After a hot bath and some ridiculous chick lit, I feel better. I started feeling better when the turn-down guy came to my room - the same guy I sent away last night. Tonight, after a few hours hunched in front of my laptop and a smelly tray of the remnants of sweet and sour chicken on the coffee table, someone else in my room seemed welcome. I opened the door, smiled, and waved him inside.
He hurried around me with his tasks, but something about his energy filled the room - or maybe it was the rose water he spritzed all over the floor. Or the oil lamp he lit on the bedside table. Suddenly, the little wilty roses in plastic on my pillow took on so much more meaning. We didn't make eye contact, but I sensed that he was smiling as he went about his work
It feels good to be alone, in this dark little room. It feels good to be back in Pakistan, riding around the leafy streets, watching auto-rickshaws buzz by. Turbaned men in salwar kameez stroll down the street in pairs, or lounge in traffic circles, or sit cross-legged facing each other in the park. Women, so seldom seen on the street, tuck their dupatta a little more closely around their face.
Something about being somewhere so other, so far away and so removed from everything… there’s something about that which is appealing.The lure of the hotel room – the quiet hotel room where I don’t have to listen to anything at all.
After four years of working in Uganda, I finally made it to magical Bwindi Impenetrable Forest - the land of the mountain gorilla. As you might have noticed from a blatant lack of blogging, my work life has been all-consuming. So much so that I don't even have time for the typical meta-work (reflection) that I do through the One Mango Tree blog. I outsourced that to Lauranne Boyd, our newest employee. Tying myself down to $500 per person gorilla trekking passes ensured that I would get out of Kampala, and away from my laptop - for four solid days. A small [albeit expensive] victory.
Bwindi is Uganda's piece of national forest where mountain gorillas still roam - the endangered species can be found only in the region where Uganda, Rwanda and DRC intersect. Ten years ago you'd be more likely to find guerillas instead of gorillas in this area, but things have stabilized and tourism is on the rise. The huge permit fee goes towards research and conservation efforts - including community development in the surrounding areas.
Danny and I drove out to Bwindi from Kampala - instead of taking the horrible Masaka-Mbarara route, we headed northwest to Fort Portal. We stopped for lunch at Rwenzori Travellers Inn, and ate what looked like deep-fried bat carcasses (I think it was supposed to be chicken and chips). From Fort Portal the road swings south, following along the base of the Rwenzoris and flirting with the Congolese border. We drove through an eerily empty Queen Elizabeth and Ishasha.
We stayed at Gorilla Forest Camp - as luck would have it, we had the entire lodge to ourselves for the weekend. The altitude in southwestern Uganda creates an autumn-like crispness in the evenings, so we chilled out post-dinner in front of the campfire and found hot water bottles tucked into our bed. The peace and quiet made me nostalgic for autumn back at home.
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Our trekking passes were good for Sunday, so we got up early and headed down to the headquarters to meet our guides. On the way from our tent to breakfast (a 2-minute walk), a monkey pooped on my head. I think it also laughed - a premonition of the day ahead, no doubt. I'd heard that tracking gorillas was a "walk in the park," so in my frenzy to pack, I only brought yoga pants and a pair of low-top Chuck Taylors. We were assigned to track the "H" group. I scoffed at the suggestion that I might need a porter to help "pull or push" me in difficult tracking situations. A couple of hours into our hike (?!) we started descending the steep cultivated hillsides. My Chucks were no match. I was instantly rendered a complete un-balanced klutz, and I fell over and over again. I even cried once. Finally, a nice porter (one hired by someone else - someone less arrogant and more practical) rescued me, and I spent the rest of the day clutching onto his hand, trying not to fall off the hillside entirely.
The elusive "H" group had decided to hang out all afternoon munching vegetation on a steep (and heavily shrubbed) hillside above a river. Danny got all National-Geographic-up-close-and-personal with the gorillas, while I clung onto tree trunks and branches and tried not to think about falling. I still managed to snap a few good shots, but I couldn't help wondering how in the hell we would get out of this precarious gorilla observing perch. The answer was a stumble-fall-crash down the hill and across the river, while our trackers hacked through thick sugar cane to create a path out of the ravine.
When we made it back to the Defender 8 hours after our journey began, I was exhausted and happy that I'd made it out with both of my ankles intact. Back at Gorilla Forest Camp we were rewarded with another gorilla sighting - another group had passed into our camp and was eating fruit near the toilet. Check it out:
When I think about the leisurely stroll that other gorillas trekkers had reported, I'm not really sure what happened. I think I get it now about the monkey pooping on my head. He was laughing so hard when he saw my Chucks that he shit himself.
In any case, we earned it, and what a reward it is to be only a meter away from a mountain gorilla. It truly was an amazing experience, and three days later, I'm finally able to walk again.
