The one with piscine crania

I have a coupla random things for you. And in my mind, and I'm pretty sure nowhere else, they're both related to Fish Heads, a wonderful novelty song from my (and Erin's) youth.



They can't play baseball
But maybe they can play cards. Paige and I have invented a wonderful game: FishWar! And it's certainly roly and poly.

You start out by playing Go Fish. Each time you successfully get a pair you add the cards to your pile. Then, once you've worked your way through the deck you use your piles as your starting hands for a game of War.

The strategy elements (having a pair of aces is good, having a bunch of 2s, 3s, 4s and such doesn't do anything for you) add a fascinating layer of complexity to your game of Go Fish and truly invest you in the outcome of your game of War.

You scoff only because you haven't tried it.

We're working on a drinking game version and will let you know when it's complete; for the basic version, patents are pending.

They don't wear sweaters.
But you know who does? Evo Morales, el presidente of Bolivia. We were sitting around the lunch table today and I opened a copy of The Economist to a picture of EM. He was just wearing a shirt, but I told Phil and Paige about seeing a recent press conference of his.

FIFA, the world soccer governing body, had decided that international matches could no longer be played at altitudes over 2500 meters. La Paz, Bolivia is at 3600 meters, and soccer's hugely important throughout South America, so it was a big issue. They called a special cabinet meeting, and at the ensuing press conference his cabinet ministers, wearing suits, lined up behind Morales, who was wearing jeans and this ugly sweater.

I described his sweater as something I wore in 1988 or so. And I'm not now, and certainly wasn't then, known for my fashion sense.

Turns out, he really likes the sweater. And I'm not the first to notice--I started laughing so hard I had trouble breathing when I saw that the BBC website had a slide show of him wearing it on normally formal occasions.

I've gotta tell Bad Sweater Guy about this...

Okay, tomorrow I leave for Greece. And I'll be home in 36 days, so if you have any ideas about what I should do with my life you could maybe let me know?

Eat them up yum,
sg

The one where I commuted with wildlife

I went on a safari.

It's impossibly expensive to go alone; I needed to join a group. So I went to the Tourist Board--there's a bulletin board with lists of partially filled trips that need more people. I called around and wound up choosing a 5 day, 4 night trip. I think I would have taken a 4/3 trip if I'd found one, but I certainly didn't want to come all the way here and not see what I should so I went with longer rather than shorter.

And, unlike Kilimanjaro, I was quite confident that the group existed--I paid $110/day, which is about what you'd pay to rent a car. And, like Kilimanjaro, the park fees eat up much of that cost, so if I'd been alone the company would have surely lost money.

I got paired with Brad from Vancouver. His wife was planning to join, but they're traveling with their 11-month old so they decided that he'd go alone. Our vehicle was a Land Cruiser with removable roof sections. While in the parks, we could stand up to watch (or catch a breeze) while guide Frank drove around. And any time we saw something interesting, we'd pull over to park and watch. Also joining us for the trip was cook Isaac.

Our first morning we headed to Lake Manyara National Park. And, after having done some game walks and drives before, I think the topless Land Cruiser is _totally_ the way to go. (And it helps that the animals in these parks are pretty used to traffic and gawking tourists so lots of them aren't too shy.) About two minutes into the park, we sat and watched a baboon troop from about 20 yards away. Lotsa babies. Pretty awesome.

We went on to see elephants, impalas, Masai giraffes (noticeably different than the ones in Kenya). And two lumps that I'm told were lions.

Then, after lunch, lots more elephants, giraffes, a herd of buffalo, vervet monkeys, dik diks, and more impala.

Camp the first night--we weren't exactly roughing it. They set up my tent for me, and the site had hot showers and a bar/restaurant. We ate Isaac's food on a table set up out back, but still.

The next morning we were joined by the last member of our group, some Swedish guy whose name we never learned. He had all sorts of safari clothing and about $4000 of camera equipment with him (the special bag alone had to cost more than my camera), and much of the rest of our trip became a quest to search for photo opportunities. He was kinda a tool, but one who spent 20 years in the Special Forces (I resisted the strong urge to refer to the Very Special Forces!). We ate breakfast and headed off for the Serengeti, about 6 hours away.

On the way we stop at a Maasai village. The lands they've historically tended are disappearing (or being turned into protected conservation areas) so many Maasai make a living by selling their culture. They ask for $50 per car to come see their village and take pictures, which apparently lots of people actually pay. I know Björn would have paid his share; I just laughed. Brad and I started reading and acting disinterested while Björn negotiated. I spoke up and said I'd pay 5000 shillings, $4. Brad said he'd pay the same, and we wound up settling for 20,000 shillings total, with Björn kicking in $8. In real life the Maasai herd cattle, but this is sort of a demonstration village where they jump up and down and sing songs. Our Maasai guide took us around, showed us a home, tried to sell us jewelry and made us promise not to tell anyone what we'd paid. Oops.

Also, the Maasai wear tire shoes.

We get to Serengeti National Park and do a game drive on our way to the campsite, somewhere inside the park. Now, the park is about the size of Connecticut, so we don't even try to cover the whole thing. Instead, for the rest of the time we, and most of the other groups, drive around an area that seems fairly large but is surely only a small percentage of the park area. You can only drive on the roads (that decently criss-cross the area), no taking off cross-country.

The campsite in the Serengeti was more basic, with pit toilets, no running water, and a bunch of other safari groups.

We did game drives in the Serengeti on our way to the campsite on day 2, in the morning (sunrise - lunch) and evening (3pm - sundown) of day 3, and in the morning of day 4.

There are a couple of places that we can go to try and see certain animals (the hippo pool, a shady area where lions sometimes sleep, etc.) but mostly we just drive around and hope to spot something. We keep a lookout for animals, and for other safari vehicles--when someone sees something particularly interesting word gets around (Frank spent a lot of time on the CB) and everyone descends.

One constant theme was our search for the leopard. One of the classic "Big 5" (along with elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo), we spent way too much time trying to see one. It was like a game of telephone--we'd pull up to a large group (more than 10, we saw as many as 26 vehicles gathered) where someone said that someone had seen a leopard in "that tree over there". We'd spend a half an hour sitting around, seeing nothing, before finally convincing Frank to move elsewhere. Once, after looking through binoculars for about 10 minutes, I was finally able to make out some paws hanging down from a branch in a dense tree about 100 yards away.

We saw a lot of antelope (impalas, gazelles, dik diks). Lots of zebra and lots of wildebeests (aka gnu) and some of the other beests, the harte.

The zebras and wildebeests are buds. Zebras are really smart, and maybe like to hang with the wildebeests because they are dumb as shit--if there's a predator about, odds are it catches a gnu. The wildebeests maybe hang out with zebras because otherwise they'd have no idea when there were predators about. They don't smell, hear or see very well. They tend to follow each other in single file lines when moving, unless one gets spooked, in which case they take off in all directions. We'd frequently come across zebras and gnus in the road--the zebras would get off the road, and the gnus would run down the road away from the truck. Zebras are pretty. Wildebeests are ugly and they grunt incessantly. It was hard to fall asleep in what sounded like a hog farm...

On the morning of day 3 we saw a bunch of lions fairly far off. After watching for a while we realized there was another road that went right by where they were sitting. There were several sitting around, and one male was still working on the wildebeest that the rest had had their fill of. He went on for a while, and was still going when we left. And the birds of prey were gathering, waiting for the scraps... (There are some cool pictures, though vegetarians might want to stay away.) We found another lioness eating nearby, soon after we left the first.

There's no way to tell if the lions had killed it--despite their reputation, lions steal about 2/3 of their meals from other predators. (And hyenas, who have a scavenger reputation, are actually fierce group hunters who kill about 2/3 of their own prey and only steal 1/3.) We never did see the "action" of an actual hunt.

Magnus threatened me at breakfast on day 4--I'm pretty sure he didn't hear Brad and I talking about him and instead misinterpreted something completely innocuous that I'd said. Frank didn't understand what he was talking about either. Frank talked to him, Brad avoided him, I turned on the charm, and the detente lasted the rest of the trip.

After lunch day 4 we headed back to the Ngorogoro Crater, where we stayed at a campsite (hot showers, zebras grazing, but not much else) on the crater rim. It was really cold. And instead of grunting gnus I got to fall asleep to the sound of a zebra chewing grass about 20 yards away.

The crater itself is about 2000 feet deep and covers about 100 square miles. The sides are very steep so for the most part animals don't just pass through. Apparently, almost every type of animal in East Africa can be found in the crater. Except my favorite, giraffes.

We woke up early (~5:45) to get there in time to maybe see some of the normally nocturnal animals. But it was really foggy and we couldn't really see anything. We wound up finding a black kite perched near the road at about 7:45, and it was almost 9 before we saw any animals, a lion from a distance. At 9:30 we finally came across the density Ngorogoro is famous for--a small lake with storks and flamingos and hippos, with zebras and gnus grazing and hyenas hanging about looking for an opportunity.

About an hour later came our most surreal moment--two male lions were walking down the road. We, and a veritable host of others, followed. We jockeyed for position, with one truck speeding ahead and waiting, then hurrying to follow when the lions got there. At times, the lions needed to weave between stopped vehicles to continue on. This lasted for almost 20 minutes. And I think our truck took more than our fair share of viewing opportunities--for quite a while we drove along, right next to one of them, matching his pace.

After some more driving around we stopped to eat our box lunches. They were mostly inedible, just like virtually all the other food we were served. We headed out, and finally, on our way out of the crater, we found a rhino, the last of the Big 5. We left and headed back to Arusha, arriving about 5pm yesterday.

This time, I tipped 10%. Again, I have no idea if that's right. I know that Brad paid $780 for the trip and Leif paid $560 for his 4 days. I "only" paid $550 (which I didn't happen to mention to them...). I gave the cook $20 and the guide $35. Frank had to work much less hard than Rafael (my Kilimanjaro guide) did, the food was terrible, and they were getting tips from 3 of us so I think I'm okay with it.

I have no contact info for Brad or Gunnar, which I'm fine with. I do wish I'd gotten info from the Canadian trio on a trip that largely matched ours--our table was next to theirs at the Manyara campsite, we ran into them quite a bit arriving at and leaving the Serengeti, saw them again in the crater, and I chatted with them for a bit just before we left for Arusha. They're climbing Kili starting tomorrow--good luck, Canadians!

Pictures are up. There's a lot, and the best have been added to my group of favorite shots from my trip so far.

Next for me: Rwanda. God forbid I'd be healthy at any point while in Tanzania--now I hab a cold. So, to avoid 2-3 (or 4 or 5) long days on a bus, which I wouldn't love even if I felt great, I'm gonna fly. I leave Arusha Monday, probably in Rwanda just 'til Wednesday or Thursday, then back to Kampala to say bye. And a week from Monday I'll leave Africa. Next stop: Athens.

Kwa heri,
sg

The one with some random stuff

Hey, just got back from safari. Five days, four nights in Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park and the Ngorogoro Crater. I'll write it all up for you tomorrow, but the highlights: we saw lions eating lunch, saw other lions at _extremely_ close range, giraffes are awesome, wildebeests suck, a Swedish guy threatened to maim me.

Before I left I had dinner with some interns. As promised, here's a shout out to Ting Ting. TTC is in the hizzouse!

For now, I'm back in Arusha 'til probably Saturday, when I'll head west towards Rwanda. I'll soon circle back to Uganda, and July 2 will leave Kampala for Greece.

Where I will stay (with a side trip to Turkey) until Friday, August 3, when I'll head for New York. I think all my NY friends will be out of town, but if not there'll maybe be a small get together on Saturday night. Come see me, and meet the G family! If not, maybe I'll just take my sister out to celebrate her new job.

On Monday, August 6, exactly 9 months after I left, I'll return to Minneapolis.

Where I'll be staying... Some of you seem to have an idea that I'm moving to Boston to study Metabusiness. I dunno, kinda sounds like something someone made up on April Fool's Day.

So if you have any ideas about what I should do when I get back, let me know. Did I mention I'm broke and unemployed?

Okay, more soon.
chao,
sg

The one where I'm piqued

Er...I mean I peaked.


Helen (Allen's second cousin, my new favorite elephant, travel companion and pillow) and I climbed to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro last week. Yeah.

I've got some travelogue for you, some random thoughts, some whatever, but I'll just throw it all in here and let you deal. Grab some popcorn, it's pretty long...

The trip:
I didn't sleep that well the night before we started, and I had some stomach issues. So I didn't eat any breakfast, but the first day should be easy. They picked me up at 8am. We go to the company offices to drop off some of my stuff and pick up stuff they're gonna lend me--a coat, gloves, boots. Tour company woman never asked my size, and they just had two pairs for me to try, but she'd done a decent job estimating and thankfully one of the pairs fit okay.

As we left the guide gave me the day's schedule. I asked when we'd meet up with the other hikers in our group. "It's just you." "But Joanne said there were two others." Blank looks. "Oh, yeah, they cancelled." Or, I'm thinking, maybe "didn't exist". So it's just me, a guide, a cook, and two porters.

It takes 'til about 1pm before we've gotten to the park and everything's organized for us to start. We start out at Marangu gate at 1970m (6500 ft). The first day's walk is only about 8km (5 miles) and takes you up to the Mandara Huts at 2700m (8900 ft), about 3 hours total. A nice easy walk through rain forest. It's just the guide and me--the porters and cook walk separately, and on the first day they even have a road to walk up while we take the "tourist" route.

By the end of the first day, even though it was easy I was tired and sore, especially my left knee and right ankle. And my right elbow, which I'd SMASHED in the shower that morning...

The only book I brought with me was David Copperfield--lotsa pages, small print, I figured I could make it last for several days. At dinner I got about 25 pages in...not so promising. I would read no more over the rest of my trip. Does anyone actually enjoy Dickens?

Dinner was pretty good--cucumber soup and beef and potatoes with a vegetable sauce. I was asleep about 7:30.

Day 2 we walked about 5 more hours up to Horombo Huts at 3700m (12000 ft), and that's when the altitude hit me pretty hard. I had mild Acute Mountain Sickness. Thankfully, even though the 'A' in "Acute" is capitalized the "mild" is more important. I had a headache, no appetite, nausea, and lotsa trouble breathing.

I started taking the pills I'd brought (Acetazolamide) to help with the altitude. I'd have started before we ever started climbing, but some people recommend you don't take them if you don't need to as if you react poorly you're not really near any medical help. In retrospect, what I should have done is taken a couple of doses back while I was in the States to see if I had a problem and started taking them before I climbed anywhere. In any case, I was a bit off kilter for most of the rest of trip, and my contemporaneous notes stopped.

Luckily, my itinerary called for an extra day for acclimatization then. Day 3 I woke up and it still really hurt to breathe, but my headache was better so I had hope. We left around 10am to walk up to Zebra Rocks at 4000m, just an hour and a half or so. Hung out there for I'm not how long--I took a nap--and headed back to Horombo Hut about 1:00.

Day 4 we walked from Horombo up to Kibo Hut at 4700m (15,400 ft). I spent much of my time daydreaming about marrying Julie née Holland's kid sister. I went to college with Julie, and we weren't exactly close--we maybe took a class or two together but I probably haven't seen her or had any contact since graduation, and I have no idea if she has any siblings. Well, guess I'll email her now...

Kibo was, well, cold. The best part: the 7 kids from UNC-Chapel Hill. Philip and six women, all seven of them attractive, came to Tanzania to spend several weeks doing environmental work and then climb Kili. One was named Zina (I'm spelling it like Garrison instead of Warrior Princess but I'm not sure...), the other 5 names, not sure. I heard them but couldn't keep track. Not sure why I liked them so much...

• all were cheerful and bright and bubbly, not just cute
  
• they're maybe who I wish I'd been at that age (if not today)
• Philip is maybe in training to become a Sethicist. And if he's hetero and all the women are in serious relationships with others, he's already there
  

We spent the day resting at Kibo Hut. I had that gawdawful Together Forever song (Rick Astley, from the bus in Nairobi) going through my head all afternoon while trying to sleep and at dinner. A Chapel Hillie suggested Alanis Morissette instead, and I spent much of the evening trying to sleep but instead thinking about the meta-irony of her song about things that suck.

We left Kibo at midnight on Day 5. The walk goes pretty much straight up a hill to Gilman's Point at 5685m (18,650 ft). We stopped twice for water, for less than two minutes each, and got to Gilman's at about 4:15. Our pace totally reminds me of walking my grandmother down the hall at her nursing home when she was in her late 90's. To Gilman's is supposed to take 5 hours, then another 1 1/2 to Uhuru Peak, so we kept going really slowly to get to the peak just before sunrise so we wouldn't have to stand around for too long.

We did, reaching the peak (5895m, 19,340 ft) at 6:15. It was clear. Maybe 5-10°F. We hung out for a bit. Took some pictures of me and Helen at the peak. Then we left.

Ah, Sensei, the master becomes the student. I could see where I was going, and there was no longer any need to go slowly. But Rafael, my guide, has only been on snow the 10-15 times he's brought people to the peak. Hello, I live in Minnesota! I give him my walking poles, told him a few tips, and took off, looking back every once in a while to make sure he wasn't falling too far behind.

We got back to Gilman's Point and take our first real break. We look down: "Hey, that's Kibo." Sure doesn't look like a 4-5 hour walk... The hill was scree so we took our time, stopped to chat once or twice, and maybe two hours later get back to Kibo to take a nap.

After climbing, some people leave equipment behind for their guides and such. I wasn't exactly in position to do that--Rafael had been worried that I'd be too cold so I'd borrowed wind pants from one of my porters. Maybe he would have been right in worse weather, maybe he was even right here. But...they didn't breathe. I took off the wind pants in the hut and found that my long johns, and my (only!) pants, were SOAKED with sweat. Same for both of my long sleeved shirts and my sweatshirt. Yuck, and brr.

I ran into a Chapel Hillie--I think six of the NC7 made it. One of the women got really sick, threw up 4 times at 5300m or some such thing. I felt really bad for her, but she didn't seem too depressed or was covering it pretty well.

We walk down to Horombo. Very slowly--my knee is almost useless by now. My guide kinda wanted to head all the way down to Mandara so it'd be a shorter walk out the next day, but Horombo it was.

We get in about 2:30. I head to sleep. They try to wake me for tea, but I sent them away. I think that's when they sing the Kilimanjaro song to you. Shit, missed it.

I looked for Chapel Hill at dinner but didn't see them so I went to sleep early. Day 6, didn't see them at breakfast, either. We left at about 8:30.

At 8:40 we passed CH--they'd been there after all. Back to Mandara at about 10:45, back to park HQ just before 1pm. They gave me a certificate, a garland, a bottle of champagne and a nice lunch. Then we headed back to Arusha.

Tips:
I've seen recommendations ranging from 10-15% of the trip fees for tips. But I paid $1000 for my trip, and of that

$360 park fees
$250 camping fees
$ 20 rescue fee
$ 3 some fee
= $663 went to the park.

That leaves $367 for salaries for the guide, the cook, and two porters, transportation to and from Arusha (about 80km), food for all of us, equipment rental, champagne, overhead, other expenses...

It wasn't my fault I was alone, but I felt really bad about these guys waiting on me for a week for peanuts. And they haven't worked in a coupla months as it was the rainy season and they had no bookings. And I'd have paid another $100 for my trip without batting an eye. And I didn't have the right mix of change with me as I thought I'd be in a group and had planned to give them less.

So I maybe overtipped. Or maybe I undertipped...who knows what's right but here's what I gave them, which was almost what they'd asked for:

• Albert, a porter, who I'd seen only when Rafael introduced me after bringing up the subject of tipping on day 3 and again on the evening of day 5 when he came to say goodbye and get his money (he had to leave really early on day 6) got $30.
• Elisante, the porter and waiter who brought me water to wash each morning and after each hike, woke me up every day, gave me a hug when I'd finished and lent me his pants, got $40.
• Emanuel, the cook/porter, who spoke good English and had a sense of humor, got $70.
• And guide Rafael got $100.

Almost 25%.

General comments:
It's really funny to see the porters, like lots of other people in Africa, balancing stuff on their heads. Some are really large or bulky packages, but some are standard(-western)-issue internal frame packs with support straps, hip belts and the like, and they probably weigh almost 30 pounds.

I really felt like crap on day 2. I had continuing stomach issues at night, and no-to-not much appetite during the day the whole time. I thought I might have lost some weight. And I probably did--both Rona and Nushin commented on it when I got back. Andre didn't seem to notice.

Final Thoughts:
(On my way up) I heard a bunch of people (on their way down) talking at Horombo about how the climb had been "mentally challenging beyond what we could have ever imagined." For me, the peak was a bit anticlimactic. I almost felt cheated--was my route too easy, the weather too perfect for me to get the full experience?

I'm maybe more equipped than many for long hours of trudging on, alone, just footstep following footstep with only my own thoughts to keep me company. But it didn't seem that hard.

Don't get me wrong--the altitude is hard to deal with, and something over which we have no control. If I had been on a 5-day itinerary instead of a 6-day I would surely not have made it. The Chapel Hillie who failed was totally sick, puking her guts out at 5300m. But the walk itself, I just kept going. Once I wasn't sick there was no doubt in my mind that I'd make it.

And the peak isn't the standard cartoon mountain where you get to the top and look down around you. It's just the highest point on a large plane--the views from there aren't that spectacular (and it was fairly clear and we got there at the perfect time). And we'd gone from gaining 1000 meters in just over 4 hours to gaining 200 meters over the final 2 hours, so the last while of the walk wasn't challenging, it was just finding our way (and, thanks to our perfect weather that just meant following a well worn path--we didn't even need our lights to walk it in the dark) over to the right spot.

Still, I'm definitely glad I did it and, while it maybe wasn't the hardest thing I've done this trip it was definitely one of the highlights. And I can now use the phrase "back in ought seven, when I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro..."

Okay, if you've made it this far, pictures are up.

Next up: safari.
sg

The one where I spent time with people

My second night in Nungwi, on Zanzibar island, I walked into the restaurant at the same time as another guy who was alone. There was one table left overlooking the water, so we ate together. He's Andre, from California, traveling with girlfriend Nushin but she wasn't feeling well.

I traveled a bit with them (and with Nushin's cousin, Rona(sp?)). We were in the same van back to Stone Town, stayed in the same places (or together) in Stone Town and Dar Es Salaam, and rode the bus to Arusha together--they'll be working here for a coupla months while law student Nushin interns at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

My first night in Arusha I stayed at a campground. I was the only person there. And, in fact, I was the first person to sign the registration book since April 9. So after a day I moved to a hotel across town. My room is essentially a closet, but it's really clean, the bathrooms are really clean, there's free breakfast at the pretty decent bar/restaurant on the roof, and it costs $5 per night.

Since we got to Arusha I've run into Andre and/or Nushin basically everywhere I go. And then yesterday I walked into a cafe and a guy who sorta looked familiar said "Hey, I know you from Upper Hill in Nairobi. I forget your name but I remember you play ultimate and worked with coupons. Oh, yeah, and you're older than you look, something like 34?"

I am, in fact, 34. Kyle, who's maybe a bit too much into trivia, is also an intern at ICTR. So I've been hanging out quite a bit with all the interns. (And today, I went with Andre to watch some of the testimony of Dr. Casimir Bizimungu, the former Health Minister of the Interim Government, as far as I know the first genocidaire I've ever seen in person.)

Yesterday, I was in the office yesterday of the Tanzanian Tourist Board when a guy walked in wearing a shirt that said "Da Burgh". I said "I'm from the (Pitts-)Burgh." He bought the shirt in Kenya or something, but he and his wife did just move to Pittsburgh.

Then, at dinner last night with the interns, we're talking about random people coincidences. I tell about seeing this guy. The intern across from me said "I'm from Pittsburgh." Usually that means somewhere in some town in southwestern PA, but in this case it meant that she lived maybe 150 yards away. We went to the same high school, just 10 years apart.

I came to Arusha to try arrange a trip to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's really hard to do research here because _everyone_ wants to give you information. For example, the Tourist Board found me a group leaving tomorrow through Shidolya Tours. And when I got to the Shidolya office (right at the Arusha International Conference Center, same place as the ICTR, so I ran into Nushin in the lobby) there were 3 guides from competing tour companies in their lobby trying to
steal me away.

I wound up joining the group. Which is I think two other climbers, plus guide and cook and porters. The woman said the others speak good English so she thinks they might be Australian, or maybe English, but that's all I know about them. In any case, tomorrow morning at 8am I'm leaving to climb Mt Kilimanjaro! We're doing the Marangu route, which isn't my first choice but I didn't want to keep looking for a group and working with all the companies (and street touts.)

Two posts today, but definitely no more for the next 6 days, 5 nights!

_sg

The one with speling arrors

One thing I forgot to mention about Zanzibar: spelling on the menus.

I find (and I'm sure make...) spelling errors all the time, anywhere, but in East Africa they're everywhere. My favorite might have been the Grossary store I passed in Uganda, but two of the restaurants I ate at in Nungwi had some fun ones.

At the Paradise Bar and Restaurent things on the Barbercue menu come with barbicue sauce. There's a Bolognesex pizza. And the Non Alcohol Coctails include spirits such as

• Vordika
• Johnnie warker (black and relebble)
• Jack Deniels

And at the place I ate the next night, drinks included

• Milk Sheak
• Vagine Bloody Mary
• Vaginepina Coleda
• Daqure

Anyway,
sg

The one with symptoms

Around here, you're supposed to assume that flu-like symptoms are caused by malaria. But sometimes, like in my case, flu-like symptoms are actually caused by flu-like illnesses.

Actually, I think I had neither--Dr Omar thinks I had some sort of bacterial infection. And he may be right--whether it was the antibiotics or just the natural course, I feel much better now. The fever broke, my headache is gone, no sore throat, stomach fine, I have some appetite back, I only napped once today.

So my stay on Zanzibar got extended a bit.

Zanzibar is the Spice Island. (Actually, it's an archipelago, and is apparently not to be confused with the Spice Islands.) Off the coast of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, about an hour and a half by fast ferry--it's not that far from the coast, but it's a bit north of Dar. It's part of Tanzania (in fact, the ZAN part) but I still had to pass through immigration and get my passport stamped when I got here.

The most exciting thing I did is Mr. Mitu's Spice Tour. (Not to be confused with the other Spice tour.) Basically, things that grow where it's really hot and wet grow here. We sampled 11 kinds of citrus and I ate un-ground pepper.

Other than some fruit we ate on the spice tour, the food in Zanzibar has been uniformly bland. And I've tried Zanzibari, Italian, Indian, Chinese, generic Tourist, etc...

I spent my first couple of days, and again after I got sick, in Stone Town, the historic part of Zanzibar City where no one speaks much English, the streets are alleys that do not go straight, and it's dangerous to be walking around alone at prayer time, when everyone but the criminals is in a mosque.

I spent two days in the middle in Nungwi, a theoretically paradisical resort at the northern tip of the main island. It was sorta pretty but nothing fantastic. The surf was really choppy. Lotsa guys wanting to sell you art, sunglasses, jewelery, drugs, all of the above. I was gonna head down to Kendwa, about a 30 minute walk south, which is supposed to be idyllic, but that's when I got sick. And since I got back to Stone Town it's been raining pretty much every day, so today I'm going to head back to the mainland instead of extending my trip even further to head to the beach.

Hey, I used to play Ultimate with some guys who are pretty good. Congrats to Heijman, and Q and Shane and Drew and other Hodags,
sg

The one where I'm dreamy

Yeah I am!

(Though that might be more a side effect of my malarial pills than a judgement about any particular qualities I might have.)

21 May 2007, 12:41 am, Mombasa, Kenya
The Dream:

I'm flying somewhere. The plane has some problems, but I wasn't scared. We come in to land but touch down briefly and take off again. The sign says we'll be landing in 342 minutes. Everyone groans. Changes to 40 minutes. Then 6 minutes.

As we approach again, I overhear the flight attendant ask if we'd lose power again. Sure enough, the power goes off as we hit the landing tunnel. The cockpit disengages, the main body lands fine. I'm immediately in Rik's car on my way into town (though we're actually on the Parkway going the other way past downtown Pittsburgh). We see the cockpit fly past, flip over and crash just ahead of us.

I should call my parents and sister to tell them I'm safely off the plane. Mom first, turns out she and Snu are at dad's office. I tell them to wait there and head to the office. Dad, the only one there, is on the phone, helping arrange a job for me. He asks if I'd be willing to teach temporarily, I tell him I'll try out anything as long as its temporary.

While he's on the phone I wander over to Lewis Taffer's office down the hall, maybe to ask him about a possible job? While waiting outside, 'cause he's in a meeting, I glance out and seek Kristie R smoking on the porch roof. She's wearing gray cords and a burgundy turtleneck, which seem very dowdy.

The door opens, a guy comes out of LT's office. Turns out, the meeting was about a crossword newsletter and competition for July. Lew points out (I hear--I only see the anonymous guy) that the guy should remember to include that there were three perfect scores on puzzle A3, including two from the people that tied for 1st, and a perfect A2 from the 2nd place guy, in the last competition.

I wake up.

Some notes: The last time I actually saw (or had any direct communication with) Lew Taffer, a high school(?) friend of my dad's, was maybe in 1991 when I was in NJ for my cousin's wedding. The office was dad's, though the suite it was in and the smoking area on the roof weren't his. I met Kristie one day last week, and I never saw her smoke and she seemed fairly stylish.


23 May 2007, 3:15 am, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
The Dream:

I need to run home from work 'cause I forgot something. The home: 505 S. Linden, but it's mine. I drive past Sarah and Dave on my way and wonder if they'll ever stop by to see the house. When I get out of the car in the driveway, they're standing there, having passed while walking their dog, who doesn't seem to be around.

I explain that I'd love to show them the house at some point, but I only had a minute and had to rush back to work. Russ walks by. We all talk for a minute. I say I gotta go, but if they wanted to help run my errand they could at least sneak a peek inside: turns out, a bed and mattress for Snu had been delivered and needed to be carried inside. Don grabs the bed, Sarah the mattress, I go to unlock the door, Russ follows along.

Turns out, the front door is unlocked. Sarah looks around, sits at the piano, and comments that the house is in a style called "standard" rather than the "pre-modern" or whatever that I thought I had. I usher them out, but it seems like someone left the radio on in the kitchen. I go in, and the back door is standing wide open. The radio on the wall is BLARING a Monday Night Football game. There's a lot of crowd noise and Al Michaels is giving Dan Marino's stats from the game

I start to leave with Sarah and Dave. Russ seems to have wandered off upstairs, but I'm just gonna leave him wander as I need to get back to work.

I wake up. And as I'm waking up, I think that if George is looking for projects to work on around my actual house to work off some more rent, and if Bridget and TY think that it's a good idea, if he hasn't put in glass block to replace the basement window at the foot of the stairs, when he does that he can also use glass block or something like it to replace the doggie door in the wall of the kitchen.

Some notes: I actually lived in that house, which is in Pittsburgh, from when I was 10 'til I left for college; my parents moved out about 10 years ago. The radio on the wall in the kitchen is the only detail that's different than it actually was. Sarah and Dave are friends from college--in the dream they lived a couple of doors down in the house where I babysat once or twice. They actually do live around the corner from where my parents do now, and I spent some time with them in Sydney in February. Russ is a friend of mine in Minneapolis, a former (and future?) teammate. He doesn't know Sarah or Dave. Snu is my sister. Dan Marino is from Pittsburgh but I don't think we've ever met. He quarterbacked the Miami Dolphins from 1983 'til 1999 and appeared in glove commercials. George and Bridget are living in my house while I'm gone, and TY's helping them decorate it and hopefully avoiding paint fumes.

My other thought as I woke up was that this dream seemed much more innocuous than the first one and that I hope that doesn't lead Susie to give me a much less informative meaning for that one.

Snu, go to town!
sg

The one where I was with Dorothy

Wait Dorothy was in Kansas, not Kenya. Sorry, I was in Kenya, in the Rift Valley.

I left Nairobi and headed west to Nakuru. On the bus, it was 80's Saturday on Classic 105! Jungle Boy (Baltimora), Like a Prayer (Ciccone), Abracadabra (Miller), Together Forever (Astley). But then we left town and they switched to REALLY LOUD NEWS. Spent the night in Nakuru in a suite on the roof of the Mt Sinai Hotel, across the street from a "Subway" restaurant. Note that Dar Es Salaam has actual Subway franchises--can't wait to try the pressed beef sub!

In the morning I got a ride out to the Menegai Crater. It's...a crater. I took some matatus up to Lake Bogoria. I wanted to camp at the Fig Tree Camp. From the map in the guidebook it looked like it'd be about 6 miles. But it's not, and since I didn't think I'd be able to walk the 18 miles to the campsite in the 3 hours left until sundown I wound up heading to the campground at the hot springs. About 8 miles in, past flamingos and ostriches and a coupla zebras and hydraxes and antelopes.

I stayed just one night. My tent pole broke, and I went to borrow some tape from the other people at the campsite--Barbara (Swiss) and Karsten (German) and their dog Mali (Malian) had what looked like a very well stocked van. They volunteered to drive me out. And since they'd take me all the way to my next destination, saving me a 8 mile walk and three different matatu rides, for each of which I might have had to wait some hours, I accepted.

The next night was at the Flamingo Camp at Lake Elmenteita. There was no one else at the Flamingo Camp at Lake Elmenteita. And not many flamingos. But it is beautiful, and the lake was totally reminiscent of the lakes in New Zealand famed for the mountain reflections.

Turns out, the millions of flamingos are now at Lake Nakuru. But that's in a national park that you can't go into without transportation, so it would have been _really_ expensive to rent a taxi for a day and pay the park fees and such to see them. But at several viewpoints from the road back from the crater and in Nakuru town you can see the pink shores.

Next stop was Fisherman's Camp on Lake Naivasha. Which I visited to go to Hell's Gate National Park, just across the way. I decided not to camp in the park--I figured at night, when the nocturnal animals were active, I'd be huddled in my tent rather than wandering in the dark looking for lions and leopards. I rented a bike and headed off to the park.

Which was really neat. As I entered, some of the park rangers were burning trash, right next to the sign indicating the current fire danger level: EXTREME. There isn't a huge density of animals, but the ones I did see I saw with literally no one else around. No guide, no other park visitors, just me and the mostly antelopes and zebras (and two giraffes, but at a distance). And the animals are used to humans, and there was no engine noise to scare them off. At one point I looked up and there were zebras maybe 25 yards away that I hadn't noticed until then.

The other park attraction is the gorge. The ranger tries to get you to pay $15 so a guide can take you in--"otherwise you can easily get lost." Which is kinda like getting lost in a tunnel, and not the confusing Boston kind of tunnel. You're going in, or coming out, but you're just following the river in one of the directions. As I was eating lunch a Canadian woman walked up, and we decided to walk in together. One of the Maasai guides followed, and we agreed to have him show us the way in return for a tip, but certainly not $15.

We took the 2 hour walk, which took about 30 minutes, ending up at the path to take back to the ranger station and our bikes. We gave the guide a coupla bucks each and decided to continue on to the hot springs, another coupla hours. We went not quite all the way to the hot springs before we came to a section that would have been hard to get through without getting quite wet. And we'd each seen enough hot springs to not need to see these, so we headed back. Biked back out to the road (5 miles to the park entrance, 2 to the main road), I went left, she went right, I headed the 3 more miles back to the camp.

The next day, Thursday, I headed back to Nairobi.

Friday I got a new tent--the pole had broken all the way, it couldn't be fixed until Monday, and I paid about $40 for a much better one than the one I'd had. It'd been used, but pretty lightly. It's much bigger (I think it'll sleep 4) but only weighs a bit more. Gave my old tent to the guard at the campsite in Nairobi, along with explanations about how to get it fixed, which hopefully he can do and then sell it to someone. Or use it, but I'm betting on the former.

Saturday headed to Mombasa, to see somewhere else and break up the bus trip a bit. Mombasa, on the Kenyan coast, is really hot. And a bit disturbing--it's the first place I went where the street beggars are really in-your-face, and I felt a little unsafe for the first time this trip. I stayed a day and then headed down to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

Where I've been for a day and a half. It's supposed to be safer than Nairobi, but still feels more like Mombasa. And, unlike Kenya (and certainly unlike Uganda), most people do _not_ speak English. Finally! Of course, I don't speak muck Kiswahili... In any case, I'm off to catch a ferry to Zanzibar, the Spice Island!

Ta,
sg

The one where Nairobi's nice this time of year

Which is a good thing, as I've been here for a couple of days longer than I'd planned.

I hung out with some Canadians for a bit, spent a day waiting around to meet a friend of a friend who came six hours late and left after 20 minutes, and spent more days than you'd think it would take trying to change my flight.

Now, I've finally changed my flight--I'll head to Greece on July 2, and probably get home in the first week of August--and will leave town this afternoon, heading off to Nakuru. Either today or tomorrow, depending on timing, I'll head out to Lake B?--I forget its name, but its hopefully got millions of flamingos.

For the next week or so I'll be around the B? Lakes, Nakuru, Naivasha and Hell's Gate National Park in the Rift Valley. I'm especially looking forward to Hell's Gate, where you can rent a bike and pedal (or walk) freely through the park--hopefully, the cheetahs and lions and leopards and such are used to such things... Then, back through Nairobi on my way to Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar!

Flickr (the host of my photos) reports that you can now view slideshows with titles. Haven't tried it, but it might now be easier to view my pictures (and know what you're seeing) of Nairobi. Which include shots from Nairobi and the running, screaming mob I ran into just after arriving, Nairobi National Park, and of me with Laura (including a hopefully not too explicit photo of our first kiss!). And my photos from Sipi Falls in eastern Uganda are up as well.

And a generic note--Flickr shows photos in the reverse of the order in which they were loaded. So it's kind of a pain to make things coherent for you as I need to load them one-by-one in reverse order so you can see them properly, but it also means that you can always just go to my photo link and easily see my most recent pictures if you've been hankering for some Joy when I'm not obliging.)

ta,
sg

The one where I went east

I went to Sipi Falls in eastern Uganda. It is pretty, but probably isn't worth the trip unless you're in the area anyway.

Which lots of people have reason to be as the falls are right outside Mt Elgon National Park, Mt Elgon being one of the highest mountains in Africa. And, like Kilimanjaro, it can be climbed in a coupla days without any specialized skills or equipment.

I was in the area because I was gonna pass close by on my way to Kenya.

Now I'm in Kenya.

I've started my eastern swing. For the next, I dunno, six to eight weeks I'll be in Kenya (Rift Valley, Kakamega Forest, maybe Masai Mara and a treat for Kristina), Tanzania (Zanzibar/Dar, Kilimanjaro, Karatu/Ngorogoro, Serengeti and Mwanza) and Rwanda (Kigali and maybe a park).

The trip here:
I caught a bus to Nairobi. Which means I'll have to backtrack west quite a bit, but there were no better transportation options. The bus left Mbale, Uganda at around 5:30pm. At about 7:30 we got to the border. We pull up to Ugandan customs. I follow everyone out of the bus and into the office, fill out a form, wait in line, and officially leave Uganda. I went outside and there was no one on the bus (and bicyclists were fighting for my attention) so I figured we were supposed to walk over to Kenya. I did.

Passed a gate with soldiers on each side wearing different uniforms. I guess the border. Crossed a bridge. Walked past a building with what looked like lots of closed offices that should be full of customs agents. Then through a gate.

Wait a minute...I'm in Kenya. Where's the bus? I went back.

I said to the guard at the gate "Do I need to show my passport anywhere?"

"Welcome to Kenya. Jambo!"

I turned to his friend. "Jambo!," said the friend.

Went over to a small building nearby. A guy in a suit said "Jambo!". "Sijambo," says I, "where do I go?"

Apparently, it's around back, behind the original dark building. There are no lights, no signs. He sent someone to show me the way, and we walked through two unlit corridors to get to passport control.

I waited in line, and the bus came by. Good, at least I'm on the right track. My turn at the window. "Hello, I need a visa to enter Kenya."

Man flips through passport. "You do not have a visa." He flips through again. And again. "I need a visa." "You don't have a visa." "I know. I need one."

Finally, he asks me for $50, which is a good sign again because I know that's what it should cost. He takes my money, slides it into a drawer, stamps a page in my passport with like eight different stamps, and writes in yet more details. He proudly shows me the results, turns it several different ways and asks for my opinion. I take back my passport and turn around...to see the bus leave.

I follow it down the road, it stops a bit later, and when I get on my stuff is even there--I'm on the right bus! That's another good sign.

Twenty minutes later, we get stopped at a checkpoint. We all get off, with all of our stuff, and line up by gender. They search lots of bags. When it's my turn I give him my passport, which he doesn't even open. I'm thinking it's gonna take forever to go through my pack as everything inside is also inside a translucent pack liner in case it gets wet. But he asks me what's inside and cuts me off when I say "a sleeping bag, some clothes, some...". I get back on the bus.

At about 1:30am, I think slightly before Nukuru, this happens:



I was awake, trying to shut the window and stop the draft. I'd just put my book away (The Mill on the Floss) and was thinking about going back to sleep. A pretty big bang, but it was obvious pretty quickly that I was fine. Not even sure that the seat belt, which, Mom, I was wearing, stopped me. It probably did, but I know most weren't wearing them and I think no one got hurt.
We climbed out of the only slightly collapsed driver's side and got on other buses as they came past. I got into Nairobi at about 6:30am, by which time it was light, so thanks to the crash I didn't need to wander the streets of "Nairobbery" in the dark with no Kenyan money.

I hung out at the bus station until the currency exchange opened, got a bit of money and took a MUCH needed shower, and headed off for breakfast.

Now, I'm off to Nairobi National Park.

ta,
sg

The one with no associated holiday

When we left off, I was heading to Semuliki National Park. I headed to Semuliki National Park.

Semuliki is an extension of the "vast Itumi forest" of DR Congo. It's in extreme western Uganda, contiguous with the DRC border along the East African Rift Valley.

The drive there is absolutely gorgeous. I was in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains, but if the road had been paved and if I hadn't been in a matatu with 23 others I might have thought I was in New Zealand.

Semuliki park itself is renowned for its diversity of flora and fauna. There are over 400 different bird species and 63 different mammals (including 9 different primates). And almost 400 different butterfly and moth species, most of which I bet I saw--they were _everywhere_. And I don't have numbers, but I know I saw oodles of lizards. Unfortunately, most of the park isn't really accessible to most visitors. Most of it is lush tropical forest--there are no roads or paths through it, and it's maybe not safe in the lowlands because of those darned Congolese rebels. So for the entirety of my visit I was within a mile or two of the east edge of the park.

There's a pretty big security presence in the park--only once did I walk between the main gate and the campsite (about 3km) without an escort. At one point several soldiers suddenly appeared in the campsite. Most had rifles but at least one had an RPG. They talked to one of the rangers and then disappeared back into the woods. I wanted to take a picture but really didn't want to ask them for permission (I wanted to keep my camera) so I did what I could on the sly. Then I altered the settings on my camera so there wouldn't be an audible click when I took pictures in the future...

I did see lots of different primates, especially colobus (black-and-white and red) and red-tailed monkeys. And baboons, though it might have just been one baboon that I saw several times. The monkeys hang out in the trees. And they're pretty shy, so they take off when they see me around. To travel, they take these flying leaps from tree to tree, grabbing hold of whatever leafy branch they happen to jump to, or the one below it if it's not sturdy enough. And these are big leaps, like over my head across the road, not just gingerly hops to the something a foot away.

The other thing the park has: hot springs. I took a nature walk with Bosco, who was born on 7/7/77. But we basically just walked to the springs. Did see lots more monkeys, lots of agama and monitor lizards, our baboon friend, and some birds. Didn't see any of the elephants, leopards, crocodiles or buffalo that are deeper into the park. I almost fell into boiling mud.

I left the park and headed back into Fort Portal for yet another night of transit. I stopped in Hoima the next day, and the day after that finally reached my final destination on my tour, Murchison Falls National Park. Murchison is Uganda's biggest park. It's bisected by the Nile and is named for the falls, where the Nile is squeezed through a channel about 20 feet wide. The water doesn't fall very far, but the resulting pressure creates what's said to be the most powerful natural water flow in the world.

My intention was to head first to Kaniyo Pabidi, close to the park entrance, where the forestry department offers the cheapest chimpanzee tracking in Uganda. I got to Masindi, the nearest town to the park, and hung out by the side of the road trying to catch a ride--it's about 35km to the park entrance from town, then another 8km to Pabidi. I thought I had a chance,
especially 'cause it was Friday afternoon so I figured people would be coming through on their way in for the weekend. But...nothing.

A motorcycle driver asked where I was going. I said "Too far. There's no way I can afford you." He insisted. I told him. I asked how much. He said "80,000 shillings." Almost $50. I laughed. "I might give you 10,000." "Okay." The other guys thought he was nuts, but he apparently wanted to drive the white man.

But when we got to the park gate they told me the campground at Pabidi was closed because there were a lot of lions there. And the huts had burned down and they hadn't built the new ones yet, so there was nowhere there to stay. My best option was to hang around and wait for a park vehicle that'd be coming through to take me to the campground by the main park headquarters at Paraa, about 80km away. So I did that. There's essentially no way to do the chimp tracking if you don't have your own transport. Rode the 80km in the back of a pickup, watching hundreds and hundreds of monkeys and antelopes scatter as we drove down the road.

I stayed at the campsite. Met some people who were there as part of a group tour--one was originally from Minneapolis and knows some people I know. The next morning I hung around the campsite and did some laundry. While the group tour people were on a nature drive--most of the animals are in the part of the park north of the river, while the campground is just south of it. The park has a huge number of leopards, lions, elephants and giraffes, but you can't really see them without going on a nature drive.

I did see an awesome spider (I think...it's called a velvet mite) all over after the rain. It looked like a raspberry with legs. (Even if you normally think spiders are icky or don't look at my pictures you should check these out...)

In the afternoon I went with the group on the boat trip up the river to the mouth of the falls. Just like on the other boat trips (Lake Mburo, Queen Elizabeth National Park) I saw lots of birds and animals during the 2-hour trip to the base of the falls. In this case, storks and geese and kingfishers and bee eaters and hippos and baboons and buffaloes and crocodiles.

I left the group when the boat dropped me off near the base of the falls so I could hike up to the top. Only about 40 minutes, but it was really hot out. Much sweating. I spent the night (alone) in a campsite near the top of the falls, much of the time huddled in the gazebo avoiding the big storm.

The falls: wow. It's pretty impressive. The total volume of water that passes through is tiny compared to something like Niagara Falls, but Niagara Falls is I think more than 20 feet wide. Well, I've heard--never actually seen it...

I went back to the falls in the morning when the tour group came through. And here's where I'm really an idiot: I'd left a bag at the main campsite so I wouldn't have to carry it with me up to the falls. So instead of being able to catch a ride to Masindi, or maybe even Kampala, at 9am on Sunday, I stayed around the top of the falls waiting for a way to get back to Paraa.

At 10:15 one of the rangers got a call that there was a morning boat trip. "What time does the boat get there?" "Oh, any time after, say, 10:30." So I hiked (quickly) back down the to the base of the path and waited for the boat. It came by about 15 minutes after I got there and picked me up. A small one this time, just one family, but they were nice enough to let me stay on instead of having to transfer to the really crowded big public boat. The ride back took about an hour. We did spot some elephants, but otherwise uneventful.

I got back to the campsite and grabbed my bag and ordered lunch. After lunch, maybe 1:30 or so, I headed over to the park HQ to wait for a ride. The HQ is right by the ferry, so any park vehicles or any others that are on game drives or such would have to pass through. But, yup, no ride. I waited until about 5, when a HUGE rainstorm came by. I moved inside and waited until about 6:30, by which point the rain had let up.

The park guy told me there'd be a park vehicle heading to town in the morning so I should try again at 9am. I headed back to the campsite, set up my tent and had some dinner.

In the morning I ate breakfast and went to the park office at 8am to be sure to catch whatever I could. The 9am truck left at about 10:30. We got about 20km out and...broke down. I dunno, something about a pickup truck carrying 23 people up some big hills... We all got out and they sent some students to find a water hole. When the truck cooled, the driver headed back to HQ while the rest of us hung out. A couple of us started walking towards town--a couple of miles ahead were the turnoffs to the top of the falls and one of the lodges, so we wanted to get on the other side of those to increase our likelihood of finding a ride as quickly as possible. The new park vehicle got there about three minutes after we'd stopped. On our way out we passed Pabidi, and what looked to me an awful lot like several tents in the campground...

The park guy let me off in Masindi and I headed to the taxi park at about 1:00. It was probably 3:00 by the time we left. We went about 25 miles (in two hours) to get to the main road. Then waited another 45 minutes or so for another taxi that was heading to Kampala. I got to Kampala at maybe 10pm, then had to get all the way across town to PABs' house. I arrived, probably 32 hours later than if I'd come down Sunday with the tour group.

So now I'm back in Kampala for a little bit, planning my swing east through eastern Uganda and Kenya and Tanzania and Rwanda and maybe even Burundi.

For now, pictures are up of Semuliki, Murchison, and my entire swing through the southwest.

Hasta,
sg

The one after Passover

Saturday, April 7:
In the morning, I had this weird sense that there were people standing around talking about me outside my tent. Not so weird: there were people standing around talking about me outside my tent.

The tour bus that was staying at the same hotel/campground I was had arranged a show for 8am, before they left town. Basically dancing, singing, native dancer orphan fundraisers. The show field was to be where the manager had had me set up my tent, and they got there an hour early for the show.

Wound up taking a motorcycle out to the park in the afternoon and I camped right outside the park gates.

Sunday:
Turns out, I'm very irresponsible. Remember Allen E., my favourite travel companion/pillow? I left him on Peak 2 on our way down.

I climbed Mt Sabinyo in extreme SW Uganda. At the top--the junction of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. To get to the top--not easy. Through acacia forest, really cool bamboo forest. Totally steep in parts and the ladders, OSHA may not approve. Plus, we're at altitude. We (me, Mike the Canadian medical student, a guide, a guard) start at about 2300m (7500 ft) and climb to 3669m (1200 ft, more than 2 miles up). And with three different peaks to get to, there's a bit of down, too, so the total amount you need to climb is almost a mile.

We went up in about 4 hours, which I guess (and I think) is pretty quick. We went slower on the way down, in about 3 hours. With time at the top, the total trip length was about average. I had not the easiest time, and I was pretty sore.

And, again, I left Allen E at the top of Peak 2.

Headed back to town. I finally met Joseph, the local tour guide who Lonely Planet says can be found around town--it took him a full day to find me. I didn't have time to do some much needed laundry, but I got a room anyway to sleep in a bed, which cost me an extra $7.50.

Monday:
The bus picked me up at 5am. We got to Mbarara at about 11am, right about when Phil and Paige passed through on their way back from Queen Elizabeth National Park but we didn't connect. I checked my email to get some financial details from George and filed for my tax extension--I hope the Uganda postmark shows the date... I bought some groceries.

Took a taxi to the town near the main gate of QENP. Up to 22 people, with bags, including 7 people in the first row of benches. The chatter, with thanks to Gary Larson: "blah blah blah mzungu [laughter] blah blah mzungu [laughter]". And "mzungu", for those who've forgotten, is me.

Then I got a shared ride to the park. Nine adults and one baby in a compact hatchback. Including 4 in the front (bucket) seats. For just $3, instead of $17 for a private hire.

It's kinda weird bargaining with a guy, saying you can't afford $17, or even $12. Then, when you agree to pay $3, the whole carload of people has to wait around while I paid my $40 to get into the park--they all probably work there for like $2/day and get in free.

I was alone at the campground. Briefly. Then, just as I was figuring out where to put my tent a busload of 14 year-olds showed up, I paused in my deliberations and let them set up first.

I had a fight with a warthog who smelled bread in my bag. I won the fight, then threw out the bread.

At night I finally did some seriously necessary laundry using some tubs the ranger left for me. I looked over--there's a hippo! Wandering RIGHT by my tent! Hippos look a bit ridiculous, but they weigh about four tons and run faster than I do. They kill more people in Africa than I think all other animals combined--both upending boats and accidentally trampling people when they get freaked and try to get back to the water. (And if you don't die, they may spray dung all over your tent.) So I was a bit nervous camping in their path.

I headed to the bar to ask someone whether I should be worried. The bar was closed, but I got there at the same time as three Ugandan guys.
Ug: "Hey, aren't you that crazy mzungu that walked from Bunyanyi last week"
sg: "Uh, yes. Should I be worried about the hippos?"
Ug: "No."
Ug (to friends): "blah blah mzungu blah Bunyanyi"
friends: [laughter]
sg: "Okay, thanks. See you later."

So I went back, and went to sleep. Fitfully.

Tuesday:
I kept hearing animals grunt, walk past, etc... I assumed it was the warthogs.

At, I guess (from phone records) 4am, I heard more. I peeked out: "hey, that looks like a feline, with babies." I pulled out the Lonely Planet, turned on my headlamp, and looked at some mammals. No spots...nah, couldn't be. LP again. "I think it's a lion." LP again. Peeked out again. Lay down.

Now they're playing with my laundry tubs. Hey, those are, like, four feet from my head....

I tried to take a picture through the ceiling webbing, but it didn't come out.

I saw the campground manager in the morning. "Yeah, it's probably a hyena." "I don't know, it looked awfully feline." "Well, there is a lion around with two cubs." He finds the second tub off in the grass, with bite holes. Lion bite holes.

Wow.

Oh, in the morning I heard the "warthog" grunt again: Nope, they were mongeese.

I wrote some postcards, some with diagrams, some with a list of my activities in a busy first part of the week.

In the afternoon I took a boat ride in the channel. Not overly exciting--I saw some birds I'd seen before, and LOTS of buffaloes and hippos. Some kob. Some waterbuck.

I ate two dinners, and drank a lot so I could maybe actually fall asleep. Then I had to find someone to drive me the 200 yards to my tent because there were four hippos in the road...

Wednesday:
I caught a ride out to the main road with some local university students. They dropped me on the main road. I caught a taxi to Kasese, then a taxi to Fort Portal.

Thursday:
I saw a really nice bus, the nicest I've seen in Uganda, full of Japanese tourists. They came to the restaurant where I was eating lunch and were all dressed in identical jacket/vests and hats. Weird.

Then I took a taxi out to the Rwaihamba market, wandered for a bit, and walked the mile back to the Lake Nkuruba Community Camp Site on one of many nearby crater lakes. (And, as I write this Pastor Bosco is sitting next to me, so here's a link to the orphanage's site...)

Friday:
I'd planned, tentatively, on a (5-6 hour) walk to Muhoma Falls. But I was tired, so the walk was easily abandoned in the (at times heavy) rain.

My tent, which we're calling Doogie, he is not so waterproof. And thank god for earplugs--loud rain in a tin-roofed building, with school lessons for the orphans that seemed to involve a lot of screaming, was not that conducive to reading.

Saturday:
It started raining in the morning again at about 6. I quick grabbed my stuff and ran it to the covered area, then went and grabbed my tent and did the same. Then I hung out there until about noon, by which time the tent was dry, I'd eaten breakfast, and I'd finished my book. I packed up my stuff, slowly, and about 1pm started the 20km walk back to Fort Portal.

I got about half way, by which point I was close enough to feel not too bad about paying ($1.20) for a motorcycle to take me the rest of the way.

Sunday:
I took the day off to stay in town, maybe avoid some rain, make some plans, do a bunch on the internet, and maybe help TY with her taxes. (She didn't need the help.)

Monday:
I finished this entry and loading the pictures I've taken so far on my southwest swing. Now, I'm gonna grab lunch and catch a taxi to the Semuliki National Park.

This coming week I'll see monkeys, hopefully chimps, maybe giraffes, and the most powerful waterfall in the world.

Chao!

The one before Easter

Have you been to Kisoro, Uganda? I didn't think so. I'm stranded here for a day, so I have time to write this, knit a sweater after learning to knit, whatever.

I started my swing southwest on Monday, catching a bus to Kabale. I sat next to Phionah, who's now sent me six text messages, in none of which do I have any idea what she's talking about. Got a hotel room in town (for $4) and went to sleep.

Tuesday I headed out to Lake Bunyonyi, a "magical place" with "beguiling beauty [that] defies description". I walked the 9km, more for the walk than to save $2.50. Camped out for two nights on the shores at the Bunyonyi Overland Resort, for which I spent $25 including food and drinks. On Wednesday I joined some people (Leonie, Louise, Tobias, someone else) who were on a group tour--we rented a boat and headed across the lake to Kyevu market, where we all shared 6¢ worth of sugar cane and sat there for an hour entertaining the villagers while we waited for the boatman to return. Leonie and Lou and I played cards (Five Hundred) that night. I lost, badly.

Thursday I walked back to town. I dawdled a bit and missed the bus to Kisoro, so I got my hotel room again rather than try to get a taxi. Friday I woke up too late to catch the first bus, and the second one was full (FULL), so I didn't actually leave town until 1pm. On another bus that was pretty full--maybe 80 people, and a LOT of stuff, on a 50 seat bus. As crowded as any bus or subway I've been on...I stood in the aisle, one foot on the ground and my other knee resting on my bag. For 65km, which took about 2.5 hours. Unfortunately, Kisoro is 80km from Kabale--we got stranded for hours when a truck got stuck across the road. I finally pulled into town at about 7pm.

So today I have all day to get out to Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, about 14km outside of town. (I may pay $6 for a ride, I may walk.) This is the one of the parks where the mountain gorillas live, and is contiguous with Parc National des Virungas in DR Congo and the Parc des Volcans in Rwanda. Tracking the gorillas is really expensive and you need to plan ahead, so I'll be climbing a volcano. The park has three, and I'll probably climb Mt Sabinyo (3669m)--Mt Muhuvura (4127m) is higher and might have slightly better views, but the peak of Sabinyo is where Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda all meet. So when you wake up Easter morning, I'll be in one of those places.

Chao!
sg

The one where it's coming together

So one of the things I've been trying to figure out is what I'll do when my trip is over. Now, finally, I've got plans. (You know I love it when those come together...)

A few of you know that before I left I, because there clearly wasn't enough going on already in my life, spent my last week frantically scraping my act together to finally get people to write me some recommendations for graduate schools. Then, I spent much of my early time in Australia finalizing my applications. The results are in, and I've accepted an offer!

For a while I've been fascinated by the Metaphysical (and meta-Metaphysical) ideals of the pre- (and post-) Aristotelian Utopia(s), but I had a hard time understanding how to apply my ideas to my work and my life in any meaningful way. Well, starting this fall (late September...) I'll be attending the brand new program in Metabusiness at Harvard Business School! That's right, I'm moving to Boston!

And I'm super-excited about it. I'll surely miss Minnesota, but for now at least my intention is to come back at the end of the program. (Probably just the Masters to start, so just 2-3 years, though who knows what'll happen once I really get into it...) Robin's sister, the fool, agreed to live in my house while I'm gone, once Bridget and George go off ...wherever... for his program. Soon, my debt status will approach Andrea's!

In other, less exciting, news, I'm taking off tomorrow on a trip through southwestern and western Uganda, starting down by Lake Bunyonyi and hopefully ending up in a week or two or three at Murchison Falls. Then, I'll head back through Kampala to plan a more extensive eastern swing through eastern Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and maybe Burundi (if it's safe) and Rwanda. I'm not sure how the timing will work out--there's probably a pretty good chance I'll wind up extending my Africa trip, especially as I don't really need to be back now until September.

And, finally, there's no coherent story they tell but there are lots of Kampala pictures up for mom.

Chao!
sg

The one where I rafted and rafted again

I left Sydney a day earlier than I'd originally planned, intending to go rafting on the Nile with PABs and some friends. We wound up going to Lake Mburo instead that first weekend.

We went the next Saturday instead. Phil already wrote about it, and what he says is true, and he was there, so I don't need to repeat his stuff.

My experience: We start out with a Class V right away. And it was no problem--we hit it, we stayed in the boat, it was great. Mostly because of the guides--the Nile is one of the safest white-water experiences you can have, but the guides aren't shy about telling everyone to "GET DOWN...GET DOWN", so for some of the most turbulent stuff we're crouched down and holding on while the guide does all the work.

The second rapid was only a Class III, but we went in and flipped immediately. The raft landed on my head, but it wasn't too bad.

The third, "Total Gunga", another Class V, was the only time all day I was a bit nervous heading in--it looked rough. And it was. The first big wave threw me and two others out, and the raft landed on my head again. We were quickly swept down to the bigger wave, "the G Spot", where the raft jumped and threw someone else out. I'd just come up for air when the raft landed on my head again, this time with me getting stuck underneath and needing to find my way out. I was in a bit of a daze for a couple of minutes, but after that I wasn't scared and I attacked and enjoyed each wave.

For a long stretch just before lunch we didn't even raft--we just jumped in, body surfed a light rapid, then floated our way down the Nile while throwing water hyacinth at each other.

After lunch we started by going over a ~12 ft waterfall, which was underwhelming as the raft's longer than that. We didn't lose anyone at the biggest of the Class V's, "The Bad Place", which I think may be the biggest commercially run eddy in the world. (And, of course, that's the only place the videographer failed to capture our ride...)

It was fun, and I even entertained the thought that I might want to go back later on before I leave Africa. We spent the night at a camp across the river and came back to Kampala early the next morning to get to work.

< insert week at workshop >

The workshop participants have Sunday off. On Saturday, when people were trying to figure out what to do the following day, Paige tells some people about our rafting trip. Sarah and Martha want to go but are a bit scared. Martha came to me to find out what it's like and for reassurance, and while I maybe failed to convince her not to be scared I did offer to go again to keep them company.

Paige spent all night working her network, trying to find us a 4th. We found a couple people who were interested, each of whom wound up not being able to make it. I headed over to meet Sarah and Martha in the morning, trying to formulate a backup plan if it was just the three of us. Luckily, Amini, a friend of Sarah’s from D(emocratic)R(epublic of the)C(ongo) whose name I surely misspelled, was gonna come with us. He doesn't know how to swim, and doesn't speak much English so he couldn't understand the guide that well, but there are lifejackets and he was willing to try.

This time, we were the only raft going down. (Though still with the safety raft, the kayakers and photographer.) The start of our introductory training on the water was fine, but the practice flip, not so much. Martha and Sarah were definitely scared and Amini was terrified. (As I imagine I would be if I didn't swim...) Martha begged the guide, Jared, to do it just one more time for practice but he refused.

So we started out, with me kind of excited, Martha and Sarah really nervous, and Amini in the safety boat, which at least takes the least turbulent line, hanging on for dear life.

I still wound up enjoying the day. Amini calmed down after a while and joined us in the raft for some of the smaller rapids, and seemed okay in the end. Martha kinda wanted to join him in the safety raft by the end but knew she'd regret not trying if she did. We flipped I think three times, with the one in the Bad Place being the worst. I'm not sure if "fun" is the right word, and I don't think they'll do it again too soon, but I think overall they're glad they at least tried it and everyone was at least sorta smiling at the end.

I have a DVD of trip the first week, and we got photo CDs for the second trip. So many of the pictures are up, most of which, including the one above, were taken by the rafting company photographer, though this one was all me. Sorry if they’re a bit jumbled—I still can’t figure out how to make Flickr display in the order I want.

chao,
sg

The one where I don't get no respect

Which is a good thing. According to the East Africa edition of Watching Wildlife,

"territorial male [hippopotami] back up and shower each other with urine and faeces as a sign of respect...".

They also

"mark territories and grazing trails by spraying dung and waving their paddle-shaped tail at the same time, spraying it all over the place..."

The book goes into more details, which you, gentle reader, will thank me for skipping.

My first weekend here, Paige had Monday off for Presidents Day, so we went to visit the Lake Mburo National Park, a small park about 150 miles southwest of Kampala (and on the other side of the world--we're 20 miles north of the equator, the park is in the south!). It's a pretty area, but, as PABs (Phil Anderson Bowen; Paige Anderson Bowen) often say, "we live in a zoo." So we were basically there to see wildlife, and we did.

We hired an armed guide (mandatory) to take a walk in the woods. We saw African (obviously) buffaloes, zebras, and a whole bunch of antelope--waterbucks, bushbucks, impala, duikers, oribis. One impala had just lost an antler in a fight that day—he had one antler, and one bloody stump. Also mongeese, the aforementioned hippos (though just in the water), and warthogs, which look exactly like Pumba from The Lion King.

We didn't see any monkeys on our walk; those were hanging around the snack bar. There was an olive baboon, and there were lots of vervets--the males have very distinctive bright blue or turquoise scrota. (I guess this post can't be in a children's book anymore...)

And...birds. It's pretty hard to be around here and not be amazed and fascinated by the birds. The standard work is Stevenson & Fanshawe's _Birds of East Africa_, and the PABs and lots of others have copies and many guidebooks include references to the proper pages when discussing avian life. We took a boat trip on the lake Monday morning, along with some Dutch doctors who came to Uganda specifically to look at birds and a Japanese boy who never spoke and wore serious mountaineering boots. We saw African (obviously) fish eagles, pied and malachite kingfishers, green-backed herons, and a African (obviously) wattled lapwing.

The big find was the African (obviously) finfoot--it's apparently not easy to find, but we saw several, including a family with mom feeding her two kids while dad hovered (well, floated) nearby.

Most of my animal pictures aren't great, so here's a picture of me at the equator instead.




sg

The one with a prize

A gift from Uganda (eventually) for the best answer to the following question:

This statue is available for sale at the equator. What is it supposed to be?

The one where driving in Kampala is quirky

In Melbourne, at some intersections you can only turn right from the left lane. In Kampala, you can turn anywhere, from anywhere, at any time.

There’s at least one, maybe two stoplights in Kampala, a city with about a million people, but sometimes there’s just no power. There are no lane dividers, and, if there’s no median, no directional dividers. Passing is always legal, maybe even encouraged. So if you want to pass a car, and there’s no one within 20 yards coming towards you, feel free to just veer into oncoming traffic and you might wanna maybe hit the horn in case they don’t notice you. (You wouldn’t want to pass on the other side because that’s where the bikes and the pedestrians are—there are generally no sidewalks.) And if there’s someone passing _you_ at the moment, that’s fine—they’ll just move over further.

All the while, there are boda bodas (motorized scooters, many carrying a passenger or two, or three or four, along with bags, beds, whatever) passing in and out of all available spaces from who knows what direction.

Phil’s favourite phenomenon is the jailbreak—once someone gets through turning right, other cars will join in, following closely enough that cars trying to go straight can’t get through the line. This continues until someone isn’t aggressive enough, allowing the cars coming the other way to sneak in and break the line. When turning, Phil will never be the one to end the break.

Oh, also, when a cop pulls you over (by flagging you down) you give him a ride over to the police station so he can write you a ticket.

The one where I'm a millionaire

I went to the bank and took out some money--one million Ugandan Shillings (Ush). Which is worth about $550US.

There are bills for 1000, 5K, 10K, 20K and 50K, and coins for 500, 200, 100, 50, 10 and 5Ush. The 50,000Ush note is worth about $30, the 5Ush coin about 1/3¢. And for some tourist~y things, the standard is US dollars--I don't think you can even get a Visa to enter Uganda using Ugandan money.

Some prices are extremely cheap by US standards, and many people make very little money. You have to try to make sure you use big bills where possible so that you always keep little ones available. For example, I tried to buy a Coke for 1000Ush using a 20,000Ush note, and the guy looked at me like I was mad. "I am sorry, I do not have change for a bill that large," where "that large" is worth about $12.

In a sense, though, I'm living like a millionaire--other prices are similar to what I'm used to, meaning that most packaged goods and restaurant meals and such are largely reserved for foreigners. A sampling, using rough exchange rates:

Soda (pint): 60¢
Beer (pint): $1.20
Gasoline (gallon): $4.50
Loaf of bread: 50¢
Eggs (dozen): $1.30
Water (5 gallon jug): $3
Latte: $1.50
Spanish "Omullet" with potatoes: $1.50
Ride in a matatu (shared taxi minibus): 40¢
Ride on a boda (scooter): $1
Night at a hostel: $4
Night at a nice hotel: $104
Monthly wage for a gardener (city): $100
Monthly wage for a gardener (country): $40
Daily wage for a former coupon industry analyst working as a flunky at an international health conference: $60
Mandatory Mastercard joke: Priceless

_sg