Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Camping in the African Bush, Murchison Falls National Park

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Morning in our bush camp on the Victoria Nile Delta/ Lake Albert in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Deluxe set up, eh? Actually, it was perfect. Except for our group of six, there was not another soul in sight. 
My family has done a lot of camping, much of it along Oregon's Wild and Scenic Rogue River. Our "scary" wildlife includes commonly sighted black bears and rattlesnakes, and also cougars, rarely seen. Things are a bit different "bush" camping in Africa.
Dennis, our bush camp guard and our game-drive guide. Yes, that is an AK 47.
Bush camping, you need a guy like Dennis, if you're lucky enough to find somebody as good.  He's a local from a nearby village, and TIA's guard/guide of choice.  TIA Adventures is the company hired to show us Murchison Falls National Park and many other Ugandan wonders. Dennis stayed up all night keeping a fire alive and making sure predators (lions! leopards!) did not enter the camp. In the morning he reported hearing a lion roar,  and during the night, he had shooed away hippos lumbering in our direction. Hippos spend most of their time in the shallows along rivers or lakes and come aground at night to graze. Hippos look comical and harmless, and make ridiculous huffing-grunting noises, but they are one of the most dangerous large animals in Africa, known to attack humans in boats and on land. (This tidbit from Wikipedia.)
This is what the "bush" looks like shortly after entering Murchison Falls National Park. The vehicle is a Land Rover driven by Pete Meredith. That's Leyla Ahmet Meredith in the pony tail. (PK searching for game.)  Leyla and Pete own and operate TIA (This is Africa) Adventures, and they shared the Africa they love with us for four wonderful days. Four people can sit comfortably atop the vehicle.
What's the "bush?" As far as I can tell, in Uganda, it is undeveloped and uncultivated national park land covered with mixed brush, trees, and grasses and populated with all manner of protected wildlife. Anyplace in Uganda that isn't protected is developed and/or cultivated, and wildlife is mostly missing. Uganda is an agricultural country, and fruit and vegetable farming and cattle and goat raising do not mix well with elephants and antelopes, lions and leopards.

That red rig? Unbelievable, but it has a Halliburton logo and a Texas license plate.
And it is headed to one of numerous oil extraction sites in and near the national park.
We heard a lot of talk about what oil might mean for this incredible place. None of it good.
We're tooling along in the bush and it is late afternoon and near the equator and light is fading. PK and I exchange looks. When are they going to find a camp? we silently ask one another. We, who like to set up camp several hours before dark in our wilderness world back in the USA, mostly so we can sip vino and watch the river roll by as we cook dinner and enjoy the sunset. 

There is zero stress going on that we can see or sense, and we go with it. What else can we do? The red-dirt one-track road is mostly mud after a pelting rain storm the previous day, and the ground is spongy. As we near the Nile, where we think camp will be, the land is flat and soggy. We veer off the road, such as it is, and toward the river. I think about sleeping in water. Suddenly, there seems to be a slight rise in elevation. A foot maybe? Anyway, it is enough and the Land Rover stops on more-or-less dry land. This is it! Bush camp. Pete unfurls a blue plastic tarp on the ground and the rig is unloaded in minutes. 
Dennis is restless, though. Gotta make a fire. He searches the area for wood and comes up with dripping sticks and punky chunks not likely to burn. He and Pete jump in the Land Rover on a wood-gathering mission, and the rest of us work on tents and dinner. 

Success! It took Dennis a long time to get the game fire going as a separate cooking fire was underway.

Here's Kara Blackmore wrapping a whole well-seasoned chicken in
three layers of foil to bake directly on the fire. 
 The chicken roasted perfectly and foil-baked potatoes were also delicious. 



Somewhere around the tiny kitchen is a spade stuck in the dirt with which to dig your own latrine when the time comes. Hope it doesn't arrive in the middle of the moonless night. You do not want to enlist Dennis's aid for such a task.
Camping is camping. The little tents could be anywhere. It just so happens they're  pitched in habitat where four of Africa's Big Five reside: lions, leopards, elephants, and buffalos.  The rhino, included in Africa's Big Five, is absent. Sadly, there are no rhinos left outside of sanctuaries in Uganda.
Here's Dennis ready to track down the lion he heard roaring during the night. The object of bush camping is to be in the center of game country (the bush!) early in the morning. We were ready to roll by 7 a.m. after a quick shot of coffee and a bite on the run. Let's go on a game drive! 
Game drive post up next.


Friday, October 18, 2013

Gorilla Tracking. Who Would Have Thought?

I recently spent, with PK, 26 days away from Ordinary Life, mostly in Uganda or South Africa. Of those, three rate as among my best days ever. I will attempt to describe them in this and coming posts, plus offer more glimpses into life beyond how it's usually experienced in rural Oregon, or the USA in general. First off...Gorilla Tracking!
This is a 350-400 pound silverback gorilla photographed from perhaps 7 meters, or 21 feet) with my new and already beloved Panasonic Lumix camera with its nifty 24-300 zoom. Looking this magnificent creature in the eye (he couldn't see my eye behind the camera, and we were told to avoid eye contact) was a highlight, competing with several other stellar moments from this vacation, or as they would say in Africa, this holiday
Slipping and sliding on a steep tropical mountainside searching for gorillas never occurred to me as even a remote possibility until a few months back when "gorilla tracking" was offered as an option by our volunteer itinerary planner, anthropologist, cultural/historical consultant, and all around brilliant person, Kara Blackmore. Did we get lucky, or what? Not just for seeing gorillas really really close, but in having a learned person such as Kara planning our trip and spending several narrative-packed days with us. We said Hell Yes! to gorillas, and Kara paid the $500 per person permit fee on our behalf. (A portion of that fee goes to the surrounding impoverished communities for education and healthcare, and to encourage habitat preservation.)

Looking in the direction of the Biwindi Impenetrable National Park from the Silverback Lodge, where we stayed, some 52 kilometers (32+ miles) from where tracking began. We got up at 4:30 a.m. to drive THREE HOURS on what PK describes as a Class 5 FWD road to arrive on time for the gorilla tracking briefing. 

During the briefing, our guide gave us the lowdown: If gorillas are found, we have one hour with them. Flash photography, eating, and drinking are no-nos. Unless a gorilla approaches us, we are to stay about 23 feet away. If anybody has cold or flu symptoms, they can't come into gorilla territory. Boots are recommended, but trousers tucked into long socks will also ward off safari ants that climb beneath pant legs and chomp. Gloves are recommended to protect against stinging nettles and other jungle things designed to tear flesh, produce welts, or otherwise ruin your day. Walking sticks are provided, but taken away once gorillas are spotted. The sticks could be construed as threatening by gorillas. Navigating without walking sticks, however, could be construed as threatening to trekkers. 

Our guide roughs a map into the dirt. The Biwindi Impenetrable 
Forest is in the far southwestern corner of Uganda bordered by Rwanda 
with the Democratic Republic of Congo close by. This general area is the only 
habitat for the endangered mountain gorillas of Dian Fossey fame. 
About 400 live in the Biwindi Impenetrable (don't you love that word?) Forest.
Ok. Where's the path?
I was thrilled and surprised to actually swing on a jungle vine!
Lucky I was wearing my Life is Good hat. Our trek was short compared to many I've heard described. If you decide to go, be sure you're physically prepared. The terrain is demanding.  
Here's one of the NINE Ugandans who accompanied us. In addition to the main guide and two men carrying AK 47s in case of a charge by a rogue gorilla, were a couple more with machetes to chop a path through the indeed "impenetrable" forest. Also at our bidding were porters who carried our packs for $10 per person. This is a lot of money in a country where the average wage is around $1 a day. A young Irish couple were the only other tourists that day. They reported that one of their parents tracked gorillas recently and hiked for nine hours! I can't recall if they found gorillas (sightings are not guaranteed) but one of the two had to be carried by porters and rangers in some of the steeper sections on the return trek. At around 6,000 feet elevation, the rain forest mountainsides are steep and slick. Real gorilla tracking was going on, but it was not by us. Four trackers were ahead of us in the forest radioing our guide regarding the gorillas' whereabouts. The gorilla group we came upon reportedly had 23 members. I saw only the handful I photographed, but PK sighted at least 10. Lucky for us, we had only slipped and slid for about a half hour into the forest before we stopped to enjoy our one unforgettable hour with mountain gorillas.
Expressions of delight and awe play on our faces as gorillas move around us. 
We were only a half hour into the trip when we spied this guy.
Seeing him so close took my breath away. 

This fellow, a young male, made a noisy and spirited charge in our direction, but backed off quickly,
as young males of many species are known to do.

A baby gorilla, mama nearby, cavorts. 




A ranger with a machete and a Bob Marley backpack helps clear the way with his machete.
Gorilla tracking provides much-needed jobs for villagers.
Porters rotate, sharing the wealth of $10 to $20 a day, 




For most trackers, it's all about photography, and the guides go out of their
 way to clear visual lines to the gorillas. 

PK having the time of his life. It was magical indeed.
Next up: Bush camping and game sightings in Uganda's Murchison Falls National Park with TIA (This is Africa) Adventures. 

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Headed for Africa! Sorry, Mom

This is a screenshot from TIA Adventures website. TIA means This Is Africa. PK and I are going on a safari with this company that includes a night or two "bush" camping. Will we hear the lions roar? Maybe. Will we be nervous? Probably. But as the homepage of TIA's website quotes Helen Keller,
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
The countdown is on. Well, actually, it has BEEN on for a couple years. But now that the tickets are purchased, the itinerary is established and our (PK's and my) dream trip to Africa is imminent, we're watching the clock, obsessing about packing, and scurrying to corral the garden into jars and the freezer without killing ourselves or each other. That's the two of us.

Me? I'm also skirting the edges of guilt about leaving my mother.

She's  a healthy 97 and lives in assisted living one mile away. She keeps forgetting that I'm leaving. I have told her at least 50 times. Our initial plan was to travel last February. She asked how long before I would leave.  I told her it was eight months. She said—and I'm not making this up—Oh, that's OK. I'll be dead by then.

As if it wouldn't be OK if she wasn't dead?

Today, when I told her for the umpteenth time about our imminent departure, she expressed horror that I was going to Africa, because, Aren't there a lot of black people? What about the lions and tigers?Don't stick your leg outside the bed or something will chew on you!! How long will you be gone?

Twenty-five days, I told her. She grimaced. Grimaced.
Oh, well, when you get back and I'm not here, you'll know where you can find me, she said. The cemetery!

I laughed. Because it is laughable. And what else could I do?
Not go?

My mother never understood the part of me that wanted to GO. Never, although going has been a mostly unfulfilled part of me, she cannot relate. But really, does she need to? Is it odd, and also pathetic, that as a person nearing age 70, I am worrying about what my mother thinks?

I didn't worry about that for most of my life. But now is different. It isn't so much what she thinks, but what she feels. I know that I'm important in relieving the boredom of her long days in assisted living. I also know she's well cared for, safe, and, for at least part of each day, entertained.

I've spent many hours struggling with this dilemma, which has, of course, another side.

That would be the side of my understanding husband of going on 40 years, PK, who is hot to travel the world. He retired in 2008, the year we brought my mom to Oregon from Minnesota. He's raring to go and he'll go without me. He has. I don't like it, but I understand. I don't hold it against him.

I think I'm near the end of working through this, balancing my needs against my mother's, my husband's needs against my torn allegiance.

I have to go with him. While we're both still healthy. While we have the resources. I've explained repeatedly to my mother (who I expect to live to 100 and beyond)that I love her and admire her spirit more than ever, but that my primary relationship is with PK.

Next week PK and I are headed for South Africa and then on to Uganda. Twenty-five days total. Hardly a blip in a lifetime, especially if you're about to turn 98. Or even if you're edging uncomfortably close to 70. I can't wait to experience the places and meet the wonderful people in a world that our son Chris has opened to us. His friends and admirers will be "catching us" on a new-to-us exotic continent.

Before we know it, we'll be back home to "ordinary life" but, no doubt, itching for the next adventure, even if it's just driving the Four Wheel Camper south during the winter rains. Mom, you will have to get used to this.

I'll think about my mother every day, and send messages for her caregivers to relay about my adventures. I can't imagine that, given a sound mind, she would deny me.

NOTE: My wonderful daughter-in-law, a long-term care ombudsman, assures me my dilemma is not at all uncommon. As longevity increases and many people are living well into their 90s, their children, also aging, are caught between what they want and what their parent wants or expects. It isn't easy.

P.S. I won't be posting blogs from Africa, but I bought a New Camera! and a Moleskine notebook in which to jot notes, and I am excited to share 
images and words about a world so distant from my own.


Saturday, September 7, 2013

Beloved Birkenstocks Bite the Dust

My elderly Birkenstocks, age 36+, were recently put to rest after a remembrance ceremony. Yes, friends, I threw them into the trash and the garbage truck hauled them to the landfill.
My other Birks got together for a send-off. I forgot to add the ones I was wearing, a black three-strap pair with brand new soles. Only about 12 years old, as are all the others except for the tan fat-strapped units on the right.  They look mature, but are less than a year in my possession.
One year down, 36 to go. 
I wore my first Birkenstocks for nearly 37 years. I can't recall how many times I had them resoled, and the shoe bed was replaced once, or maybe twice. When PK and I traveled to Italy for a bicycling trip, they were my only shoes, in addition to cycling shoes. Several days of that adventure were spent hot-footing along Italian streets, 10 miles a day, at least. These Birks also carried me down the Rogue River trail for 20-some miles after my official hiking shoes produced a huge blister and rubbed a toenail off. I have worn Birkenstocks to death and have never suffered a blister, corn, bunion, ingrown toenail, plantar wart, toenail fungus or feet-that-failed-me on their account.
My original Birkenstocks finally faded beyond repair. 
I remember the day in 1977 that I purchased them for around $30 - a lot of money then, in Medford, Oregon. I was pregnant with my first-born, Quinn, who turned 36 in August. I wore the Birks a lot during the next 20 years, but not exclusively.

Those were the days when I could wear other types of shoes. It wasn't like NOW when Birkenstocks, or other high-quality sandals, are my only choice since developing, several years ago, a hostile bone spur, which defied bone spur-removal surgery and grew back with attitude. It is my enemy,

Left foot—perfect. Right foot—big painful gobby-looking bone spur, the reason I rarely
wear shoes with closed toes, unless I"m in a self-flagellating mood.

I must say I've taken a lot of, ummm, derision, for being a constant Birk wearer, especially regarding the recent cast-offs. Hey, I should get credit for loyalty and the wisdom to ignore current fashion. To Birk aficionados, shoe-horning feet into pointy high-heeled shoes seems ludicrous.

Through the decades of being the only person I knew wearing Birks, I believed they must be in style someplace. I am now thrilled to learn that Birkenstocks are officially back! The Fashion Beast (of online Newsweek's Daily Beast fame) even said it. 

This article confirmed my suspicion, and gratified my hope, that my decades-long devotion to Birks has not gone unnoticed, and now luminaries such as Miley Cyrus and other famous beautiful young people, whose every fashion move creates headlines, have perked up their toes with the world's best shoes! Like moi!

I have a few decades on them, and I live in the Oregon boonies, so I'm wondering how the fashionistas knew? Who knew first? How did the word spread that a fashion leader had emerged in Southern Oregon? Well, that was about a week ago and the Birk revival is likely fading already, despite my continuing devotion. Sigh.

I'll be going to a fancy wedding next weekend, where the fantastically gorgeous bride will be wearing shoes worthy of her sleek bridal gown and beautiful self, and where her multitudinous lovely friends will be fashionably attired and shod. Me?  I'll be wearing my "dress Birks", the black ones with the back strap that served me well during a mud fest at the rainy New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest in 2008, and also as my official bike shoes on numerous rides over the past several years.
The "bandages" are duct tape blister prevention.
These Birks provide a clue to how the word "shoddy" may have originated? But seriously. Since this photo was taken a mere five years ago, they've been cleaned up and resoled and are ready to rock and roll! They're likely to be useful far longer than me.  I'm taking them to South Africa and Uganda in a couple weeks. Aside from gorilla tracking (the subject, no doubt, of a future blog post) I know the black-strapped Birks will be up to the challenge. I hope I will be too!




Sunday, August 25, 2013

Buy Hendri Coetzee's Memoir, Please

Dear Readers - I'm asking you to consider purchasing a memoir written by Hendri Coetzee, Living the Best Day Ever. No one asked me to promote the book and I have nothing to gain other than the satisfaction of sharing insight into a young man whose impact on my son, and the ripple effects through our family, have been significant. Also, it's a good read! A bonus is that this first hardcover collectors' edition is being produced in the spirit and style of a classic explorer book, complete with Hendri's hand-drawn maps. The book includes five photos by Chris Korbulic.

Hendri Coetzee, 2010 shortly before his death.  Photo by Chris Korbulic.
Do you remember Hendri Coetzee? I sure do. I became acutely aware of him late in 2010 when our son Chris Korbulic and his kayaking partner Ben Stookesberry launched into what was planned as a three-month circumnavigation of rivers that connect Africa's West Rift Valley. Their expedition was to end when they arrived at the Congo River. Hendri was their guide.

Who the heck is he? I asked Ben, who had searched-out Hendri online and made the long-distance arrangements. Is he legit?

Ben said, in as many words, This guy is great. And indeed he was. Hendri was a modern-day explorer,  extreme kayaker, and adventurer. I later learned he was also a thinker, philosopher, comedian, and one helluva writer.

The trip would take them down the gnarly hippo and crocodile-infested Nile River in Uganda, across Lake Victoria, into the Ruzizi River and then the Lukuga River. Ahh, yes. The Lukuga, which I bet anybody who's reading this had never heard of before this expedition.

By this trio's ridiculous standards the Lukuga was tame. Most of Hendi's exploits were far sketchier, and Chris and Ben travel the world chasing waterfalls and unexplored rivers. The Lukuga was an unlikely place for any of them to die.

Hendri was taken by a crocodile on that river. Chris was just a few feet away and saw the split-second attack. Why didn't the croc take Chris? Or Ben? They will never know but will forever question: Why did I live? Why did Hendri die?

Just the previous evening, sitting cross-legged in a rainstorm while Chris and Ben huddled beneath a tarp, Hendri laughed and joked, bringing light to what could have been a miserable situation. Despite the downpour, their meagre dinner of a shared candy bar and a bit of dried fish, he was having the time of his life— another Best Day Ever. The next day he was gone.
 What could be more ironic than dying when you feel most alive?      From Living the Best Day Ever 
His memoir brings to life many of his incredible adventures, and he tells the stories with delicious detail, impressive descriptive power, humor and self deprecation. In most cases, he's aware that death is at his side, a subject he mentions time and again.

He wrote in one of numerous foreshadowings:
The lack of happy old people in my environment is a good indicator that this is an unsustainable lifestyle. Either I find something better, or I die on the river. Either way I have nothing to worry about. The worst possible scenario is that I don't let go when the time comes, that I live out my life by an empty well, depressed and chained to a dead passion."  From Living the Best Day Ever
I was asked to give the manuscript a quick edit. (It had been edited already and would undergo a more thorough treatment before publication.)

It was sent to me from Uganda via the Internet. I printed all 296 single-spaced PDF pages, sharpened my pencil and went to work. (The boxed manuscript traveled back to Africa with Chris a couple weeks later.)

Fascination and awe grew as Hendri's life unfolded. My eyes flew over the words, stopping now and again to correct a comma, substitute a word choice, or eliminate excess. I laughed out loud, (Yes LOL!! as they say on Facebook) teared up, shouted at Hendri, talked with him quietly, and marveled that a young man bent on apparent self destruction was also sensitive, compassionate, thoughtful, self deprecating, courageous, outrageous, damn smart and funny!

With his muscular physique and history of daring adventures, you might think he was macho in the worst sense. Not at all. In fact, he was full of self doubt, always questioning, always thinking—and always writing. He began his  Great White Explorer blog to chronicle what would be his final expedition. He was 35. His blog posts are part of the book.

Note: If you check out the blog, you'll find a piece written in August 2013 by his good friend Leyla Ahmet. Her piece is worth reading. To see Hendri's 11 posts, scroll down on the right to 2010 archives.

When our Chris is deep into an adventure, we are always hungry (desperate!) for news. When Hendri's blog came to light, I was thrilled to learn expedition details, terrifying as they often were. I was also amazed by his writing. He generated a flurry of words that he obviously didn't have time to labor over, let alone go through the torture of revising/rewriting. He was a natural. He wrote out of excitement and the need to tell his stories. As I worked through the manuscript, I was taken with his respect for African people, who somehow manage moments of joy in the midst of great poverty and pain. A couple of my favorite quotes:
 White people are not tough enough to be black
The Heart of Darkness is a label that will hang over the Congo for a long time. The cliché is turned on its head when you find out it is your own heart that leans in that direction. 
His ability to create a sense of place in the here-and-now and also in historical context is remarkable. I developed a desire to GO THERE and I am! (PK and I are soon headed to South Africa and Uganda.)

Fear,  disillusionment, death, good, evil, leadership, self-doubt, haves and have-nots, joy in the moment, guilt, implications of being white—all are themes that are woven throughout the book. All this is mixed with the adventure stories that wouldn't be unbelievable  if they were in a novel. Who would believe, for example, that cannibals are still operating deep in the Congo and that Hendri nearly succumbed to a group of them?

Extreme kayakers will relish the wave-by-hole accounts of class five and six rapids, and the trials of expedition leadership as well as unsupported solo explorations. The rest of us will enjoy those parts, but will be taken as well  by his insights and original thinking.


Why do I care? Because I care about the people who put their hearts and resources into getting it into print, and I care about Hendri, although I never met him. And I care about my son, Chris, who could have been crushed between a crocodile's jaws but wasn’t.

Chris escaped death, and because he loved and admired Hendri, he thought about conducting his life in a more conscious way that Hendri had demonstrated, specifically about accepting the troughs that occur between peak experiences, and learning to accept and even welcome the “flat water.” He wrote about Hendri’s  “best day ever” state of mind in a piece in Canoe and Kayak magazine.

Hendri's philosophy demands embracing the moment, whatever it brings.
Do I always do this? No. But I do think about it, and I do try. And I believe I have been elevated in some situations that otherwise would have been terribly dull or uncomfortable. Hendri’s memoir made me realize the role individuals can play in creating their own realities. 

He caused me to think and wonder. What more could one ask from a book? Or from a person, dead or alive?

 For how-to-pre-order info, keep reading.