The Agrinautica

Two entries in two days! A modern miracle! Also, I've been having a thought. I now have a huge 250gb memory card for my phone, I reckon that could hold a lot of video. Previous attempts to video anything at all on trips filled my phone memory up after about five minutes of footage tops. I'm thinking of trying to do a video diary (or perhaps a "vlog" as the cool kids call it) on my next trip. I wouldn't be able to upload it until I get back because even in the first world uploading video is a beast, and I have zero video editing experience, but it might be interesting, and then instead of it taking six months for me to update, the update would already "be written," and just need uploading. Whaddaya think?


(Previously on Emo-snal: several hours of mild discomfort followed by forty minutes of terrifying hell)


Friday, November 6th, Day 34, Kampala, Uganda - We had a meeting at the US Embassy at 2pm. Realistically one might hope to get there within an hour from where I was, but knowing the traffic and Ugandan attitudes towards timeliness, I told Alex to pick me up at 11:00, three hours before our appointment. Alex's organization does development work in Uganda, but they had no relationship with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a major source of funding for development projects, so I had arranged this meeting. The nice woman working on USAID at the US Embassy had had a pretty busy schedule but managed to fit us in to a narrow window at 2:00, so I tried to emphasize to Alex that this was very important that we get there on time. I told him the day before, I told him earlier that morning.
   Needless to say, 11:00 came and went with no sign of him. I basically texted him every ten minutes after that asking where he was, as my own stress (and I really don't stress much) reached new levels of hysteria. 11:30 came and went. 11:45. 12:00. He always assured me they were "on their way" (I've commented on this before, it seems to be normal in Africa to lie and tell someone you're on your way when you aren't even anywhere NEAR getting on your way) 12:30. 12:45. Hyperventilation sets in.
   At 1:20 he FINALLY FINALLY rolls in with his colleague Emmanuel (in Emmanuel's car, Alex's still being at the hotel, he'd have to return again some time to finally retrieve it).
   Before we leave the leafy green confines of the Forest Cottages Hotel behind let me note that it was alright, it was leafy and green and pleasantly didn't feel like it was in the middle of the city, as it was ... but I still would recommend you stay in the Malakai Eco Lodge next time you go to Kampala, which is also leafy and green and full of beautiful gardens and ponds and.. really more garden than lodgingspace.
   But anyway, we were on our way. Being the middle of the day it wasn't the awful barely-moving rush hour traffic I had encountered the night before, but there's always traffic in Kampala. I was of course stressing out the whole time and sent the woman from the embassy an extremely apologetic email saying we may be late. But then, to Emmanuel's navigation and journey-estimating credit, we did actually arrive at the embassy just minutes before 2:00. It was remarkable, really.


   Next we were off to the bus stop! I was to catch a bus back to Nairobi, but not only that, but recall I had only intended to stay in Uganda for two days, and then Grace had returned to Nairobi and intended to send me more of my stuff. Well she did that, and Emmanuel was supposed to pick it up when it arrived in Kampala ... which.. he didn't. So now I had to retrieve my stuff from the bus company office just in time to take it back with me to Nairobi. As it happens, my bag had somehow been fairly mauled in transit, developing some gaping holes. So hooray for that completely useless transfer of stuff. But I had also had her send the beesuits I was going to use in Zanzibar, which, I had ended up staying in Uganda instead of returning to Zanzibar. So I gave these suits to Alex for his organization to use. So there was that at least. (and apparently, these bee suits being brand new (donated by Pierce Manufacturing in Fullerton California! Shout out!), apparently the bus company had wanted to charge Grace an extra hefty fee on them because they thought she was selling a product or some such mischief. I swear, getting anything done in Africa...)

   Anyway, and then I returned by overnight bus once again to Nairobi. Arriving in Nairobi I shrugged off the taxi drivers who tried to solicit me as soon as I stepped off the bus and walked a few blocks to the Kahama Hotel, in which I had stayed in 2014. The hotel I'd stayed in earlier in the trip in Nairobi had been a dingy dismal place, and Grace, bless her heart, is a "has the TV going all the time" kind of person which made me feel like I was literally going to lose my mind when I stayed with her so I decided to go with what I knew. Going into fast forward mode now, I had two or three days in Nairobi before my departure, during which I met up with several friends I hadn't had time to see in my earlier frenzied passes through Nairobi. And then:


Monday, November 9th, Day 37, Nairobi, Kenya - Let's start with a little confession, the earlier reported Giraffe Kisses and Giant Spoons actually happened this day, but was rearranged chronologically to fit the LJ Idol topics of the week.
   Anyway, after the elephant and giraffe adventures, phone-camera full of priceless photos of baby elephants, Grace and I found ourselves downtown needing to get home. It was dark (9pm?) and slightly raining. I was going to call an uber with my phone (which, at first I had just assumed uber wouldn't work in Nairobi but after being tipped off by another traveler I found it was really the best way to get around), but we were right by the bus station and Grace was impatient with my posh cab-taking ways, and convinced me to just come grab a bus with her. it would have been less than $6 for the uber and really not more than a five minute ride.
   There was a big crowd of people around the bus stop, and when a bus arrived the crowd would surge at the bus. It should also be noted that I had my big luggage bag with me because we'd stopped by a tailor to have its damages repaired (also just a few dollars. Oh also speaking of cheap Nairobi tailors, I had a nice custom tailored business suit made for me while I was there. Three piece suit for less than $100, it's quite fine! I got measured the first time I passed through Nairobi, tried it on the second time and the tailor noted adjustments that he had to make, and then picked it up this final pass through). So my arms were full with this bag (and the glorious giant wooden spoon I'd picked up earlier in the day). As a bus pulled up bound for our destination Grace bounded on to it, so any trepidation I had about the whole situation now I had no choice but to follow her on. She would later say she had tooold me she'd grab me a seat and I could have just boarded after the crush stopped.. but I didn't catch that. Anyway so as I'm caught in the crush, with my arms full, I felt my wallet levitating out of my pocket. Other pickpocket stories I've heard usually involve pickpockets so crafty that one doesn't notice the theft until hours later, but I definitely felt it, and it was the creepiest feeling. It didn't even happen fast, but with my arms full and a crush of people all around me all I could do is say "hey! HEY! HEY!!!" and by the time people had backed away from me enough for me to turn around or even get a hand to my pocket my wallet was gone. And what's worse, my phone and the whole trip's worth of pictures.
   Another woulda-shoulda-coulda that occurred to me far too late is, I could have had someone dial my number at that moment and some guilty party would be caught with a ringing phone. Oh well.
   My wallet had about $5 in it. By far the biggest loss was the photos on my phone. I texted my number from Grace's phone saying I'd pay them for my photos but never got a response. I also immediately called Wells Fargo from Grace's phone and so my cards were cancelled not ten minutes after the theft, so I hope they had fun with their five dollars.
   As it happens the only home phone number I had memorized was my parents house line which was "finally" cancelled just earlier in the year, so I couldn't tell them what happened. In fact the _only_ number I had memorized was my boss's. So I texted my boss to ask him for my mom's number (which he has because sometimes he forwards requests for speakers about bees for kids to her), and then I was able to call my parents, vent to them about what happened, and they set about cancelling my phone and other assorted necessities for me.
   Back at Grace's (I had checked out of the hotel since I was catching the flight at 4am), after the necessary actions had been taken, I entered kind of a catatonic level of shock. I know I know, it's not like someone died, there's worse problems, but the violation factor of having things stolen from my pockets and the loss of all my pictures was a pretty big deal to me. Not merely because I happen to really like pictures but in a very real way it was a problem -- I'd been fundraising all year for this project in Tanzania and now.. poof, I had lost 90% of the proof that I actually did it!!
   Grace offered me alcohol but when I'm really depressed only caffiene makes me feel better, so I had two red bulls while she drank a good amount of whisky on my behalf.
   At 1am our cab showed up and we proceeded to the airport. Fortunately there's no traffic at night. Grace had consumed a decent amount of whisky I guess and was feeling a bit of the effects-- she wrote her phone number down for me at least three times, and when I tried to decline the fourth time, just as we were pulling up at the terminal, she got mad thinking I didn't want to have her number and was thus mad at me as I exited the car and didn't really say goodbye.
   But then just after I had gone through the terminal entrance metal detector she comes running in after me in tears like a scene from a movie. It was cute.


Tuesday, November 10th, Day 38, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Arrived in Addis fairly early in the morning (I don't know, maybe 8?), with not a penny to my name. Now, on my way to Nairobi 38 days earlier I had planned an eight hour layover in Addis, but they wouldn't let me out of the airport even if I was willing to pay for a visa. When I changed my flights around I made sure to make sure I'd be able to get out of the airport, so I had gotten one of the earliest flights in that day and latest flight out (they don't DO overnight layovers apparently), and the assurance by the ticket agent that I'd be able to leave the airport -- in fact they charged me $78 in advance for the transit visa (which apparently comes with transportation to and from a hotel I can hang out with in the mean time). So You might be able to imagine my frustration when once again the airline agents at the airport refused to give me a transit visa. They said it wasn't in their computer and it wasn't on my receipt (which was a thick page of gobble-de-gook). I was very frustrated!! Finally I found the number "$78" among the jibberish on my ticket and demanded "okay what is this charge for??" and after scrutinizing it they sullenly said it looked like a transit ticket but was coded wrong .. and issued me my transit visa. Welcome to Ethiopia! I must say I love the country but every one of my experiences with their airport staff has been this kind of obstinate bureaucratic unhelpfulness.
   Rode the shuttle to the hotel they had booked me into, which was "nice" but the staff were as cold and unhelpful as the airline staff (in wild contrast to the hotel I'd have stayed in if I had a choice, where every single staffmember was memorable and friendly). My first goal once I'd set my bags down there was to see if I could go get some money. Grace had given me 2000 Kenyan shillings, about $20, which constituted a significant portion of her monthly rent. This was the only thing I had by way of money. As it happens the hotel was just a short walk from several different international business banks .... not ONE of which would exchange Kenyan shillings, the currency of their neighboring country!! So I was left pennyless in Ethiopia. (When I got home I immediately wired Grace $100 to repay her $20)
   It was an interesting experience. I so very very badly wanted just one cup of the wonderful coffee they have in Ethiopia ... I couldn't afford even just one cup. Usually traveling in places like Addis one feels a bit like a millionaire, I can do absolutely whatever I please without the least fear it will dent my wallet. Take a taxi anywhere, take a dozen people out to dinner, whatever. I tried to look at it as a cultural experience. Being penniless in an African city.
   Next I returned to my room and posted this entry which I'd been slowly slowly working on during the trip.

   Next my plan was to meet up with my friend Addis. She came to see me at the hotel but I felt really bad being utterly pennyless. I had a meal voucher at the hotel but I couldn't even buy her coffee!!! I felt awful.
   For dinner I had a meal voucher at the hotel, so we ate there. Though I told her that she'd have to pay for her own meal somehow this didn't get across correctly, because she ate too but then couldn't afford to pay for her meal (which was only like $5!!!), and despite the miniscule amount of money involved, I couldn't help either!! I felt awful x10! And on top of that the hotel shuttle for the airport was leaving just then and I had to get on it. She called a friend or family member to come bail her out and I had to run. I felt so so terrible for leaving her in the situation, for the entire situation, but there was nothing I could do! I had to run!! ):
   ...so as soon as I got home I wired her $100 as well, which hopefully ameliorated her anger, she wasn't very happy with me in the immediate aftermath.


One last penniless misadventure:
Wednesday, November 11th, Day 39, Dublin, Ireland - This time we were actually permitted and required to disembark the aircraft, go through a metal detector, and reboard. after going through the screening area we were sitting in a little waiting area where there was a little airport cafe, which had a guinness tap. I hadn't set foot back in Ireland in 20 years so I would very very much have liked to have had a fresh Dublin guinness.... but... utterly penniless. ): So I could only gaze at it longingly.
   As it happens I got to talking to a young fella who was an Ethiopian who's been living in the United States, has a family there. After awhile I mentioned the Guinness tap and how I wished I had money, honestly without the least intention of soliciting a drink but he immediately thought having a guinness was a fantastic idea and volunteered to get us both a beer! ....... but then it turned out the tap was actually not hooked up at the moment. ): Almost!!!


   And then I returned to America. THE END!

Okay I've gotten really really behind in updating. Not only is the narrative about last Autumn's East Africa trip really dragging but I never finished Guinea before that, nor had time to even mention being in the Philippines and Kyrgyzstan earlier this year (Hey I went to teh Philippines and Kyrgyzstan!), or my current adventures in Australia, and within the next two months I should be going BACK to Guinea!

I used to try to write an entry a day for every day of June, which I kept up for a number of years. Thinking about compelling myself to such an obligation again to jump start my blogging! Anyway:


RECAP: As you probably don't recall, where we had left off I was in the small town of Kesese in Western Uganda, I had gone on a grueling hike up the "mountains of the moon" and then spent the next day touring about the area a bit and went out to the local nightclub with the two receptionists of the hotel.
   Update: I did finally get around to calling receptionist Sharon in the time since that entry, she hadn't had my Australian number ... and it's really hard to keep track of hers because she seems to call me from a different number every time so I have to call the hotel to get ahold of her. Anyway now she no longer works at the hotel, has returned to Fort Portal for school. It's good to be in touch again.


Wednesday, November 4th, Day 32, Kasese, Western Uganda - Got back in to my room around 2am that night I believe. I was fairly exhausted, still recovering from the hike, and had to get up at 6 because we had a lot of driving to do that day. If that wasn't enough lack of sleep, on top of it I had to get up and run (across the hotel courtyard!) to the bathroom three or four times that night, as something had destroyed my digestive system (I think I may have mentioned this in the last post, the only real culprit, the only place I had eaten that day since breakfast was a small very well reviewed little "western style cafe" run by a women's group. I had iced coffee there though and ice cubes are always suspect, being made usually from local water.
   Our plans to get an early start were stymied by the fact that, as per hotel rules about checking in valuables, I had checked in my laptop with the front desk and couldn't get it back until Sharon got back at 7:00 (Sharon and Maggie work like 12 hours a day 7 days a week in the hotel reception ... for probably less per month than you make in a day)
   From there we proceeded in the dawn's early light back up the road, past the outskirts of town, past the local king's palace (a sort of colorful blocky mansion), up the valley and into the hills to the northeast.
   From there we proceeded to a wetlands walk located among the tea estates just a few kilometers north of For Portal. I had seen flyers for it in the hotel, they had been headlined "see the flufftail!" When I had asked Sharon about it she said "you want to see the Flufftail?" which was adorable with her accent. I had never heard of a flufftail but it's kind of an inherently funny word so I said yes I did want to see the flufftail. Apparently it is a rare bird that the expert guides on this nature walk can sometimes coax into coming into view by making their call. Also Sharon and Maggie, as part of their hospitality courses in Fort Portal had gone along with these nature walks .. to, you know, learn about the flufftail.
   So we found the place, a little office off the side of the road surrounded by the usual banana plantations and tea fields (sort of alternating here, with tea plantations dominating the tops of hills). I was instructed to put on rubber goloshes and was accompanied by a guide and another hospitality student and off we went!
   This was much more like what I had hoped the grueling mountain hike had been, strolling about the jungley forests next to the tea fields, the guide pointing out every bird species (he was definitely a bird enthusiast and said many people that come on the hikes are birders themselves), as well as monkeys, both by their calls and frequently spotting them themselves. Sadly with the loss of my notes and the passage of so much time I can't tell you much about the monkeys except I thinik there were two kinds of colobus monkeys? And maybe a smaller species? Despite the guide being very knowledgable about the birds and monkeys, I don't think he was prepared for my greatest interest being in stopping to examine every interesting insect I came across. I think I got a really good one of an interesting colorful wasp with my phone ... which has been lost forever.
   We heard an elephant, and even came across some of its tracks in the mud so fresh the guide said they'd been made earlier that very morning, but sadly we did nto spot the elephant itself. The walk took us away from the edge of the tea estates and right into the jungle, where in many parts of the trail we were balancing from one unstable piece of wood to the next or just plain wallowing through deep puddles threatening to go over the top of our wellingtons, I would have absolutely loved this hike ... if it weren't for the fact that I VERY VERY BADLY needed to go to the bathroom. Sadly I was in very great discomfort by the time we finally finished (though I think he had earlier given me an option of a route that would end sooner or one that would go deeper into the jungle and I still opted for the longer route because I am determined!). Nevertheless when we got back to his little headquarters building I immediately asked if there was a bathroom and was directed to a outhouse out back, which as is typical just had a hole to squat over in it, but at this point I had no qualms whatsoever!

   By now I think it was around 11 or 12. We were headed back through Fort Portal so we stopped once again at what is definitely my favorite restaurant in the country (I was about to say all of Africa but there's a damn good indian place in Addis Ababa). Not surprisingly I didn't have much of an appetite but I think I was able to eat whatever I got. I remember particularly enjoying the ginger tea I got to settle my stomach.
   Now to orient you, Kampala is a good day's drive more or less due east from Fort Portal. Kesese, where we had been, is south west in a valley. Now we headed to a valley to the north west of Fort Portal. I think I fell asleep for a little bit but when I awoke we were winding down a very steep and narrow valley. After two or three hours of driving we arrived at [my notes have been lost] where we met with another coop group that was interested in beekeeping training. After talking with them for awhile in their little headquarters building they asked if I wanted to go see their beehives, and I had gotten the impression it was just a short walk, like a kilometer away, so I said I did.
   First we waved down some motorbike taxis, once we'd collected about half a dozen of them (even in a small town there's dozens and dozens of them), we zipped down the road about ten minutes, then down a muddy side road on which the motorbikes kept losing their traction and the drivers would put their legs out frequently to stabilize off the ground. Finally the motorbikes couldn't go any further and we proceeded on foot. Even then, we were soon obliged to use walking sticks to try to prevent ourselves from slipping and even then the ground was so slippery I had a few close calls.
   At one point we had to cross a deep and quickly moving stream, that was maybe ten feet across, on a narrow log.


And it was around here I saw these cute kids bringing home bundles of kassava leaves to be used in dinner

   The narrow muddy trail here was sometimes a veritable tunnel through tall marsh grass, but not infrequently there weere little thatched farm houses and their outbuildings on islands of higher ground. At one point I saw a thatched little farmhouse with an old rusty satellite dish and the unmistakable sounds of a television eminating from the inside. Out here, in pretty close to the center of Africa, at least one arduous kilometer from the nearest road you can get a vehicle on. The modern world!
   Also it should be noted that, you guessed it, I really really had to, as the preferred African euphemism puts it, "ease myself." But even if I was desperate enough to maybe go in a normal forest or something, I wasn't about to leave this trail and venture into the trackless marsh grass for a moment.
   Finally, FINALLY, after what seemed more like a three kilometer walk along treacherous muddy trails, we came to our destination, where beehives had been spread among some cocoa groves. Interestingly, part of their motivation was that I guess local kids like to steal cocoa pods so the beehives among them was a deterrent against the kids. Beehives looked pretty good, were well occupied. I got some pictures, you know, all lost.
   And then, THEN we had to return, along this long long treacherous slippery trail with my increasing intestinal distress. Back across the narrow log bridge. In front of us a young woman went across with a large load balanced on her head and I tried to get a picture but alas she was too fast ... not that it wouldn't have been lost anyway.
   Returning finally to their headquarters I suppose I must have eased myself with their hole in the ground. Then Alex and I (I just realized I have heretofore not mentioned Alex in this entry, he is my local colleague, arranged these meetings and drove us about in his car. Always wears a fedora and I suspect the Mormons may have claimed his soul but he never let on about religion (several past projects of his were funded by the LDS church)), so Alex and I then proceeded to another location nearby, that was up the slopes a bit, among thick cocoa plantations. As is often the case, the car couldn't make it all the way down the road but it was jsut a short walk to the farmhouse where we met a bunch of people. The usual talking ensued.
   Then we were driving further west, back past the town we were just at. By now it was getting on towards late afternoon, 5 or 6pm. I stopped by to visit someone just off the main road that Alex had apparently told we would visit, though by now I was pretty over visits for the day. They showed us some more beehives and I was really feeling like "yeah, great. yep. that's a beehive."
   Got back in the car and to my utter shock and dismay Alex informed me we were going to make one more visit. I'm usually thoroughly willing to go along with things but after a long loong day of feeling sick I was getting on towards deliriously tired and told him no, we are done for the day.
   We continued west along the road, descending in darkness from the side of the narrow valley into a bigger broader valley and reached a town where the plan was to spend the night. Alex had in mind a particular hotel owned by the local mayor or governor or some such "big man" but it was booked out so we went to another, which I had no complaints about at all, I had a "western style" toilet right in my room that was all I cared about! I'd have liked to have gone straight to sleep but Alex insisted we go for dinner at the hotel he had originally wanted to book at. We had another colleague with us as well, someone from the last coop. I wanted chicken soup since I was feeling fairly ill, but I've seen what passes for "soup" in Africa plenty of times so I quizzed the waiter and he somehow convinced me the soup would be within western norms of chicken soup. I don't know how he convinced me, I blame my fatigued condition. Anyway the "soup" arrived and as all-too-often seems to happen in africa it was essentially one giant rubbery hunk of chicken in a bath of hot water. I had ordered ginger tea as well but he forgot about it until after the inedible "soup" arrived I asked him where my tea was. I forget what else he got wrong but I recall feeling like he'd gotten other things wrong about my order as well. I tried to consume some of the "chicken soup" but couldn't make much progress on it and had to run for the bathroom five minutes after ingesting any of it anyway.

   Finally, finally, we walked back to our hotel and I was able to pass out in my bed. Thus ends another exciting day in Africa!

Monday, November 2nd, Day 30, Kasese, Western Uganda - In the early morning light I sped back up the highway, clinging on the back of a motorbike, back up the road we'd traveled the day before and the day before that. We passed a palace, which I'm not sure whether to describe as a "large" palace or a "small" palace, it's all a matter of perspective, but it would equal maybe the kind of impressive edifice a successful doctor in Orange County would live in, which makes it small by world palace standards but large compared to most other things in Uganda, it belonged to a local king. I'm informed at one point (the Idi Amin regime?) the monarchies were all abolished, but much more recently they decided they wanted to bring them back as a point of cultural pride or something, so they rustled up the former kinds or their descendants and re-installed them. I picture them being then engaged in mundane commonplace jobs and suddenly being informed they were being made a king.
   After about forty minutes we turned off the main road and took a dirt road up into the mountains, passing plenty of locals carrying firewood on their heads and otherwise going about life. As we wound up the foothills my driver eventually stopped over a rise and pointed out a mountain peak that had just become visible. "See that? thats Mt [my god damn notes are lost], you are very lucky to see it, it is usually shrouded in clouds!!" But there it was, crystal clear in the fresh morning air, topped with snow. Snow, at the equator. We were still within a degree of latitude of the equator, and here was snow. And then we continued up, and up...


Old bridge new bridge green bridge brown bridge...

   The day before (which was the day after we arrived) we had had some free time in the morning and then some more project site visits in the afternoon. Looking at a keen map of things to do in the area [which I took a picture of... which has been lost. I'm never going to stop complaining about this ;) ], I had noticed a hot spring nearby. Hot springs are always fun, so I was like "let's go here!" not having a better idea anyway.
   We drove up into the hills just a little bit until we came to where a local says it was (navigation in Africa generally consists of slowing down by a pedestrian and asking questions), and there it was down a steep path in the little valley full of trees. The hot spring was then full of local men and women. The women, mostly old, were all topless but found things to cover themselves with at my arrival -- which I thought was funny, local men don't matter but the mzungu.. As soon as I arrived two skinny youngish men (30ish?) started about pulling me to the hot spring and once they had me in there proceeded to immediately give me a thorough massage. Now I immediately recognized that they would expect to be paid for this but I decided just to go with it. Despite I suppose being the literal definition of pushy, they weren't actually annoying, and it wasn't even like "here my friend, let us give you a massage!" it was.. they just started doing it. And when it was over they only wanted about $5 which I gladly paid, having feared they'd want something ridiculous like $20 (which I recognize would be ridiculously cheap for a massage in the western world, again, everything is relative). Another local earnestly told me that the healing powers of the hot spring could heal "ANYTHING!" and listed a wide array of potential ailments, though I think he noted it didn't cure aids. (HIV prevalence in Uganda is like 7%, making me very afraid of anyone's bodily fluids!!)
   Later that day down in the hotel lobby with the giggly receptionists Sharon and Maggie (who I still swear I'm going to call one of these days to say hi), I had them bring in a tour operator they knew so I could plan a trip up the Rwenzori Mountains, also known as "the mountains of the moon." The guy who came wanted to talk about 7 day hikes and 4 day hikes and I think was a bit like "oh, uh" when I said I just had one day for it. And he kept talking about summitting the mountains though I kept saying look I don't care about that I just want to walk in the forest. The one day hike he finally booked me on, I'd find out later goes past two of the one-day's-hike waypoints for the multiday hikes and was basically the single most strenuous leg of the whole thing. Gee thanks.


Up in the cloud forest

   So the morning of the hike a motorbike took me up to the national park entrance, nestled in the forest by a babbling river. A park ranger checked me in, a young lady in military uniform with a sub-machinegun (the other side of the mountains is Congo...). I've always been impressed by how thoroughly women are integrated into the uniformed forces of all the African countries I've been to.
   Presently my guide showed up, a young man also that looked thoroughly a soldier, in camo with an AK-47. I believe his name was Simon or Thomas or something, I don't know, it was in my notes. He was very nice I liked him.
   And then we commenced hiking! The trail followed the streaming river for most of the first half of the 8.5 km hike (there and back, 17km total. Or maybe that was miles. It was wicked long whatever it was), and was relatively level for just the first kilometer or so... and then went up at a 30-45% angle it seemed for most of the rest of it! Now I don't exactly work out every day (or ever) but I'm pretty active and consider myself in fairly decent shape ... but soon I was having to stop and rest every ten feet on this absolutely grueling marathon climb. We passed porters bouncing down the trail. Multi day hikes have a bunch of porters to carry their food and stuff and I'd imagine as they eat through their supplies the porters start heading back one by one. They seemed cheerful and eager to get home. Later we'd pass some huge banana palm style leaves on the ground which I'm informed porters sleep under (!). Eventually we climbed out of the river valley and climbed a ridgeline. Got to the shelter where multi-day hikers end their first day. It was a nice little cabin with bunk beds, wood walls and roof. I think it would be quite pleasant to spend the night up there with a group of friends, the porters making you dinner. It would have been nice to be done then and not still have 75% of the days hiking to go!!



   My guide mentioned that we didn't have to go all the way, we could turn around any time I wanted, and I like to think he was a little surprised when I kept on going and going. Shortly after the shelter we started to get into the higher altitude "cloud forest" (we had some impressive altitude gain, I don't know, it was in my notes). I've always liked the "cloud forest" exhibits in zoos, with irrigation tubes blowing out mist among the bamboo, mention of exotic animals, it always seemed so mysterious and exciting ... AND HERE I WAS!! Several times we heard monkeys crashing through the trees but didn't see any until the very end. My guide pointed out an elephant footprint on the ground and I wondered how such a huge animal could possibly navigate these steep mountains. Saw a number of Great Blue Turaco birds and then at one point I found a pretty blue feather lying squarely in the path, which my guide informed me was also from the Great Blue Turaco. I picked it up and it's on my dresser to this day.
   By this point, though I was doing decently on any level or downhill part of the trail (we finally weren't climbing so much), even a gentle rise of a foot or two over a raised bit of the trail would make me clench my teeth as my legs burned and my feet felt like lead. Finally, FINALLY, we arrived at the crater lake that was our destination. It was quite beautiful. I took numerous pictures ........ which, I still have some on my DSLR and I'll see if any are good enough to post but remember the lense had gotten dirty, and a lot of my best pictures were from my phone I think (also my phone has a very useful panorama function which I've learned to use a lot for views that are just to expansive for a single shot)
   I had been provided with a packed lunch, which consisted of a leg of fried chicken, fries (cold of course), a banana, a box juice, and an apple. My guide didn't seem to have brought anything at all and seemed content like that, but I gave him my fries and some biscuits.



   And then it was time to head back! Going downhill, as you may know, is NOT necessarily easier! It can be really hard on your knees!! We also started to become a little concerned it would be dark by the time we got out, as we hurried back along very long journey out of the mountains. By the time we finally arrived at the park entrance, it was no longer manned and the light was in the initial stages of twilight.
   The motorbike trip back to the hotel seemed to take forever because I was so exhausted. I remember it was soon dark out and we were drivign along by headlight-light. Happened to catch Maggie just as she was getting off duty at the hotel, we'd talked earlier about going out but I couldn't even begin to conceive of it I was so exhausted. I think it took a week before my legs were no longer burning every time I walked!


The crater lake I hiked to

[Coming up next time: hippos! several different kinds of kingfishers! What people will do for 14 cents! Guess what food destroys my guts?? And going out on the town with Maggie and Sharon!]

Thursday, October 29th, Day 26, Bweyale, Northern Uganda - As is all too often the case, we didn't get to actually openign any beehives until we'd been in Bweyale several days, until the last evening we were there actually. People are often enthusiastic about showing me beehives sitting in fields, but opening it up? Oh noe, we have to do that later, we're not ready now because we uh, didn't bring the suits or the smoker or there's children playing nearby. By and large it all amounts to excuses. I get it, opening beehives can be intimidating, and I think that's one of the single biggest obstacles to overcome with training, if you're always apprehensive about opening your beehives you won't do it enough, you won't take good care of them, but if you just can't wait to see what they're doing and you're constantly telling yourself to give the bees at least a week before opening them again so as to not bother them too much, and feeling impatient about that, then you have the right idea.
   Alex had said we'd go see the bees the evening before. He initially proposed something like 8 or 9pm, I said "how about 3pm?" I think we compromised on 5 but he waffled around didn't show up till nearly eight and then I declared it was too late.
   Unfortunately, Alex, who is otherwise very forward thinking about development projects, was solidly possessed of the pernicious belief that beekeeping should be done at night. Another significant thing I try to change, since you can't see things like pupae, much less eggs, or anything else really, in the darkness of night, especially while wearing a bee suit.


The road just near the field with the beehives, as seen during the day. Picture from my DSLR, notice the big ugly splotch that looks like bird crap on the lense ): ):

   So Thursday evening we again compromised on 5pm, twilight, and once again he was late arriving (this is a common Africa thing, "Africa time," he'd usually pick us up in the morning about two hours after he said he would), and by the time we got to the field with the beehives it was pitch black out. I groaned inwardly about this but it was the last evening and I did want to see how the hives looked on the inside.
   We tromped along a narrow path between waist high crops (corn? cassava? I don't remember exactly), lighting our way with flashlights. Grace would occasionally shriek as some giant insect flew into her face, attracted by the flashlight. Finally we arrived at a little clearing next to a hut. The hut was the storage shed for beekeeping supplies ... and they had forgotten the key! Fortunately we had bee suits but I think it contained all the smoker fuel. Two young men who had come with us started a camp fire to get fire going for the smoker. This took some minutes and I took the time to enjoy the cool night air, the small of damp organic earth, the infinite stars overhead (stars are pretty good in rural Uganda!), and the hut flickering in the campfire light.
   Creepy crawly things in the night were bothering Grace so she opted to return to the car and wait for us there. Finally we got the smoker going, donned locally made bee suits, and went to check out some hives. As predicted, through the obstructive netting of the veil, one could hardly see anything, we were just bumbling around in a void. Pretty soon we had bees all over us and in our suits. They work bees at night because they believe the bees won't be so bad, but bees are very crawly at night and frankly I think that makes them more likely to get into a sub-optimum bee suit -- certainly I think all my most unpleasant getting-stung-all-over experiences have been working ebes at night. As far as Icould tell the hives were mostly poorly constructed and maintained, which is not surprising, but made it even more difficult to do anything useful with them in the dark abyss. After going through about half a dozen hives I declared we'd seen enough even though the young fellow who was working with me seemed ready to keep on going all night.

   They have a beautiful field full of beehives (I had some nice pictures on my phone, taken during a daytime visit ....) that they plan to use for training, but if they don't learn to work it during the daytime, what's the point?

Monday, October 26th, Day 23, Busia Kenya-Uganda border crossing, ~2am - Lightning flickered in the dark night sky to the West, over Uganda, as we filed out of our bus into the cool night air. We made our way across the muddy street, carefully picking our way around the large and numerous puddles, to the Kenyan passport control building. Inside this building everyone else on the bus queued up at the "Kenyan nationals" line while I was the only one to go to the "international travelers" window. I tried to wait with Grace in line but I customs official yelled at me so I had to continue down the corridor leading out the other side of the building into No Man's Land. I checked in to "swarm" on my phone and was somewhat amused to find "No Man's Land" listed as a "travel lounge."

   Presently Grace came out and we continued to Ugandan passport control about 100 yards away. There a bunch of money exchangers descended on us like mosquitoes. We had to go through a metal detector to get into customs but I didn't bother to empty my pockets and even though I set it off no one stopped me, sometimes you can tell they're just not taking it seriously, and as we say, usichokoze nyuki, no need to disturb the bees if you don't have to. I had been very word they wouldn't be issuing visas at this hour but they were in fact. Ugandan sitting behind the window in a military uniform was surprisingly chipper for the hour and cheerfully informed me I couldn't come to Uganda for just two days ... leading me for a moment to fear it was some visa nuance but he continued "it's just too beautiful!"
   Unfortunately though I thought I had kept $100 USD in my wallet for this purpose but found I had used $20 for something and now only had $80. The visa was $100 or 10,000 Tanzanian shillings, and I only had about 9,000 Tanzanian shillings. Fortunately the passport control officer, who was perhapds better caffienated than me, had a jugaad for this problem and told me to just go change $20 with the money exchangers. And my inititial instincts to avoid them sure were right because they gave me only about 66% of the value that $20 should have been!!! Feeling a little violated by this I returned to the window and got my passport stamped.
   From there we re-boarded the bus and continued for about five more hours from Busia to Kampala, skirting the northern edge of Lake Victoria, and crossing over the Nile near its headwaters at some point, but I think we were both asleep. As the sun rose we got our first glimpses of Kampala -- it actually looks pretty good as far as African cities go, the streets were broad, most of the buildings lining the streets were around five stories tall and didn't look like they were about to fall over or anything. There was some traffic coming in to the city but nothing compared to what we'd see later in the day. Another distinguishing feature was that with funding from USAID there was apparently a lot of AIDS awareness advertising afoot, with billboards practically every 100 feet with an AIDS awareness themed message. One of our favorites was of a cool looking young man in his twenties with the caption "I'm proud to be a virgin!" ... I'm sure the friends of the model used in that picture rib him no end about that one. I took a picture of said billboard for posterity but of course... lost.

   Arriving at a bus stop around 7am we got out and cast about for a taxi. I thought it was a bit odd that most of the guys lingering around trying to solicit our business were boda-boda drivers -- motorcycle taxis. I'd later learn that they're actually the major way to get around the town since the traffic later in the day makes it a nightmare getting around by car. But also a lot of boda-boda drivers are young men who had been recruited into the Lord's Resistance Army as child soldiers and now had no skills and no family other than driving bodabodas -- one can feel for them, but also is bound to be pretty leary of trusting your life to someone on so flimsy a machine who might be seriously mentally imbalanced by the brutal conditions they'd been through (child soldiers are sometimes made to kill their parents as an initiation!)
   Anyway we had big bags so we found a taxi nearby, the driver was also a youngish fellow, Grace told me she'd have rather found an older driver, and especially after the shenanigans that ensued insisted that I should have let her choose one. Anyway as always I had found the hotel we'd be staying at on Tripadvisor on my phone (and just from the information there it looked pretty nice!). As _always_ he quickly said he knew right where our hotel was, but as I've commented before, this is a universal lie you can count on. Right away I noticed the driver was going the opposite direction, so I showed him the map on my phone, to which he mumbled something I couldn't quite make out. As we continued to drive the wrong direction both Grace and i tried to tell him we were going the wrong direction, but despite him speaking some English and sharing Swahili with Grace we never really got a straight answer from him. With panglossian optimisim I hypothesized that he was taking us out to the ring road to avoid the traffic in the center of town but no he kept going, over our objections. Finally he stopped at a gas station and had admit he was lost. To a certain extent I could feel a fremdschamenian sense of embarrassment for him, knowing that he was lost and his two passengers were getting increasingly angry with him. I showed him the map on my phone again, it seemed pretty easy to find on the map, and it's not like you even need to be literate to see where the marker on the map is but he seemed to have zero comprehension of how to read the map. I could see that if we took a specific road we were near it would take us in the right direction, so I tried telling him "A 109" "Take A 109 that way!" "that road, take it that way!!" but for some reason the dastardly p'takh was either unable or unwilling to comprehend or execute my instructions and retracted his steps exactly back to our origin point. By now it was well on 9am and mornign rush hour traffic was full on, such that it took us more than an hour to get back to the place we started. Since he retraced his route exactly I suspect he hardly knew his way around the city at all, I don't know who gave this shlemiel a car! Grace suspected he was drunk but I didn't really see any signs of that.
   "Ah, well," I said, "at least this way we can have him drop us where we came from and there'll be no debate that we don't need to pay him for this colossal ferhoodle!!" But to my alarm we passed the bus stop and kept going!!! Fortunately this time we were finally headed directly toward the hotel, otherwise I probably would have absolutely demanded he let us out.
   Once we were headed in the right direction it was pretty simple, down the main road toward Entebbe a few miles and then down a side road through a labyrinth of residential houses but fortunately there were signs pointing the way here. We finally arrived at the beautiful Malakai Eco Lodge, an oasis of gardens and ponds amid the haphazard suburbs, after about two hours of shenanigans over a trip that should have taken 20 minutes. And then, AND THEN, the knave had the nerve to demand of us not only the fare from the bus stop (I think around $30? again all my notes are lost), but something like another $20 specifically for the wild goose chase. He was utterly unblinkingly unmoved by my arguments, soon joined and reiterated by the hotel manager, that I should in no way have to pay for a journey I had not only not asked for but had in fact repeatedly told him was incorrect. He was unmoving but finally I just put the $30 for what the fare _should_ have been in his hand, turned my back to him and walked away without looking back.



   Finally grace and I were able to breath a sigh of relief and look around at the beautiful peaceful place we had found ourselves in. The lodging in the eco lodge seemed to be all be in freestanding sort of "hut" shaped buildings, which were luxurously furnished. Between them there were ponds full of fishes and well manicured gardens. I couldn't believe we were getting a room here for only $45 (turns out that was a special and its usually $145). The managers are a Belgian man and his Ugandan wife, and their three young children could often be seen frolicking about the gardens. To be continued!