Uganda - Best Travel Day Ever

Our "best travel day ever" in Uganda was our last touring day in that country. It was also when we saw Nile crocodiles for the first time. They are fearsome, huge, powerful and deadly. Ironically and tragically, a croc was behind what brought us to Africa. See the "back story" at the end of this post. 

It has been nine months since PK and I returned from Africa where our socks were blown off so many times we had to swathe our feet  in bandages and drink strong potions. Just kidding. But seriously, three of our way-too-few days in Uganda (only 12 days!) stand out for over-the-top-all-time travel greatness. They were days studded with surprises that kept us breathless.

What does it take to inspire breathlessness in a couple of almost-geezers, aside from hiking a steep slope, dancing to Talking Heads,  or having sex in a VW bug?  Quite a lot, actually, but Uganda's wildlife and natural wonders delivered. (The sex in a VW bug is ha ha, of course. Check out an earlier post. My prediction was correct! That post continues to attract deviants (!), and, I'm sure, has left them crestfallen in the titillation department. Hint. The post is not about sex.) Don't even look.

But onward. Of the three best-ever days, one emerged as the most-best because it started full-tilt before first light and didn't end until way after the last shafts of a spectacular sunset disappeared from the Nile near the Murchison River Lodge. The two other contenders for "best ever" days were when we scrambled through a rain forest  Gorilla Tracking, and when we experienced Bush Camping in Murchison Falls National Park.

Here's a quick rundown of one day in October 2013, ruled by excitement, surprise, wonder, and awe. We were in or near Uganda's Murchison Falls National Park. 

 EARLY MORNING CHIMPS 

5:30 a.m. We meet  guide Pete Meredith (a wonder himself) for a quick breakfast, then squeeze into his Land Rover and roar down another rutted red road, this time to the Budongo Forest for chimp tracking.
8 a.m.   Chimp tracking was so fun and exciting. Highlights: running through the tangled jungle behind our guide in pursuit of chimps, both in the canopy and on the ground. Stopped dead in our tracks by chimp choruses. Exhilaration. (Full post of chimp tracking here.)

COFFEE BREAK WITH CAPE BUFFALO 

10:30 a.m.  Skitter along the red dirt, rolling up windows to ward off tsetse flies, en route to Murchison Falls. This cape buffalo grazed just a few feet off  the road with his buddies. Yawn. Just the usual massive African wildlife. A herd.

LUNCH AT MURCHISON FALLS 

Noon: Murchison is the most bad ass of falls. It roars, plummets and boils for 141 feet, compressing the mighty Nile River into a 23-feet wide gorge. Great place to eat a sandwich! 

 PK is just a few feet from the top. Note the safety sign painted on rock behind him. Stop! Other spray-painted signs say Slippery! Do not cross!

 Murchsion Falls is an awesome spectacle as it thunders, booms, and vibrates the earth. 

PK puzzles at the sight of an old bridge piling surrounded by slippery rock and surging water. We know supposedly intelligent people (Chris Korbulic, Leyla Ahmet, Pete Meredith) who ignored the signs and stood atop the slick piling for photo ops. They lived. Somehow. The wet rock is super slick.

A 30-foot boil surges up the gorge walls before cascading another 100 feet.

We had the place to ourselves except for a couple of British soldiers returning home after training forces in Mogadishu, Somalia. We enjoyed their stories and insight into what it's like to serve in the world's most dangerous city. A guide, arranged by Kara Blackmore, ushered us down the river to board a tour boat. (More about Kara below.)

3 p.m.  Ho hum, we thought. A boat ride  with a bunch of tourists. Big deal! What could we possibly see that we haven't already? We figured we'd kick back and watch the green banks drift past as we enjoyed a Nile Special (beer) and digested the excitement of chimp tracking and seeing Murchison Falls. But no. 

     BEERS WITH CROCODILES 

3:30 p.m. Crocs cooling off below Murchison Falls. Seeing crocs was creepy and transfixing in equal measure. Some in this toothy gang were 15 to 20 feet long.  At least 25 were gathered on a spit of land or cruising the river nearby. No one swims in this part of the Nile, by the way.

Nor do they collect water without a makeshift croc barrier. Even then, the river devils sometimes manage to get around the barrier and snatch people. or whatever warm-blooded hapless creature is in snatching range. 

                     MATINEE

            AFRICAN BEE EATERS 

4 p.m. Just a short sweep downriver, the boat veered toward a sandstone cliff. The closer we got, what appeared as dark spots from the middle of the Nile came alive with primary colors. At least 100 vivid birds perched, flitted and flashed for our viewing pleasure. Where's the popcorn?

I was able to capture close-up images while on my back on the deck, hands shaking and eyes tearing. I don't know. Sometimes beautiful things make me weep. 

                DRAMATIC DUSK

5:30 p.m.  As we caught our breath after the sensory overload set off by the bee eaters, we were stunned by the clotted sky and the gathering dusk. In the meantime we had left the tourist boat and boarded a skiff suitable for four passengers for the approximately 15 minutes it took to get to Murchison River Lodge, where we were staying. With the driver, five were in the boat. Crocs and hippos were in the river, which is wide and still and musky. On the opposite bank, the pilot spotted an elephant. Ho hum. An elephant, and he roared right over to the grassy bank where the behemoth was feeding.

 ELEPHANT!

5:40 p.m.  Our little boat bobbled close, but the elephant paid us no mind, except to move away. What a thrill to be so near we could hear him rustle and almost feel his movements. So beautiful. And like most of the day's wonders, unexpected. 

6 p.m.  We return, exhausted but jubilant, to Murchison River Lodge in time to rinse off the day's dirt and have dinner before falling into bed. But wait! There's more!

         KARA HAS OTHER PLANS

6:30 p.m. Kara Blackmore, our personal Cambridge-educated cultural anthropologist, cultural consultant, Uganda expert and minute-to-minute itinerary planner, clears the view so we can get the full impact of the coming sunset. No rest yet on our best-ever travel day. And about 50 sunset photos later....finally......

 THE END

This will be my last post about Uganda. Much gratitude to the late and great Hendri Coetzee, whose brilliant  memoir,  Living the Best Day Ever, along with our son's travels with Hendri in Africa, inspired our trip.

Hendri perished, as you may know if you've followed this blog, in December 2010 when, on an Eddie Bauer-sponsored expedition he was leading, a giant crocodile exploded out of the still waters of the Lukuga river in the Democratic Republic of Congo and took Hendri in an instant. Our son, Chris, was just a few feet away in his kayak. PK and I met Hendri's family in 2011 at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, where Kadoma, a film about the expedition, premiered. They invited us to visit them in Africa. Two years later, we did.

Thanks also to Kara Blackmore, who planned our 12-day itinerary in Uganda and spent several days with us, and Leyla Ahmet Meredith and Pete Meredith, owners/operators of TIA Adventures, Inc. The Merediths are highly recommended if you ever want to go on safari or experience a teeth-clenching Nile River adventure. Or, if practicing yoga with a glittery slip of a woman with a beautiful spirit is up your alley, you can do that, too.

Hendri's memoir, Living the Best Day Ever, was published in 2013. It's a great read. (You can buy it here.) Hendri tells in fascinating, sometimes jolting, detail about his myriad adventures, plumbs his unique philosophy, and in between, explores the nature of the hours, days, weeks, and months between peak experiences and how to make every day the best day ever no matter what. 

PK and I read the book before our trip (we got it prepublication  as I did light editing of the manuscript at the bequest of the book's real editor, Kara Blackmore. ) The book helped to inspire us to visit Africa, Uganda in particular. We were determined that, while there, we would go with the flow. Good idea, because the flow swept us from one trans formative experience to another. Our African days truly were our best days ever.
.
If you've made it this far.......OTHER POSTS ABOUT AFRICA

My personal favorite 

Traveler, not Tourist

Gorilla tracking 

Chimp tracking

Rafting the Nile

Bush Camping

Murchison Falls National Park Wildlife

Sorry, Mom. I'm headed for Africa

I'll Drink to That!

A lovely twilight reflected in a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Why deny?

I will make this short and not-too-sweet. Since declaring wine as a "special occasion" treat 18 months ago, I have slipped back into my decades-long daily habit of enjoying wine during dinner prep and dinner itself. Savored. Sweet. Silky.

Failure to sharply curtail wine intake had a lot to do with the "special occasion" clause PK and I set for ourselves when we launched our wine deprivation experiment. Turns out that almost any turn of event can qualify as "special." Weekends, of course, even though we're retired and it shouldn't matter. Travel. (We spent a week in Mexico with a group of 10 friends just a few weeks after our declaration, which put a serious in crimp in our resolve.)

Other special occasions: A colorful sunset. A day that the cat didn't spray in the house. A good dinner. A Ducks game. The grass growing. Flowers blooming. The first ripe tomato.

PK is on the same page. What the hell? We enjoy wine, but we were worrying; are we alcoholics because we drink wine almost daily?  I don't think so. And I don't even care.

My initial impulse about drinking less wine was to lose 10 pounds, which I've now determined I don't need to do. Damn, some parts of getting older are liberating. Why stress about a few pounds? Who cares???? NO ONE! No one cares if I wear size 10 or 12. Those are good sizes for someone approaching, in just a few months, age 70. Yes. Freaking 70.

So I am claiming the age advantage of doing whatever I want without apology. Vanity is giving way to comfort and comfort includes drinking nice wine and cozying up with a book and toasting the world for my family, great life, good health, wonderful friends, precious grandchildren—and special occasions, of course.

Not to mention a ready and steady supply of fantastic locally made wines. Plus those from around the world stocked in affordable abundance at our local Grocery Outlet store.  Cheers!

Camping is, of course, always a special occasion as this pic from a few years back illustrates. 

Hello Summer Garden - I Love You

Beautiful blueberries with a backdrop of wet sawdust after yesterday's much-needed rain.

Right on cue with the summer solstice, the spring garden has launched its robust push into summer. The full-tilt flower-filled version will appear in another month, and then we'll be in harvest heaven with August's tomatoes, peppers, melons, cucumbers, beans, eggplants etc. 

I'm all excited now because last night's dinner was the first of the year to feature (!) zucchini. 

Last night's stir fry ingredients, peas sauteed separately with a bit of lemon juice.

We eat this, or a version thereof, several times a week as long as the zucchini lasts. 

From now until late October we'll be feasting, straight from the garden, on a progression of organic produce True, we've been enjoying greens from our cold frame since February, but now it is finally I-can-skip-going-to-the-market time. Well, not entirely. But it will not be for fruits or veggies.

Our blueberries, planted three or four years ago, are at last bearing enough fruit to see us through our winter smoothies. The birds, mostly pesky little finches, are feasting on berries, too, including the raspberries. Still, our freezer is filling with brightness that will cheer us during cold, dank, rainy months. 

Yum. Yogurt and just-picked berries for breakfast.

I know, I know. I said we were cutting back on gardening. And we are. We've planted about a third less than last year. Although it still looks pretty daunting out there.

First row: cucumbers, beets, peppers. Second row: tomatoes. Third, potatoes and melons (a third of the row fallow. )Fourth, basil, eggplants, a friend's peppers, and about a third as many pole beans as we've ever planted. Row five: garlic (harvested already) and lots of onions. Row six, nothing but volunteer sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, and a few volunteer tomatoes. In other words, we've cut back!

The blueberries are along the fence on the left, and raspberries along the other fence. A couple of modest zucchini plants are sizing up near the raspberries.  

A four-year-old strawberry bed in front, with a newer bed on the right. The old bed will be retired after this season. The other raised bed is overgrown with chives, oregano, and rosemary with snap dragons, sunflowers, zinnias and coneflowers coming on. A bed of zinnias is growing up on the left, with the asparagus bed doing its summer fern thing in the background 

In other garden areas not pictured, we have a couple spaghetti squash and a two butternuts, a short row of sweet corn, and a lot of bird, bee, and butterfly attracting flowers, not yet in bloom. Watch for a garden update in late July, when it will be in full flower and at its delicious and beautiful peak. 

Time Apart—Key to a Happy Marriage (that plus roasted cauliflower, asparagus and eggs at 9 p.m.)

Roasted cauliflower, asparagus, kale and eggs topped with a little finishing salt. Yum! But at 9 p.m.? Not PK's favorite time for dinner. But....he was away.

PK was out of town recently and I failed to mention to him how ecstatic I was to have a whole week to myself. I love the guy. Been married going on 40 years. I would be diminished without him. But damn, I sure do enjoy it when he vacates. He feels the same when I take off.  Such is the mature modern marriage. Flight or fight? Maybe.

PK and me in 1996. This photo was taken by son Chris Korbulic,
then age 10,who has since become a pro.

My mother never understood this as she and my father took few vacations without one another, and every get away was family-related. I can't remember how many Sundays we drove the 40 miles to grandma Ella's home in Jackson, Minnesota. My parents took few vacations, period. Those were different times, post-Depression era when most women didn't dare venture forth on their own and didn't have the resources anyway. Plus a women on her own would have been unseemly and bold. Not the identity sought by my mother.

I think they would have enjoyed their times apart as much as PK and I do. One of my best gifts was what he gave me for Christmas the year I was pregnant at age 40 (surprise!) with our second child. It was a mock-up of an airline ticket to "anywhere in the world."

Knowing our bank account wouldn't accommodate my wilder dreams, and that traveling far afield when seven months pregnant might be foolhardy, I opted for a week on the Yucatan Peninsula in company of my sister, Monette Johnson. We had a hilarious time, one I will never forget. One of the more convulsive-laughter-producing lines in a Mexican budget hotel: Don't look too closely at your pillow. Thank you, PK.

Enough on that. PK was gone. I meandered without a meal plan through the days and nights, dining on huge garden salads and a vat of homemade chile. After five days, the chile no longer appealed (PK finished it off when he returned) and around 8 p.m. one night, stomach rumbling, I began clicking through what I had on hand.

Cauliflower. Asparagus and kale in the garden. Lemons, garlic, olive oil, eggs. Parmesan cheese. A little cooked bacon. What else could I possibly need? What ensued was a simple yet elegant meal that I knew I would repeat. And I have, except we eat closer to 7 p.m. than  9 p.m. And I've added much more, ta da! Bacon!

I LOVE roasted veggies, and cauliflower is especially deluxe. It shrinks, browns, and becomes nutty sweet. Asparagus too, is superb roasted. Roast whatever veggies you have on hand, but don't skimp on olive oil or lemon.

Roasted Asparagus, Cauliflower, Kale and Eggs

Ingredients
This recipe would feed two people. I loved having the leftovers.

Cauliflower, about half of a medium head sliced or divided into florets. Make the pieces more or less the same size.

Half a pound of fresh asparagus, trimmed
Fresh kale, half pound or less, trimmed and torn

2-3 T fresh lemon juice (or more)
2 cloves garlic, mashed
2-3 T olive oil (at least)
salt and pepper to taste - try finishing salt at the end!
1/4 cup crumbled bacon
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
2-4 eggs

Preparation 

Preheat the oven to 450. Line a large roasting pan with parchment paper. This will save annoying scrubbing later. Use foil if you're out of parchment.
Clean and trim the veggies into similar-sized pieces. Toss the cauliflower with half the olive oil and lemon juice. When the oven reaches 450, roast the cauliflower for 10 minutes. In the meantime, toss the asparagus with oil, lemon and mashed or finely diced garlic. Sprinkle in some salt and pepper. Add to the cauliflower and return to the oven for 10 more minutes.

Toss the torn kale with olive oil and lemon juice to coat. Add to the cauliflower and asparagus, which by now should be browning. Yes, this is a meal that requires attention for a half hour or more. Drink wine to help pass the time. It isn't complicated, but cauliflower takes longer to roast than asparagus, asparagus takes longer than kale. And so on.

Roast for another 10 minutes. The kale roasts quickly, so you may need to stir. When it looks like the photo above, kale wilted but not crispy, remove from oven, shove veggies to the sides, and crack in two or more eggs and lightly salt and pepper. Sprinkle on a little grated Parmesan and crumbled bacon, if using, and return to the oven. Check back in a few minutes.

Those eggs don't look done, but with another minute in a 450 degree oven, they will be. As soon as the eggs form a whitish film, they're perfect—way past runny and a tad shy of well done. This combo is delicious, seasoned with lemon, garlic, olive oil and, perhaps, crumbled bacon. A little chipotle or dill sauce never hurts, nor does "finishing salt." By the way, the first yoke broke upon pan entry, so I broke the other one, too. Repeats of this recipe include eggs with unbroken yolks roasted until a thin whitish film formed on top. 

The eggs got a little too done, but still tasted great! The red stuff on top is chipotle "finishing salt,"  one of several flavored coarse natural salts made in Southern Oregon. They're great and you can 

order them online at Salinity Salts.

Two of my favorite flavors of finishing salts. 

Giving to Angels

This post is a departure from my usual photo-heavy storytelling. It's about donating to causes near and dear. I've at long last, after many years, sorted my priorities, both for financial donations and for volunteer work.

I am not congratulating myself for giving money to charity, but only dipping into my guilt in public. You know, the guilt about being white and comfortable in a developed country with clean water flowing from hoses and taps in car washes and kitchen sinks. And toilets.  And retirement funds flowing into bank accounts. Do you know how rare that is in the wide wide world?

And supermarkets. Let's not even go there. We have so much food. So much water. So much, so much. Even our poor, even our homeless, don't worry about water, and if they want food, they can get it. I'm not saying homeless and poor people in the USA aren't miserable. I'm saying that they aren't skeletal, they aren't dying from starvation, and their children can get medical care.

We have myriad problems: hunger, homelessness, inadequate care for mentally ill, dread diseases, ignored veterans, abused animals, environmental causes, I could go on and on. I've chosen to focus my charitable attention on families—women, mostly, and their children—who are terrorized by a domestic partner and who have endured rape.

TERRORIZE is the correct word.

I interviewed a woman (I live in rural southern Oregon) referred to me by the local Women's Crisis Support Team, for an online newsletter I write for "friends" of this organization. We're talking grassroots here, no big budget, struggling to meet payroll, no PR firm, nothing but passionate people, men included, employees and volunteers, who work their asses off to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. Many of the advocates who work directly with victims suffer post traumatic stress syndrome by association. And in truth, many of them have been victims, leading to firsthand knowledge they'd rather not possess.

In this case, a woman who had been rescued from almost-certain death by this organization 14 years ago, happened to run into one of the advocates who delivered her from evil. She told me her story. I wrote it and asked her to review. She added volumes, then told me there are still things she can't bring herself to say. My guess is she's talking about endless rape and sexual degradation in addition to the terrors she describes. Read it and believe, then please support WCST or your local women's shelter. They save women and kids every single day.

The following is a lightly edited account of one woman's domestic abuse and how WCST came to her rescue. WCST's executive director assures me that as bad as the situation is, it is not unusual. "This happens more than we will ever know," says Krisanna. If you've not experienced domestic violence, or had personal contact with someone who has, you will not believe situations similar to this are happening in your neighborhood. One difference between now and the 1980s and 90s, when most of this occurred, is that law enforcement response is better now.

Sharon, in her own words...