can exist in the hardest of conditions. And I have hard work to do to strip away all of the beliefs I've had about how "hard things" are what break the beauty of a soul down and stop using it as an excuse for not exuding all of those things all of the time. And the idea of doing that, here, is scary. Maybe that's it. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out.

This is getting way too depressing! Let's just record the annual end of trip survey and wrap this. I'll keep my crazy, post-Africa mind wanderings to myself. At least for a while.

Best Meal
Lisa: The very first meal we had at Par'aa. That was uniquely amazing.
Me: I love food. The best was definitely the roasted goat meat and cassava off the side of the road, but the avocado soup at Semiliki and the carrot salad at Mihingo were also amazing.



Best Shower (trust me, remember this note if you go to Uganda)
Lisa & Jocelyn: Semiliki



Best Room
Lisa: Semiliki
Jocelyn: Ndali


Semiliki

Ndali

Best Overall Food
Lisa & Jocelyn: Mihingo

Best View
Lisa: Mihingo
Jocelyn: Ndali and Semiliki


Mihingo

Ndali

Semiliki

Favorite Activities:
Lisa: Bwindi Gorilla Tracking, Semiliki Jungle Walk, Kibale Chimp Tracking
Jocelyn: Bwindi Gorilla Tracking, Murchison Falls Game Drive





Worst Meal
Lisa & Jocelyn: Hotel Africana before we left Kampala

Worst Shower
Lisa: Hotel Africana
Jocelyn: Mwea. Yuck. My water was yellow.

Worst Room
Lisa: Mwea (two nights and they still couldn't fix a door lock)
Jocelyn: Pa'raa (bats! walls so thin I could hear Lisa pee!)

Favorite Bird:
Lisa: Malachite Bee Eater
Jocelyn: African Fisher Eagle


Malachite Bee Eater

Most Moving Site
Lisa: Baby Zebra Birth
Jocelyn: The family moment with the gorillas



Favorite Person You Met
Lisa: James
Jocelyn: James & Julius, though Aubrey was the most "entertaining"



Favorite Trip Quotes!
"There is no hurry in Uganda."
"The fire starts here. When they are German tourists, the fire starts here."
"I HAVE NO TRAVEL INSURANCE."
"Uganda. I really had no idea."
"I am THE Andrew."
"But, it's paid for already..."
"Those who are late for lunch, eat bones."
"Are YOU ready for CHOGM?"

Favorite James Memorty
Lisa: The entire conversation about how I needed to have babies
Jocelyn: The moment where he explained that he loved Halle Berry movies



Lisa's Favorite Jocelyn Memories
Funny: Begrudgingly admitting that I was right about the Shoebill being amazing
Moving: The moment when she cried at the gorillas



Jocelyn's Favorite Lisa Memories
Funny: The passion with which she would bargain over the equivalent of seventy US cents
Moving: How proud I was of her when, sick as she was, she finished and tore through that ridiculously hard six hour jungle hike in Bwindi



Favorite Souvenir
Lisa: Ebony carved mask!
Jocelyn: It's actually a photo, the one that's my Angelina shot!



Thing You Will Miss the LEAST About Africa
Lisa: traffic, diesel, roads
Jocelyn: roads and the complete absence of any sense of time.

Thing You Will Miss the MOST About Africa
Lisa: avocados (seriously), the food, the ability to live so much outdoors
Jocelyn: the warmth of the people and the closeness of nature and God

Yes, it's true. I am counting the days until Mongolia. Everybody has an addiction. The aliveness of traveling and exploring is mine.






sigh.

 

Uganda Chapter 13: "I couldn't sleep because large wild animals were grazing outsidel"

We're actually going to wrap the last two days into just one entry. To see complete sets of pictures from our days at Lake Mburo and Mihingo, click here and here!

Day 12: Leaving the rain forest and into the rain.
As I think many of us know, while I will go to the rain forest to see things that only exist in a rain forest (like Machu Picchu or, say, gorillas), I hate the rain forest. I do not like going to bed damp and waking up damp and having everything around me be damp at all times. I do not like when my hair gets frizzy and my skin breaks out. I do not like the slightly "off" feeling my digestive tract gets when in rain forests. In general, I do not enjoy the rain forest. And so while I was sad to be leaving behind a place that had given me such an amazing spiritual experience, I was not sad. To be leaving. The rain forest.

I just wanted to feel dry again. The Land Cruiser and the weather had other ideas, unfortunately.

Let me begin by saying that I had my traditional rain forest headache by the time we left. This was augmented by a slight hangover from a WINE GLASS FULL OF CAPTAIN MORGAN that I had drunk the night before (to get warm, it was the rain forest). The first two hours of the trip are on roads that even James describes as the worst roads we've been on the entire trip. I put my iPod on and try to close my eyes, but by the time we hit the "good" roads, my head feels like a soft cheese with hard iron spikes in it.

And then the Land Cruiser begins to make bad, bad noises.

We stop at a "service station," and they "fix" the problem. We drive less than half a mile, and the sound suddenly becomes worse. We stop at another service station where they determine that the alternator is bad. Lisa and I have a TWO HOUR lunch. That's an hour and a half more than we needed for lunch, and we're so bored that Lisa starts soliciting school children to come and practice English with her. But the alternator gets "fixed."

We hit the road again. Guess what? The Land Cruiser gives out again an hour later. This time, though, it's pouring down buckets of rain. James decides to fix it himself, the poor thing. In the rain. So by the time he gets done fixing the alternator, he is soaked to the bone and we still have to drive for a couple of hours. He's a super star.

We finally make it to Lake Mburo, and, even though he is wet and uncomfortable, James puts the top up on the truck and takes us for a game drive, which is killer because Lake Mburo has not only huge herds of antelope but also huge herds of ZEBRA! It's lovely.




Also lovely is Mihingo Tented Camp. It's luxury tents with a beautiful central open lodge. And it overlooks Lake Mburo National Park AND a watering hole right in the middle of the park, so from your tent veranda or the lodge you can watch herds come to water. It's really quite amazing, and, as I nod off to sleep, I am only distracted by a bug THE SIZE OF MY HAND trying to get through my mosquito netting.



Day 13: Africa gives us a gift
In the morning, Lisa gets up and takes a nature walk. I decide that it's time for me to start getting my head ready to return to real life, so I sleep until 8:00am. Then I spend the entire rest of the first half of the day lounging by the pool, drinking passionfruit juice cocktails, reading Chabon's Summerland and looking out at the watering herds. It's okay to be jealous, people, I would be too.



At 2:30pm, we leave to go on a boat ride on Lake Mburo. Our guide is a super star guide and a local celebrity and likes to refer to himself as "The Andrew." He's no Julius, but we do love him so. We see hippos, crocs, kingfishers and lots and lots of African Fisher Eagles. At one moment, a pair of African Fisher Eagles (they mate for life) takes flight right in front of us, swoops towards the water and majestically catches fish. Actually, that's not true. Only the female eagle catches a fish. The male eagle is visibly embarrassed that she caught and he didn't, and she visibly lords it over him. And yes, but this point in the trip with this much time with animals, I really do think we can read them to that point of subtlety.

After our boat ride, we are on our very last game drive -- possibly ever because you never know what the future holds. And we are sad. We are very, very, very sad. This place has been magic, and we're on the last moments. The next day truly begins our journey home.

While we were in Lake Mburo, there were lots and lots of baby animals. It was a time of year, rainy season, where grass is plentiful. And the mama animals are smart. They know that if they get pregnant to have their babies during the plentiful season, their babies will have a better chance of surviving. As we are driving, James spots a baby zebra and points it out to us. Then he takes a closer look. "That one has just been born," he says.

We drive very, very close. And by "just born" what he means is "hasn't even taken its first steps yet." The mother is still licking the newly born colt clean, and if you look closely in the pictures you can even see that the afterbirth is still hanging from her. Also, the mother can't run because the baby can't walk yet, so she has to let us get very close, though we stay a fair distance to keep from scaring them too much.

You, like me, have probably seen a dozen films of wild animals being born on the Discovery channel. And I don't want to ruin that experience for you, but it is nowhere near as miraculous as seeing it happen in the wild itself. The baby zebra stands up for the first time, and it's completely confused by its legs. And its knees buckle and wobble. And then it tries to walk and stumbles. And we watch for fifteen minutes while it learns how to use its legs. All this while, the mama zebra stares us down with a look (captured in one of the photos below) that clearly says "Don't come even one inch closer to my baby." There are two other zebras standing watch nearby. And all three animals and all three humans are enraptured by this tiny, new zebra learning to walk. And within fifteen minutes he gets it figured out and the mama noses at him to move along away from the humans.





It was really an amazing miracle to watch. James has been doing game drives in Uganda for ten years AND he grew up in a rural village where there was wildlife everywhere, and he'd never seen a newborn zebra getting up for the first time before. I have to think that the number of people living on earth who have seen a moment like that can be counted in the low three digits, if that. It really was as though Uganda was saying, "Thanks for loving our land so much. Let me show you how beautiful it can really be." There are three moments on this trip that I will never forget as long as I live. The tree lions, the gorillas, and the picture of that baby zebra as it tried to take its first steps. I just teared up even remembering it. Nature is the most beautiful thing ever created by God, Goddess or Universe.

That night we have a wonderful tillapia dinner and an inspiring conversation with Richard, an older, retired former CPA who now travels the world bird watching and sight seeing. He has been amazing places - including my dream of Antarctica. And then we are off to sleep in tents under the African sky for what I can only pray will not be the last time in my life. That night, I am visited outside of my tent by an angry monkey, two grazing warthogs and two loud, huge grazing water buffalo. I barely sleep with all of their noise, and I'm thankful for that. I want to be awake through one last African night. I can sleep on the plane. I am now in my last moments of feeling the way the air in Africa feels when it comes through a tent flap, or hearing the night sounds of wild animals, or having the gentle night protection of mosquito netting.

Tomorrow, we travel home and it is...

We're actually going to wrap the last two days into just one entry. To see complete sets of pictures from our days at Lake Mburo and Mihingo, click here and here!

 

Uganda Chapter 12: In the Jungle, It Is Hot

To see a complete set of pictures from this day, click here.

Evening
It is the night before our gorilla tracking adventure, and we are at Kintara tented camp in Bwindi. It's the most tent-like tented camp we stay in, perched high up in the base of the mountains near the Impenetrable Forest where the gorilla roam. My tent, in particular, is about as high up in the camp as you can go and gives an amazing view of the surrounding jungle. And now, as the sun goes down, it gets even damper and colder, but I don't care because I'm sitting outside on my tent veranda watching thunder and lightening roll through the jungle across the way and smelling chicken being roasted for dinner. And the next day we will trek into the dense jungle and track gorilla.

Perfect.

Thank you, God.



Morning
In case you were wondering, by the way, the crack of dawn in Africa is no more appealing than the crack of dawn anywhere else. But we are up with the sun again - and it's gorilla tracking day.

We are tracking the "H" group of gorillas. The two other groups of trackable gorillas are "R" and "M." Yesterday, the "H" group trackers ended up having to do a six hour jungle trek and then, though they said that it was magical, the only gorilla who came out of hiding was the silverback.

Yes, we have heard both types of experiences. We have heard that seeing the gorillas in the wild is a magical experience -- we met a man in Murchison who had traveled to over 60 countries and said that the gorilla experience was the single most amazing thing he'd ever done. But animal tracking is animal tracking, and the animals don't always participate like you'd hoped you would.

Lisa is really not feeling well by this time in the trip. She tries to switch to the "R" or "M" group who had shorter hike times the day before, but the rangers are having none of it. So, in our group are Lisa and me, five Belgians and Nicole - an American from Menlo Park who is traveling alone and who becomes our new best friend in our fight against the Belgians.



The "H" group of gorillas has moved so far away that we actually have to get in the vehicles and drive forty minutes to a different entrance point to the jungle that's closer to the last place where the gorillas were seen. And then...we begin the trek from hell. Actually, it's not from hell. It's just HARD. But it's hard in the way that a good run is hard or a super great challenge is hard. And it's in the freakin' jungle, which is amazing just to be in. I will tell you now that we do end up doing SIX hours of trekking -- three hours in and three hours out. There is a lone older Belgian man, who is not our enemy, in his sixties who kindly hikes in the middle of the pack. Then there are the BELGIANS. They are HYPER COMPETITIVE and want to be in front at ALL TIMES. Literally, at one point, I'm hiking in front of one of the Belgian women. And I'm hiking at exactly the same pace that everybody else is. And for no reason at all she elbows her way in front of me. I'm sure it's very hard to live your life as a Belgian - everybody confusing you for German or Swiss - so I just roll my eyes and let it go. Nothing will ruin my jungle challenge day. And also, to be honest, the fact that the Belgians wanted to hike up front meant that the "trail" was already flattened out by the time I got to it. This is important because there isn't a "trail." Our guide has a machete, and he's cutting a path through the jungle for us as we go along. So by "trail" I just mean the spot behind where the last person walked.

I also (as did everybody) hired a porter for the day. I really didn't need a porter (I've hiked further in just as difficult conditions with much more on my back). Actually, I didn't even want a porter, but then it was pointed out to me that the porters were really counting on the $10USD we'd tip them at the end of the day in order to feed their families for the week, so I got one. I actually missed having my pack on my back...My balance was actually thrown off! But the porter was nice, and fun, and made sure I never fell into the mud, because I am naturally clumsy and prone to fall into the mud.

Anyway, the trek was monstrously hard. Up and down super steep hills - as in literally there were moments when I was parallel while being upright. Super, super, super slippery mud. Huge bugs. Briars, ants, trees snapping into your face. HARD HIKING.

But it was worth it.

I could not have scripted a better gorilla experience.

When we finally came upon the gorillas, there are eight of them and they are literally feeling lazy and calm and sunning themselves in an open meadow in the middle of the jungle. They seem to not mind our being there at all. Included in the eight are a Silverback, who is 100% visible and not more than ten yards away from us. There are also two big mamas with tiny, tiny, tiny babies dangling on them.

And here is where you hate me because I can't really write about the experience of seeing the gorillas. I could write about what it's like to sit quietly just a handful of feet away (because the gorillas were in exceptionally good moods and came very close) from a gorilla while it examines you, but it would never, ever do the experience justice. I will tell you that gorillas definitely think and certainly communicate. And I will also tell you that, at one moment, one of the big mamas with a tiny baby went up to a Silverback. The baby then climbed onto his mama's back and did a little performance for his dad while the Silverback watched. And there was zero doubt that this was a family moment with two parents cooing over their cute baby. And it was singularly beautiful. And I actually sat down on the jungle floor and tears fell from my eyes.






Don't tell me animals don't have souls. I won't ever believe you. Especially now.

I will, however, give you some advice in case you ever want to go gorilla tracking.

1. If gorilla tracking is not on your list of things you want to do before you are fifty, it should be.

2. Before fifty is important: the sixty year old man on our trek was awesome, and I want to be like him when I grow up. But if you're an average senior citizen, you're not going to be able to handle the hard trek required to get to the gorillas (and that's even on the short treks).

3. Hire a porter even if you don't think you'll need one.

4. Prepare like it's a six hour, hard jungle trek. If it's not (on our day, we got back to camp at 4:30pm. Group "R" was done by 10am and group "H" was done by noon), you're ahead of the game.

5. Don't be the jackass who makes the porters carry you all the way there and back. That actually happened in group R. If you can't at least make half the hike, you have no business being there.

6. Pack extra cliff bars.

7. Remember the zoom lens.

8. Reserve very early so that you can stay at Gorilla Forest Camp.

9. Learn to love dirt, mud, sweat and insect bites. Oh! And cuts from thorns.

But go! Find a way and go! It's indescribable, as evidenced by the totally crappy way in which I described it.

Not indescribable, however, is the next day when we ...

To see a complete set of pictures from this day, click here.