AFRICA DAYS 13: Leaving Zaire

Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. You can read previous and following posts on this site.

In the spring of 1976, as our final year teaching at The American School of Kinshasa drew to a close, we found (at last!) a used VW bus for sale. We determined to turn it into not only our transportation but also our home for the coming year, as we made our way up out of Africa and then across Europe.

We named the bus Miles Motuka (motuka is Lingala for motorcar), though every now and then we called him Miles from Nowhere. I say “him,” because this vehicle became a beloved figure in our lives. We certainly didn’t know it at the time, but we’d be traveling and living (full or part-time) in Miles for the next three years, joined during the last one by a little Paris-born girl named Laura Grace.

But back to Kinshasa. We spent $2,600 for the bus itself and almost that much outfitting it and buying what we needed for the trip — from spare parts to interior fittings to food and supplies and the cost of visas for 15 countries. We drew up a design for the interior and hired a wonderful craftsman/carpenter, Kidiela, to build it out. (Mostly of mahogany, if you please.) A friend installed a second battery off of which we could run our interior lights and radio and cassette player. I sewed curtains and cushion/mattress covers. Mike became a self-trained mechanic. We had bought backups for almost every part —  from the clutch to two spare wheels — many of which we would indeed deploy. (Mike once had to drop the engine, guided mostly by a detailed manual.) We had sand ladders and a shovel, cables and towlines and many jerry cans for fuel and others for water. 

We had a sink and a jug with a faucet braced above it, a stove and a siphon for a shower, and mosquito netting so we could sleep in the heat with the roof and windows and doors open. Our sofa made into a comfy double bed. Our desk/dining table folded down. Our closet had a sliding door. Our bookcase had a French dictionary, an atlas, an almanac and books on philosophy, history, art, poetry, memoirs, a songbook, essays and novels. Our cabinet held the food we’d stocked up on at the commissary, from coffee to canned meats to sugar to dried milk to pasta to raisins and crackers, which we’d supplement with vegetables and fruits along the route.

Given the abysmal state of Zairian roads, we would need to put Miles on a boat on the Congo River to get him out of Zaire (and later, as it turned out, on a train from Mali to Dakar and then on another boat to get him to Casablanca until, finally, Miles joined us on a ferry across the Mediterannean to Sicily).

We sent friends and family what we called “a tentative itinerary. It can be at best only approximate due to roads being washed out, mechanical issues, unforeseen political developments that might close borders, and our own whims.” We sent addresses for U.S. embassies where we would check for mail (“hold for arrival”). We noted that we’d make a decision in Bamako, Mali, as to whether to attempt a Sahara crossing. We’d done a lot of preparation in the hopes of making that happen, but our big investment in the future was in Miles, and we dreaded the idea of having to abandon him in the Sahara. (Most vehicles making the crossing were four-wheel drive.)

We sent 17 boxes of books and two barrels of personal effects to Mike’s parents in Minneapolis, noting that it might take six months for the barrels to arrive. Finally, when school ended, we collaborated with another couple to run a summer school for a month. We netted $3,500 to add to what we’d saved in our two years of teaching.

Miles, second vehicle from the top

On July 7, our trip began at last.

Letter home: “Our dream is coming true. We are on the Colonel Ebeya, a 3-tiered riverboat pushing two barges loaded with hundreds of people and a third loaded with merchandise, including a beautiful (to us) blue-and-white VW combi whose interior is a house fit for kings, not to mention a motor-parts store. We have labored painstakingly on this trip for a year and dreamed of it for three. The past few weeks have held little but the final assembling of all the tiny pieces. Yesterday, as the boat’s engines roared to a beginning, we found that the assembled product works.“

The boat trip took a week, a very pleasant one: watching life on the Congo River roll by, reading books, enjoying days without an alarm clock (we’d tossed into the drink the one that had so rudely interrupted our very early mornings in Kinshasa).

When the crane lifted Miles off the boat in Bumba and placed him on dry ground, we heaved a sigh of relief. 

We should have held our breath instead. There was all-too-little dry ground over the miles to come before we reached the Central African Republic. The Belgians’ total lack of investment in infrastructure was a gift that just kept on giving. I lose track, reading my journals, of how many mud holes we got stuck in — fearing each time that we might not make it through.

We once ended up jacking up both wheels, putting “everything under the sun under them — sand ladders, cables, palm fronds “ — and hiring two men to help me push us out. We crossed our fingers and powered through huge pools (burning out a clutch in the act). We changed flats, pumped up tires, patched tubes. And, against the odds, we trucked on.

At night we’d camp along the roadside, for lack of any alternative. Oddity that we were, we became a traveling roadshow for the populace. We once counted 50 people assembled to view our morning ablutions. At one village, someone drummed ahead a message to the next about our impending arrival. When we got there, a crowd had assembled on the road to greet us. 

There were 12 days of this.

At last we reached the Ubangi River, where I boarded a little motorboat that took me across to the Central African Republic. (The border crossing was — unusually enough — uneventful. A friend from our embassy in Kinshasa had cabled ahead about us.) There I cashed some travelers’ checks and sought out the ferry chief. Within a couple of hours, I was standing in the middle of the otherwise empty ferry, crossing the river toward Zaire, shouting above the motor, “I am the captain of the Queen’s nav-ee” and looking at Miles and Mike in the distance, in Zaire.

We drove Miles onto the ferry. It had been three weeks since we’d left Kinshasa. Our two years in Zaire were over. From now on, there’d be challenges aplenty. But at least the roads would be better.

AFRICA DAYS 12: Ruwenzori Summit and Ituri Rainforest

Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. You can read previous posts below.

It was December of 1975, and we were close to realizing a dream we’d had for a year: To climb as high in the Ruwenzori Mountains as non-technical climbers could go, and see the snowy massif known as Ptolemy’s Mountains of the Moon. The third and highest cabin sat on a slight rise (at an elevation of 13,779 feet). It was built of stone, while the others had been wooden, and it was a bit simpler and rougher. We’d been pleasantly surprised by the cabins, expecting the ruder sorts we had encountered on Kilimanjaro, with wooden plank beds and lots of cracks for bitter whistling winds to enter. These were solid and equipped not only with mattresses but blankets, sheets, a stove for those who wished to bring diesel fuel, lanterns, and many cooking and eating utensils.

The plan for the top hut was to wait until 5 p.m. or so, when the weather often began to clear, and then start out on the walk to the look-out point — the 14,639-foot Wasuwameso, with its panoramic view of the taller peaks arrayed before it. (The Ruwenzori range encompasses the third, fourth and fifth highest peaks in Africa, topping off at 16,762 feet. Those require technical climbing.) Since it was about 3 p.m. when we arrived, we began settling in and making tea. Suddenly Kisenge rushed in: The skies had cleared. We hurried out — and caught our breath at the portion of the massif now visible.

 We began our climb. Not long afterward, Kisenge pointed to a huge rock jutting out of the top of the peak we were scaling: This would be our viewpoint. When we came at last to the bottom of the rock, that primal expectancy you feel when a view is about to break open before you seized me. I pulled myself up onto the summit, and I felt something very close to pain: There it was, the whole glorious expanse.

We stayed at the summit for about an hour, comparing our guidebook’s charts with the shifting portions of the massif coming in and out of view (only when we first arrived was the view completely clear). One by one, the dancing clouds singled out the delights: silvery glaciers, jagged peaks above, lakes below, snowfields and icy slopes everywhere — until, gradually, the clouds had covered them all.

As we embarked on our descent, snow began to fall.

We were cold that night and felt the claustrophobic pressure of the altitude. (I found myself, both there and at Kilimanjaro, taking desperately quick and deep breaths in a frantic effort to make up for the lack of satisfaction in the oxygen-poor air.) We woke with headaches and were glad to start down. (The mountains were not visible to tempt us in the other direction.) It was a long way down that fourth day, skipping hut number two. The enchanted forest was muddier than it had been and we told each other at least four times that we had finally begun that last horrible descent to the creek which would mean we were close to the bottom hut. 

We finally DID begin it, in reality, and we enjoyed our last pork dinner back in hut number one.

We never saw the peaks again.

As soon as we passed Kisenge’s lodge, which meant to him that we were “off the mountain,” he told us that the spot where we had made tributes to the mountain spirit is administered by an old man who lives in Mutsora (a town we’d passed through on our way to the base). He makes annual pilgrimages up the steep trail to ensure the continued upkeep of the little huts. Kisenge added that the many people who have died climbing in the Ruwenzoris had failed to make any offering.

 These were not awful spirits, he said. You just needed to treat them right.

From the Ruwenzoris, we headed west to explore the Ituri Rainforest, home to the people known as Pygmies and to the rare okapi, the giraffe’s only relative. This trip was not the success that most of our adventures had been.

January 1, 1976: Epulu Station: “We’ve been sitting in this two-okapi town, as Mike called it (there are two okapis in a pen here) for hours. I’m balancing on three legs of a wooden chair on an uneven earth floor. The springs of a detached car seat are on my left. Mike is asleep on a flat bench. Above us is a leaf roof. (Pygmy influence — they build huts out of leaves, two of which we saw nearby). Three children sit by me, elbowing each other to get a peek at my writing. They have flowers in their hair. Is that because it’s New Year’s Day?”

We had finally made it to the Ituri headquarters late the evening before, after a long ride atop a Mercedes truck. A guard had come rushing out, telling us to set up our tent by his fire (in the midst of huge ants, most of whom bit me).

“He lured us to stay here today with tales of a foray into the jungle led by Pygmies, to see okapis, duikers and chimpanzees. We fell for it — and spent the early morning aimlessly wandering with some fool who finally admitted he didn’t know what he was doing.

“Now the various people who’ve been sitting under the shade with us have gone into their houses to get out of the heat and to rest. And here we sit, waiting to find a truck to take us toward Kisangani.”

January 3, 1976, Kisangani airport: “We have made it and are checked through for the plane. We got a truck from Epulu Station, a comfortable ride atop another Mercedes (this one carrying empty beer cases), with three inevitable breakdowns. We arrived in Bafwasende toward 9 p.m., got someone to lead us on foot to the Catholic mission and then received permission to camp in the vicar’s yard.

“Next morning, we were back in town by 6 a.m., eating a pineapple and waiting for the trucks. We got a ride about 10, all the way to Kisangani. It was a good one. We saw gorillas running across the road, guinea hens flying above us, a huge green lizard starting slowly across the road and, hearing or seeing us coming, curving his head way around and turning back. Mike saw a 6- to 10- foot fluorescent green and black snake. In the end, the only okapis we saw were those two penned up in Epulu, and we caught only a quick glimpse of a couple of Pygmies. Both these lovely beasts and these oft-maligned people are secretive and cherish the rainforest’s seclusion. Hard to blame them.

“Pulling into Kisangani brought the keenest bush-to-city feeling I’ve had. Seeing the lights and traffic, the big buildings and just the number of people struck me powerfully after these many days deep in the interior and short on comfort. When we arrived at the driver’s destination, we set out on foot for downtown. After a couple of kilometers a Belgian picked us up in his camionette and delivered us to our hotel, a shabby Holiday Inn-ish place. But it had hot water and a sort of double bed made of two twin bed mattresses. For dinner, we walked to the Stanley Hotel for steaks-frites and cold beers. Then to bed. We will be home by early afternoon. What an adventure.”

Back in Kinshasa, we would from now on aim our sights (and every free moment) on buying and equipping our vehicle and on all the attendant planning and purchasing required for the big trip out of Africa that we hoped to launch when school ended. That one would bring half a year and at least 15 countries worth of adventure. A lot of pieces would have to fit together to make it happen.

AFRICA DAYS 11: Ptolemy’s Mountains of the Moon

Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. You can read previous posts below.

We began our climb of the Ruwenzori massif on Christmas Day 1975, in the company of a Ugandan guide, two Zairois porters, and a small, noisy pig. Our yen for this adventure had arisen the previous spring when, one exceptionally clear evening in Zaire’s Virunga National Park, we caught sight of a flash of silver in the sky to the north of Lake Idi Amin. It was Ptolemy’s fabled Mountains of the Moon, said by the ancients to be the source of the Nile: the Ruwenzoris. We later learned that Stanley had had a similar experience from this very spot. He wrote in 1888 that his eyes were directed by a porter “to a mountain said to be covered with salt, and I saw a cloud of a most beautiful silver color, which assumed the proportions and appearance of a vast mountain covered with snow.”

It was a two-day hitchhike from the closest airport to the base. In all that time we never caught sight of the peaks, which top out at 16,763 feet. Indeed, even as we enjoyed local popcorn and cold beer in the parlor of the gracious park conservator at the base, we had only his word that, in clear weather, his windows framed a breathtaking view.

We had arranged to meet our guide, and his porter and ours, the next morning at 7 a.m. outside our small room at the base camp. We woke early, splashed cold water from our washbowl on our faces, and rushed outside: Had the conservator’s prediction of early morning clearing come true? And there they were: a jagged series of majestic snow-covered peaks glistening in the sunlight — which, within minutes, gave way to clouds.

We set off from the base camp through a strung-out village, making several stops for provisions. We had sent some money ahead the day before, and one villager had prepared a great bowl of foufou — the beaten manioc dish that takes bread’s place in the Zairian diet. At her home, chairs were brought out. We met her family, admired the homemade coffee-grinding machines and ran our fingers through the dry lakes of coffee beans in various stages of sun-roasting in the clearing around their hut. 

At another stop we gathered some mangos, then picked up some dried fish and later bottled some palm oil. Finally, two or three hours into the walk, we agreed to buy the pig in honor of Christmas dinner and to provide fresh meat for us and our crew throughout the trip. I was doubly glad of the pig’s company, since he turned out to be a slow climber, given to burrowing into the cool thick grasses beside the path. It made my own slow going less exceptional.

Before noon, we reached the handsome stone lodge where our guide Kisenge lived. Here we met his family, paid the park fee and signed the register. The register was a small book dating back to 1947 with the signature “Lowell Thomas, writer” not too many names above ours. Apparently few people had visited during Congo’s turbulent pre-and post-independence days.

It was at the lodge, too, that we slaughtered the poor pig.

After lunch, we climbed through thick tropical forest, with the trees becoming ever shorter. We had intermittent views of the spreading countryside, more and more distant below. As for the peaks, we never saw them again that day. We arrived at the first hut mid-afternoon to find a Belgian hiker. Altitude distresss had forced her to leave her party on the way up. She had with her a sweet pineapple, which we cooked with our pork to produce a worthy holiday feast for us all.

We turned in early.

The next morning, we embarked before 8 on a significantly rougher path heading steeply uphill. We encountered piles of fresh buffalo dung and heard the shrieks of colobus monkeys. Suddenly we took a very sharp downhill into a creek. The ascent of the other bank was even steeper and involved hoisting ourselves up over great slippery boulders and bulging roots, with a sheer drop-off to our right. This seemed to go on for hours, providing plenty of time for my customary internal tirade about why I keep taking on such challenges.

Finally we broke into a lovely bamboo forest thick with elephant grass and pretty flowered vines, wild bananas and white orchids.

By noon we were struggling again on a particularly steep section when we heard the voices of our guide and porters on a level above us. When we caught up, we saw they were resting amid strange surroundings: On the left-hand side of the path was a row of five tiny huts made of bamboo. In each hut were piles of beans, rice and barley. This pattern was duplicated on the right side of the trail, except that the final hut there was about three times the size of the others and included a pile of money along with the food. Our guides had already made their offerings, and they advised us to offer something as well, saying firmly that the mountain would not be happy with us otherwise. Climbing huge mountains is hard enough without making them unhappy with you. I made my offering.

Kisenge said he would tell us all about the mountain spirit and the offerings — AFTER we got safely off the mountain.

We spent much of the rest of the day, as we hiked along, having wide-ranging talks with Kisenge. His familiarity with the wider world was intriguingly spotty. He spoke of figures such as Edward Jenner and Francis Drake but seemed to know of only three continents — Europe, Africa and “America.” He wanted to know “what color” are George Foreman and Muhammad Ali (he thought Ali was English) and what languages did the black people in America speak. These conversations made our laborious approach to the second cabin pass more easily.

The cabin was in a clearing on a small knoll rising like an island out of the muddy morass into which the trail had dipped before reaching it. We spread out our bags so they’d be ready for that evening, brewed up a pot of tea and sat down to read for a bit during a late afternoon rainstorm. The minute it cleared, we hobbled over to the windows to see the peaks for the first time since before we began the hike. They were so obviously closer and so brilliant against the uncommonly clear sky that we put on our boots and sloshed out into the mud for a better view. We watched in awe for the half hour they were visible. Then we had a tasty meal of pork and beans and snuggled into bed.

The next day’s rewards were many. We spent several hours in an enchanted forest of mosses and ferns covering everything in sight, draped over one another, carpeting the forest floor and its walls and its sky. The mosses were all shades of green, yellow, brown and orange. There were huge tussocks of sedge higher than our waist. When we put a hand down to steady our footing on the cushiony path, it sank deep into whatever it touched.

As if this weren’t enough of a fairytale come true, it was succeeded by something equally fabulous when it ended abruptly at a tiny creek. We bent down for a cold drink of water and, looking up, saw that the hill above us was populated with plants that only Dr. Seuss could’ve dreamed up.

This fantastic world of giant groundsels and lobelias continued until we came to the top of the rise where we could see, stretching before us, the path climbing gently along the ridge to the final cabin. And then, just beyond, we spied the peak from whose summit we might have, at last, a closeup view of the entire Ruwenzori massif. 

We could only hope that the weather (or the mountain?) would permit us to see it.

AFRICA DAYS 10: Rainy Season, Bush Travel and Prep for the Drive Out

GENEVA OVERHOLSER

MAR 19, 2025

Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. You can read previous and following posts on Substack and below.

As the rainy season approached once again, I thought back to The Fight the previous year, and how astonishing it was that the torrent had held off until moments after Ali’s victory. Had it started before the fight (as feared) it would have been disastrous, for a rainstorm in Zaire is like nothing you’ve ever seen. In a letter home, I seem bent on rhapsodizing about it:

“In Zaire, everything loves a rainstorm. Things that elsewhere would go under cover, here come out. Color, for example. Rainstorms are usually gray. Not in Zaire. Just before they come, in late afternoon toward evening, the sky turns a vivid yellow, so that everything is shot through with it. The usual lush green is charged with yellow. As soon as the rain comes, the yellow clears. The sun sets pink in one part of the city, a pink that spreads wider than any dry sunset. And then the sky turns silver. A luminous silver behind shining dark-wet green trees.

“The lightning, too, is brighter than any I’ve seen — even against the silver sky — and it flashes a blinding white. The white flashes in complete silence, broken eight or 10 seconds later by awesome gurgles and groans, turning into jagged boulders of sound, rolling from one horizon to another, reverberating like a base speaker that can’t handle the volume.

“Everything moves and sways. The trees — so heavy and hot in the blanketing heat — are released into movement. For the big old mango trees, this means slow swaying of heavy limbs, each branch softly muting the next on its swing back and forth. For the bamboo, which grows so high that its normal position is diagonal, the winds bring low balletic dips and slow, smooth lifting, then a low dip to the other side. Their papery leaves — in tiny millions — seem to stretch and stroke the breeze.

“It’s the palms, though, that seem made for these storms. Each frond meets the wind and rides it in its own way — ostrich plumes blown by invisible fans, lifting and curling, dropping and flinging straight — until the wind is finished playing and comes on powerfully strong. Then the palm is like a little girl whose long hair is blown straight sideways, baring her tiny head. The birds, too, love the rain in Zaire. They sing loudly in their trees as it begins. They’re followed by bats, who swoop dark, high and low against the silver sky.

“As the storm exhausts itself, the sky turns a bruised lavender gray like an old film. The lightning now looks gold against the darkening sky, and it’s hard to tell bats from the wind-borne bamboo leaves.”

That Thanksgiving of 1975, we took a wonderful multi-day trip into “the bush” to the east of Kinshasa with friends with Land Rovers. We drove through stately forests wreathed in vines and lush with butterflies. We crossed rivers and streams on rusty old ferries and makeshift bridges, and plowed through mud and waterholes on the roads in between.

We stayed in Catholic missions and with Peace Corps volunteers. We saw arts and crafts being made throughout the region — masks, tapis, dolls representing Pende dancers. And we saw a beautiful waterfall that, were it in the United States, would have been a major attraction. Here, it seemed to go utterly unnoticed.

What consumed most of our free time during this second school was planning for the big trip we intended to take once the term ended. As I wrote in a letter to friends:

“We had intended (and still hope) to buy some kind of van (such as a VW combi) and outfit it here with the help of school carpenters and friends. Then we would head north to the Central African Republic (we would probably have to put our vehicle on a riverboat to get out of Zaire, given road conditions), then throughout West Africa and (if possible) across the Sahara. Then we’d travel throughout North Africa and continue on to Europe, where we’d spend several more months traveling and living out of our van. We‘d’ then return to the States in late spring of 1977. (As it turned out, we moved to Paris for a couple of years instead. But that’s another story).

“We began attempting to implement this plan in early September upon our return from our summer adventures and found — to our great dismay — that no new vehicles are coming into the country. Zaire is in the midst of an economic crisis. It has little or no foreign reserves and, consequently, is defaulting on its loans and not paying its bills. In an attempt to straighten out this mess, the government is not permitting the importation of any vehicles. The used-car market is almost non-existent, and the few who are selling are getting astronomical prices for their cars.

“So we have been having a helluva time finding anything. We have recently come upon a used Peugeot van for sale. It is quite roomy and so would surpass the VW in livability. But it is lower to the ground, and whether or not it can be sufficiently raised by new wheels, larger tires, spring adjustment or whatever, we are now in the process of determining. If it cannot, we may consider going by boat to Bangui, driving to Dakar and then shipping it to Casablanca, as crossing the desert would not be feasible.”

Then, in a February letter, this development: “We’ve decided on a used ’72 VW bus, which we found for sale for $2,500. We’ll have to pay duty, as well, and buy new tires and all the spare parts. The way things go around here, who knows what we’ll really end up having to pay?

One of the many to-do lists we made in preparation for our drive out

“We’ve also decided to collaborate with a couple of fellow teachers to run a month-long summer school, which should net us at least $1,000 per person. Since the VW won’t be available to us until 1 July anyway, the timing will be perfect.”

On our spring break we flew to Johannesburg to buy backup car parts and tools, material to build sand ladders, English-language books and other necessities unavailable in Kinshasa.

But there would be one last grand adventure in Zaire before that. Over Christmas break, we hiked up to the snowy 10-mile massif of the Ruwenzori Mountains and hitched rides through the Ituri Rainforest, home to the nomadic hunter-gatherers called Pygmies and to the rare and lovely okapi, the only living relative of the giraffe.

AFRICA DAYS 9: Poling in the Okavango Swamp, Whiplash in South Africa

The view while gliding through the swamp — and our guide, Kitsola. (Happily, he never used the rifle.)

Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. You can read previous and following posts (for free) on this site or at https://genevaoverholser.com/

“We had read in our ‘Traveler’s Africa’ guide that, deep in the Okavango swamp of Botswana, it was possible to hire canoes for a sort of water safari during which you would encounter hippos and crocodiles. This expedition turned out to be completely different from what we had anticipated — and absolutely magical. With little information (as usual) we made our way by train from Bulawayo, Rhodesia, to Francistown, Botswana, then found a ride (with great difficulty) in a mail truck making the 310-mile trip from Francistown to Maun, over a desolate stretch of the Kalahari Desert.

Kalahari Desert

“In Maun, with information still at a premium, we finally determined that it would be necessary to pay a private pilot to fly us deep into the swamp. (This remarkable place is formed mysteriously by the Okavango River, Africa’s seventh largest, which pours into a desert rather than into a body of water, thus forming a swamp in its last gasp.) There we would find the Txatxaba camp, run by a man whose father trapped crocodiles in the area decades ago. This cost us a pretty penny, but we weren’t about to turn back now. We took the flight, swooped low over the tiny island airstrip to clear away the grazing impala, landed, emerged to the tune of buzzing tsetse flies, and were picked up by men in makoras, or dugouts.

View as we flew into the swamp, and the men with makoras meeting us

“They poled us through the tall grasses of the swamp to the camp. We had a good lunch with the manager and his wife, who outfitted us with our own makora and our guide Kitsola, told us to keep our eyes open all the time and said they’d see us in a week or so.

“What a week it was. Mike and I rode along in the canoe as Kit poled us through a wonderland of wildlife. We camped on islands with many different kinds of antelope in sight. Kit would play his thumb piano by firelight. By the third day, we were in deep enough to encounter the predators, so we camped on the tiniest islands in order to hear any creature who might approach us through the water.

Abundant (and often very close by) wildlife

“And hear the creatures we did, the mysterious whoop of the hyena starting low and ending high, which made me question the term ‘laughing hyena’ until the second night when it added a weird cackling of 5 to 8 notes starting high, jumping around the scale. And then we heard the most chilling sound: the throaty groan of lions. Kit kept the fire going and his rifle by his side.

“During the day we would take walking safaris on the islands. In this manner, we saw many interesting signs of animals, in addition to the animals themselves: trees stripped by elephants to incredible heights, their footprints left in the mud forming pools you could have sat in. We noticed that there was one pile of dung in particular that Kit would always give wide berth to, rather than step over, as he usually did. It turned out to be hyena scat. A hyena had come to his village and attacked his daughter, he told us, and it would repeat the act unless he respected its leavings.

Our campsite one morning, and Kit’s thumb piano

“Two particularly striking things deserve mention. On one of our walks, we noticed Kit paying special attention to a tiny bird, who would hop from tree to tree until finally, following it, Kit located a bees’ nest. He smoked out the bees and axed out the comb, and we ate the most delicious honey I’ve ever had, taking the rest of it with us for our oatmeal the next morning. We had been led to the hive by the honey guide, a bird which has developed this relationship with men and other animals. The Bushmen say that if the honey isn’t shared with the guide, he’ll lead you next time into a lion’s den or the pit of the deadly black mamba.

All praise to the honey guide!

(The next encounter was gruesome to witness and is even more horrifying now to recall. Poaching of elephants has fallen in recent years, but rhinoceros have been killed in fast-growing numbers of late.) 

“The second striking occurrence was an encounter with poachers. We came upon their camp midway through the trip. The tusks of elephants were soaking in the water, and meat and skins were drying everywhere: hyenas with their large ears turned inside out; impalas and elephants pieced on the ground like a pattern. The elephant ears alone were taller than I am. The feet and lower legs sat on the ground like high boots whose tops had fallen over. Some of the inner organs, blown full of air while soft, were hanging in translucent balls to dry, to serve as containers for the fats. One man was working on shaving some of the extra wood off his makora. The hunt had been so successful, the prizes so weighty, that the men needed more space.

“Our final destination was South Africa, where we embarked on a three-week whiplash of experiences, some sublime, many disturbing. We landed in Johannesburg, a mini-New York that felt astonishing to find on this continent. We visited Soweto — the part tourists are allowed into.

“We hitchhiked to Durban, then down the coast (with a jaunt north to Oudtshoorn for an ostrich ride) to Cape Town, surely one of the world’s loveliest cities. There, we consumed much good wine, cheese, fresh fruits, and seafood. Finally, we took the famed blue train back to Johannesburg, the finest train I’ve yet to ride. Luxury on wheels.

“I find it hard to put on paper the many conflicting feelings about our time in this lovely, complex, deeply troubling country — a topic we want to discuss with you all on our return. I want to share here a tiny instance of how South Africa’s mores affected us personally. One hot evening we happened to be dropped off, after a day of hitchhiking, next to an appealing-looking bar a ways out of the town where we’d be spending the night. A beer sounded like just the thing to refresh us for the final leg. We walked eagerly into the cool, welcoming dark. The response was lightning-quick: The bartender looked at Mike (he never looked at me) and said, ‘She is not allowed here. There’s a ladies’ bar in town.’ Obviously, this was but a grain of salt before the vast and deadly mountain of apartheid, which affects every moment and shapes the lives of every South African. But I won’t forget that slap of exclusion; that presumption that I deserved neither to be looked upon nor spoken to directly.

Sunset in the Okavango 

“With our 77-day vacation over, we boarded a jet in Johannesburg bound for Kinshasa. The airline agent asked why we were going to Zaire. ‘We live there,’ we said. ‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear it,’ she replied. ‘I used to live there myself.’”

Going back to work did come hard after this idyll. But we had much to look forward to. During Christmas break, we hoped to hike the Ruwenzori Mountains — the most beautiful trek of them all, as it turned out. And throughout the school year, we’d be laying plans to realize the big dream that had lured us here: to drive all the way up out of Africa to Europe, when our teaching stint in Kinshasa ended.

AFRICA DAYS 8: Ancient ruins, pristine beaches— and Victoria Falls

Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. All posts are here, in reverse order below

“When we came down from Kilimanjaro (in the summer of 1975), we needed a rest. As soon as we got back to Nairobi, we boarded a plane and headed to the coast. Our next big adventure would be four days in Lamu, a tiny island just off the Kenyan coast, barely separated from the mainland by a lovely blue-green swath of Indian Ocean — just wide enough to have kept all wheeled vehicles off the island and genuine Swahili civilization still on. It was a charming stay (at $1 a night!), exploring narrow streets of the old town and walking along the 10 miles of wild beach, all of it deserted and backed by mile after mile of undulating white sand flecked with grasses. It was hard to leave, but the next step was Malindi, down the coast a bit, where we engaged for the first time in snorkeling, and found it immensely to our liking. I never realized how breathtaking the colors of the life in the coral leaf can be. Out of Malindi, we visited old Swahili ruins dating back to the 15th century at Gedi. Mombasa, further south, was also interesting historically.

Lamu Island

“Zanzibar, the fabulous land of Zinj, was the perfect spice island. It is undergoing considerable socialist change now, and the government keeps a steady eye on all visitors: We were ushered about and given a driver for the only possible tour. We stayed in one of only three hotels on the island. But it was worth all the surveillance. The old slave caves where the overland drives ended and the wait for the ships began, the market where slaves were sold, the buildings where Livingstone, Speke, Burton and Stanley prepared for or rested up after their African explorations: all these were fascinating. But the best part to me was the agriculture. We took a tour through the countryside which made my nose swoon. We peeled the bark off cinnamon trees, crushed budding cloves, gaped at the cocoa, coconuts, coffee, nutmeg, lychee nuts, cashew trees, orange groves, lime groves, and trees of fruit whose like we’ve never seen. Zanzibar was as fertile and lovely a place as I’ve seen, had a sense of antiquity rare in Africa and smelled heavenly. Livingstone, when he was there in the mid-1800’s, wrote that the island was full of objectionable odors and should be referred to as Stinkibar. If that was true, it couldn’t have changed more.

Zanzibar treasures and Gedi ruins

“Dar es Salaam was next. We were there for Tanzania’s independence anniversary celebration and attended an interesting trade fair where the North Korean pavilion was the most prominent. We enjoyed the museum, which houses much of Leakey’s work. Then we made our way to Malawi, landing in Blantyre and hitchhiking to Zomba, a lovely old British university town at the base of a plateau on which we spent two days hiking. The serene forest trails felt almost like being in a U.S. state park, except for the very different mushrooms and butterflies. We camped all alone in a pretty spot within walking distance of a fine old hotel built atop the plateau in the old days when the Britishers would vacation there. This inn carried on the noble tradition of Malawi’s being the only country outside Denmark where they brew Carlsberg beer. It was a happy stay, and gave way to still another: several days on the shore of Lake Malawi, whose clear waters shelter tropical fish found nowhere else in the world. We were lucky enough to be camped next to a man who was fully outfitted for snorkeling and diving, and whose equipment we borrowed, along with his boat.

Lake Malawi and a mushroom along a forest path

“Malawi was the friendliest place we’ve been. Our travels there were made nicer and more interesting by our frequent encounters with Malawians, who gave us rides, sang to us on buses and invited us into their homes for tea. Plus: the country has campgrounds — an common thing on this continent — and good cheap rest houses in the cities.

“Next we went to the land of ‘right of admission reserved,’ taking the plane from Blantyre to Salisbury and a very different world. Rhodesia felt like the U.S. of the 1950’s. But it offered two very compelling sights: the awesome and mysterious ruins of Zimbabwe, and Victoria Falls, whose native name, aptly enough, means “the smoke that thunders.’ At the falls, we had an intriguing walk several miles along the river, just Mike and me and the warthogs, monkeys and hippos.

Victoria Falls and crocodiles along the Zambezi

“Victoria Falls is difficult to fully appreciate because of its magnitude and the fact that you can’t see much of it at once, since it drops into a deep gorge. My favorite view of it was the westernmost section on a moonlit evening, with the spray hitting our faces. We also had an interesting river cruise, and visited the most educational and fascinating crocodile farm.

“The Zambezi riverwalk was a foretaste of the greatest adventure of them all: our week in the Okavango swamp of Botswana.”

AFRICA DAYS 7: Destination Kilimanjaro


Amboseli with snowy Kilimanjaro in the background

“Our 77-day summer adventure began with a flight from Kinshasa to Nairobi on June 7 (1975). As soon as we stepped onto the PanAm jet, the shock of a familiar past life overcame us. There were no soldiers. The magazines were not months old. No one stared at us. The people on the plane spoke English. Even the loo felt mind-boggling, so efficient, so well-stocked, everything in its assigned place. It was almost more than we could take in.

“So was Nairobi. Situated close to a mile high, its climate is relatively cool and dry. It’s a lovely city and very modern. It had almost-current movies. It had milkshakes, milk, ice cream! To steep ourselves even more thoroughly in luxury, we took an overnight jaunt to the famed Treetops Lodge. Back in Nairobi for a few days, we enjoyed the very good museum and snake park. Then off we went in a rented car for our tour of the great game parks. We drove southwest of the city, down the escarpment of the Rift Valley and to Masai Mara, then across the border into Tanzania and the Serengeti. There we camped, frightened at first (Mike rustled up a fearsome-looking water buffalo along with the firewood), but then loving the wide-open feel of the plains, the sky fuzzy with stars, and the wild animal calls in the night.

“We crossed the Olduvai Gorge and took a trip down into Ngorongoro crater, a beautiful bowl of nature, where we came closer to the animals than anywhere I’ve been. Then Lake Manyara, where lions sleep in the trees; Amboseli, giraffes grazing under the snowy top of Kilimanjaro (hint of what was to come); Tsavo; then back to Nairobi, where we turned in the car.

“We took in one more movie and one more milkshake, then boarded a bus for Kilimanjaro and The Great Climb. We experienced several bus breakdowns, came upon a man lying in the road, spent three hours going through customs at the Tanzania border, and finally rolled into Moshi, near the base, at 7 a.m. We were able to make arrangements through the Moshi YMCA to leave that very day, because a group of three high-school guys — a Britisher, a Finn and an American — had already arranged to go up. A quick trip to Moshi’s three sparsely stocked grocery stores, and we were set. All told, there were five climbers, plus one guide (Elias, a most likable fellow), a porter for Elias and a porter for Mike and me. (We had at first poohpoohed the idea of a porter, but we were convinced by those wiser than we are in the ways of Kilimanjaro that we’d be fools to shoulder our own packs up that mountain. Thank goodness for their counsel.)

“We took a crowded bus some 30 miles out to Marangu, the starting point for the route we were to take. Then we set off. The first part of the walk is up a road through luxuriant banana-grove kind of country, with lovely, neat houses, and flowers all about. The first climber we ran into, a Scotsman, looked horrible. He said he felt worse. And he hadn’t made it. By the time we reached the gate of the park, well into the first day, we met a young couple who had succeeded. ‘It is very, very hard,’ they said. Above the Marangu Gate, we hiked through thick forest on a muddy, slippery path. The first hut was visible some distance off across a meadow. This hut was luxurious compared to later ones, with three rooms, mattresses, a fireplace. We slept quite well — for the last time before the 60 hours to come. It’s a good thing we couldn’t have predicted then how tough it was going to be — though I think we’d still have done it. We were determined. We had to be!

Our climbing group and a hut

“The second day started out in an eerily lovely rainforest, which soon broke into a misty meadow. We reached the hut mid-afternoon. The climbing was easy — the trip is well planned that way, starting out gradually uphill to the first hut, then uphill and level to the second, then uphill and level to the third — the day that was to come.

“Anyway, at the second hut we played nursemaid to a mad German, who had been forced to come back by palpitations of the heart. And — we read all the inscriptions of failure left by our precursors.

“The third day was beautiful. We encountered strange plants of all sorts, enjoyed walking through them, and at last broke out of the clouds onto the ‘saddle’ stretching between Mawenzi Peak, (the rugged lower peak at 16,893 feet) and Kibo, the perfect volcano giant at 19,340 feet. From there, we could see the path — going straight up. That night, Mike and I slept together inside both sleeping bags in an attempt to counteract the cold that had kept us awake the night before. We almost strangled, though, from the tightness of this arrangement, and we were kept awake anyway by the verbal antics of our three companions, who were too cold to sleep. Thus it was utterly unnecessary for the guides to wake us up for the 1:30 a.m. climb to the summit.

Mike and the remarkable landscape

“When the ominous hour came, Mike said he felt too sick to make the climb. We both had had headaches the day before, but he felt seriously nauseated now. The other four of us got silently (grimly?) ready. Then, at the last moment, Mike sat up, gave a great belch, then one more, and declared, ‘I think that’s it. I’m going.’

“We made mittens out of socks and plastic bags sealed with athletic tape, put on all the clothes we had and went out into the cold full moonlight. The other three had gone on up with a porter who was turned into an assistant guide for this stretch. By the time we caught up with them, one of the teenagers was too sick to go on. We watched as he turned back.

“So far I had thought the climb tough but manageable. Then it started: the most trying effort I have ever made. Straight uphill over two-foot-deep scree — volcanic gravel layered so loosely that every step is frustrating as hell. Your foot ends up sometimes several inches below where you placed it.

Sunrise on Mawenzi and Kibo at the base of the scree

“Add to that the constant gain in altitude (from 16,000 to 19,000 feet that morning alone), which makes every breath a gasp and creates a tightness in the chest, and … well, soon you just feel ill. (Our toes and thumbs felt frozen too, but that seemed the least of our problems.) On part of the scree, it is necessary to go straight up; on other parts, it is wide enough to make small zigzags. While we were endlessly zigzagging up the last interminable stretch, the sun rose from behind Mawenzi. It was transporting. By this time, another of the teenagers had given up and gone back. One guide had continued up with the third climber. We were still struggling, struggling, step-by-step-by-laborious step. (I’ll never forget how encouraging was the sound of Elias saying, ‘poh-lay, poh-lay’ — Swahili for ‘slowly, slowly’ — again and again in his rich baritone.)

“And then: We made it. To Uhuru Peak, the highest point on Kibo. There we were, at last, staring down into the huge crater filled with delicate snow and ice formations, giving it the appearance of housing a fairyland town: A town topped by impressive glaciers, some forming stair-step patterns. We sat at the top, sick and sore, gaping at the almost unattainable splendor. And then we started our descent — with each step down the scree now a wonderfully long slide, on our heels.

Looking back at Kilimanjaro

“We rested briefly at the top hut and then spent the rest of the day going all the way down to the first in order to sleep. It was 22 miles of hiking that day, but worth it for the beer someone had left at the first hut, and for the warmth of our beds that night.

“The trip was 50 miles in all. It was incredible, all right. And we did it.”

AFRICA DAYS 6: Climbing Mount Nyiragongo, Walking in Rwanda

Inside Nyiragongo’s crater, viewed from the lip

The volcano that was to be the final part of our 1975 spring-break tour is considered Africa’s most dangerous. As was typical of travel in Zaire, we had little knowledge of its particular unpredictability. Indeed, the very next school year, Nyiragongo erupted, killing scores of people — and then it erupted again in 2021, destroying part of Goma and forcing thousands to flee. 

“The next and final event of The Tour part of the trip was no less amazing than the first two: A climb up an active volcano, Nyiragongo, a 12,000-foot peak just north of Goma. We left about 10 a.m. and reached our huts near the top at about 5 p.m. It was a grueling climb but marked by dramatic changes of foliage and splendid views of the lake and other volcanoes. We ate dinner in our huts, then made the strenuous final climb to the top of the volcano. The view was breath-taking: A huge, perfectly circular bowl rimmed with sheer rock walls, filled for the most part with cool lava forming a hard black circle, and in the middle a gaping void plumed with smoke through which one catches views of huge black boulders thrown high out of liquid fire. The noise: a steady and powerful low rumbling.

The crater’s sheer walls, plumes of smoke and fiery pool

“We stayed until after dark as the sight became ever more impressive. The red grew more brilliant, and the inner circle showed itself veined with tiny red lines, cracks of fire connecting pools of fire. I think for me this was the most amazing experience of all on the trip. I could never have envisioned such a sight, and never saw a better proof of nature’s awesome powers.”

“At this stage, our traveling companions returned to Kinshasa. We checked out of the rather posh tour hotel, walked to a mission we had been told of, left our Zaire money there, then hiked a few miles across the border into the country of Rwanda, which turned out to be a jewel of a tiny mountain paradise. We entered the town of Gisenyi and spent the first day walking all around it, looking for a camping spot. We finally found, through some Canadian missionaries, a lovely lakeside site, where we set up camp, took off our clothes and took a wonderful dip in the cool lake waters.

“The next day we walked back into town, buying some strawberries at the local market, getting some Rwandan francs at a bank, then sticking out our thumbs for a ride. Our destination was a town called Ruhengeri, about two hours away by a terrible mountain road. We’d been told that this Ruhengeri served as headquarters for Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, where we hoped to do some climbing. The ride, a wonderful one, and free, was in a huge truck driven by Ugandans who carried tea between the two countries. The trip was beautiful, through lush countryside sporting the hugest banana groves we’ve seen.

Volcanoes old and not-so-old

“When we pulled into Ruhengeri, we sought out the good sisters, having discovered already that Catholic missions are the best bet for clean, cheap beds and good, cheap food. (We had been told we could not camp in and around the towns.) Next morning, we begin a 12-mile hike out to the town that ACTUALLY was the park headquarters — no information (and no ride) being available in Ruhengeri. This turned out to be one of the most interesting things we did. The first part was on a path through banana groves and villages, the second part on a barely traveled road past more villages. When I say barely traveled, I mean by vehicle. We were part of a constant stream of foot traffic, and we have rarely felt so much a part of things, so little cut off from the majority. There we were, on foot like everybody else, carrying a heavy load like everybody else — though we were noticeable in that our packs were on our backs rather than on our heads. We were led at one point by a group some 15 girls, who were singing and dancing, and surrounded by scores of children.

“We made it to the base of one of the volcanoes, and there we camped. We found out that the hike to the volcanoes we had hoped to climb was even longer than the hike we had made that day, just to reach the base. Footsore as we were, we contented ourselves with our fine views of this most interesting string of six volcanoes, all different sizes and shapes. We had a nice evening, camping in their territory, and the next day we walked all the way back to Ruhengeri. We traveled back to Gisenyi in what’s aptly called a fula-fula, which you have to be a foola to ride in, as you’re all stuffed into the back of a truck standing up. Still, we made it to our destination, which was a mission we had noticed just outside of the city, where there was an art workshop and a guesthouse. We spent the night there, after attending mass in a Bantu language, with beautiful singing by the young schoolgirls. The next day we relaxed on a lovely sandy beach and took our last swim in pure water. (One cannot swim around Kinshasa for fear of getting all manner of horrid diseases.)

“We walked back to Goma, spent the night with the sisters there, retrieved our Zaire cash and purchased great piles of carrots, cauliflower, strawberries and huge potatoes, all grown in Kivu and virtually unattainable (or unrecognizable as themselves) in Kinshasa. We boarded the plane for an eventful trip home — with a connection in Bujumbura, Burundi, where we were almost crushed to death by people who had heard the plane was overbooked. (They were right). We got on, but people were sitting four on three seats — those who were sitting at all. It was a madhouse. It was Air Zaire. And thus we were re-introduced to Kinshasa, our wonderful adventure concluded.”

This would be the last big trip of our first school year in Kinshasa. Now we’d pour our energy into planning the summer-vacation adventure. We would travel through much of eastern and southern Africa —  and we would begin by climbing a very different volcano: Kilimanjaro. 

AFRICA DAYS 5: A Gorilla Trek and Our First Game Park

A lion in Virunga National Park, Zaire

Note: The once idyllic part of Zaire that I wrote about after our visit 50 years ago is today a scene of horror. Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as a rebel group seizes Congolese territory. The group, which Kinshasa says is backed by Rwanda, has captured both Bukavu and Goma.

April 23, 1975: “Our spring vacation was a marvelous experience. It came in two parts. The first was an organized tour, something we’ve avoided before, but which proved invaluable for seeing the things we wished to see. In the second part, we struck out on our own.

“There were eight of us on the tour, all teachers from the American school. We began with a plane flight in the wee hours from Kinshasa to Bukavu, which map lovers will find at the southern tip of Lake Kivu, in eastern Zaire. Bukavu (International!) Airport consists of a very short landing strip (upon which our 737 made a very hair-raising landing) and a very small and dilapidated metal shed. We were picked up at the airport and squired to a nice hotel in Bukavu, which is beautifully situated on a peninsula jetting out into Lake Kivu, a lovely lake surrounded by hills and mountains.

Lake Kivu

“Just as we got off the plane, the cooler and dryer air struck us. Kinshasa is muggy and oppressively hot. The Kivu area was cool and pleasant. We drove through tea, coffee and quinine fields to the city, noticing how much of the area is cultivated, another contrast to the Kinshasa, whose surrounding soil is poor, and crops are scarce.

“After an excellent two-hour Belgian-cuisine dinner and a good rest, we set out for one of our most exciting adventures — gorilla trekking. The car took us about 30 miles out of Bukavu to the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. At the entrance, we set off with guides and porters for what was in itself a fascinating and singular experience — a three-hour walk through deep rain forest. We followed the guides who hacked out paths with machetes. They in turn followed the sometimes barely perceptible trail of the gorillas, which they enlarged for us humans. Mike, who had done some reading in preparation, was able to spot additional signs of the gorillas — stripped-off bark, which they had eaten, and circular nests, plus newer- and newer- looking piles of gorilla dung. Mike said some people searching for gorillas stick their fingers in these piles to see how warm they are. We declined.

A gorilla nest we passed by

“But our excitement became greater and greater as the piles looked ever fresher and we began getting into ever denser forest, crawling along for yards at a time, halting occasionally as the three guides in front consulted with one another about alternative routes. We were struggling uphill over some particularly slippery vines when we heard a roar. Such a roar! We stopped in our tracks. The guides ordered us to turn around. We backtracked for quite a distance, thinking the roar had scared the guides as much as it scared us, wondering if the guarantee that we would see gorillas could be interpreted to mean we’d only hear them, when suddenly the guides turned to us and motioned for silence. One of them pulled me by the arm and pointed, whispering, ‘Look at the black, the black area’ and there it was: A huge gorilla sitting in the forest, looking at us.

“We gradually moved closer to the gorilla, and the guides cut additional brush to improve the view. As we watched, the first gorilla slowly got up and walked away. The guides pointed off to the right, where movement showed a second and larger gorilla, who came and sat down where the first had been. We watched this gorilla, taking pictures and constantly exclaiming to each other (very quietly) how very huge he was. He watched us fairly intently and was, for the most part inactive. Occasionally, he performed a classic gorilla belly scratch, or picked up something from the ground. Toward the end of our 45-minute observation, he seemed to grow peevish, and stood up and ‘charged,’ frightening us with his growling and the immensity of his standing body. He half-heartedly charged a couple more times, sat back down, and then with a great lurch and a final volley of yelling at us, he sauntered off into the forest.

“We have talked with others who saw more gorillas, or who saw them in clearings with better visibility. I was awed by our experience. I found one gorilla at a time an eyeful, And I felt the rain forest the most suitable setting.

“On our departure, scheduling issues prevented us from taking a boat back across the lake, and forced us onto a DC-3 which was an experience in itself. From Goma airport, we headed north through more fertile countryside and lovely villages, traveling in the VW buses which were to be our transport for the next three days, in the Virunga National Park — a fantastic and most scenic place.

“For Mike and me this was the first game park, the first time we had had that quintessentially African experience, and we were far from disappointed. I think as a matter of fact that Virunga will be hard to beat. The physical setting for one thing was exactly to our taste: a huge bowl surrounded by mountains, with Lake Idi Amin reaching down into the park’s northern tip, backed by the snowy Ruwenzori range — Ptolemy’s Mountains of the Moon (the largest of which we hope to climb next Christmas). This magnificent setting is home to huge groups of elephants, gazelles, warthogs, antelope of several sorts, giant lizards, fish eagles and other great birds, and, to top it off, lions. Finally, Virunga has what must be the world largest hippo population. The park is spacious as well as beautiful and was uncrowded.

Game in Virunga National Park

Note: I thought I should check out what I had written about the hippos, and I found these heart-breaking facts: “In the 1970s Virunga recorded the largest number of hippos in the world, with 29,000 individuals in and around Lake Edward. Since then, instability in the region has led to increased poaching and a 95% decline in the size of the population.” And this, from 2005, “A new aerial survey shows that the hippo population in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo will soon be extinct due to rampant poaching for hippo teeth and meat.”

“We lived in the small buildings (of a fake hut motif) that make up the park hotel. From here, our guide would tell us each day when we would go out. We would take an early morning (as in 5 a.m.) trip, a later morning trip and an afternoon trip. Each day we saw different animals. The first lion was perhaps the most striking experience, though huge groups of hippos, in the water, on the land, and stuck in the mud, were equally interesting. We went to a fishing village on the lake and ate wonderfully fresh grilled fish.”

The last half of our spring vacation would prove even more remarkable. Though, if we had known the volcano we were going to climb was considered one of the most dangerous in the world, we might have thought better of our plan.

AFRICA DAYS 4: Into the Interior by River and Rail

Over our winter break, we finally made it deep into the interior of Zaire, traveling by riverboat and train. I sent this “Christmas Trip Saga” to friends and family back home.

“Just after school closed on Dec. 17 (1974), Mike and I and a friend from school drove down to the port where our big, old riverboat stood waiting. We went on, found our cabin — neat, little double rooms with a shared bath — and then settled down to watch the port activities. Much of it centered around our boat which, we discovered, was far from complete on its own. By the time we pulled out onto the vast river that evening, we were surrounded by four huge barges populated by hundreds of people. These, we found out, were to serve as a sort of traveling marketplace. For the next five days, mixed in with the luxury of relaxing, reading, playing chess, drinking beer and sleeping, we spent our time watching the endless activity. Villagers would paddle their canoe-like pirogues out to the boat, tie on (against the current) and bring loads of empty beer cases, heaping piles of powdery white manioc and dried monkeys by the scores. The monkeys were carried like little suitcases, with their tails tied around their necks. The villagers would come on board, sell their goods, get their beer cases refilled and buy sugar, fabrics, etc., from the boat market before returning to their pirogues and paddling home.

“Evenings were lovely, with the moon on the water and the cool breeze, floating by picturesque villages and eating the good meals in the riverboat’s comfortable dining room. And oh the long hours of reading. Curiously enough, it was ‘War and Peace’ that I chose to pack. I did love thinking about Joseph Conrad making this same trip at the age of 32 and returning to his travel journals years later to write ‘Heart of Darkness.’ But I’d read it recently, and ‘War and Peace’ was the perfect length for this long, leisurely trip.

We were sorry to get off when we pulled into Ilebo. There, we planned to board a train for Lubumbashi, the center of Zaire’s teeming mining district. When we left the boat, we found that our train would be delayed for 12 hours. We strolled around town and ran into an American man who was staying at a Belgian mission outside town. He took us there, and we had an interesting conversation with two old Belgian priests, and bought several of the woven grass mats (tapis) made here, which we have come to like so much. We boarded the train that night, found we had a nice big compartment, and settled in for another pleasant stretch on our journey.

Zairois tapis and a Bakuba mask. Sunset on the river.

“We met several Zairois people on the trip, and found them freer and easier to talk to than we have found them in the city. On the train, we joined two new Zairois acquaintances for Christmas dinner in the dining car — they had made a special order of gazelle and fou-fou (a kind of manioc mash which you eat with your hands, dipping it into gravy). Later that afternoon, we went back to the dining car to join them for beers and assorted fried insects. It wasn’t eggnog and fruitcake, but it was tasty, and special for Christmas. The other Christmas-y time had been our walk back from the mission into the town of Ilebo to board the train. It was pitch dark, and hundreds of the tiniest fireflies were flickering in the grasses all around us.

“The train would stop in villages, and people would come running up to the windows with local specialties — tiny, sweet bananas; fish just out of the river, fresh-cooked and delicious, and huge, luscious pineapple slices.

Lubumbashi, Zaire’s second largest city

“We arrived in Lubumbashi with almost half our vacation remaining. Travel information here is scarce, and we had heard the train could take 10 days. It took only three, and we’d be flying back from Lubumbashi. What to do with this found time? We decided to see if we could go on to Zambia. Amazingly, the consulate said it could give us a fairly quick visa, and so we began making arrangements. Meanwhile we explored lovely old Lubumbashi — quieter and far more strollable than Kinshasa. There is a fine zoo, where we spent several hours, and pleasant parks and neighborhoods. We met some Peace Corps people, who befriended us and kept our Zaire money and unnecessary luggage during our trip to Zambia.

“Zambia is quite different from Zaire. English-speaking, of course, as a former British colony, and much more ‘civilized’ in traditional Western ways — good roads and transportation, for instance. In Lusaka, we browsed in English-language bookstores, walked about a lot and ate good Chinese food.

“We met several Zambians and had good talks with them. Two young men took us on a wonderful personal tour of one of the huge copper mines, where we saw all the mammoth machines and even went down into the gaping pit. It was fascinating, and instructive to see something of the resource which is responsible for so much of the wealth of Zaire as well as Zambia (albeit hugely skimmed off by Mobutu and others of the elite).

“We came back to Zaire on a luxury bus, transferring at the border to what is euphemistically called a “taxi bus,” in Zaire, which is usually a small van absolutely crammed with people. Not comfy, but more, um, interesting than its Zambian counterpart. We had a pleasant enough flight home on Air Zaire, often called Air Peut-être (Air Perhaps) due to its dubious reservation practices, but all went smoothly this time.

“Back at home, we made a most unhappy discovery. We had arranged with several other couples to share in the purchase of a cow — a rare luxury in Zaire. We’d had it slaughtered and stuffed our freezer with our share shortly before leaving on our holiday. Alas, our refrigerator had died during our time away, and was emitting the foulest smell imaginable. The house is still permeated with it. Plus — no beef.

“Cooking here is interesting, to say the least. There is no fresh dairy, so we use powdered milk. We don’t like drinking it, but I make lots of yogurt, strained through muslin cloth. Our flour is flecked with weevils and requires multiple siftings. But we buy plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables from local women who come to our door with baskets full, expertly balanced on their heads. We do just fine.

“Ah, but that Christmas trip! We are now looking forward to Easter break, when we hope to go to the Kivu region of eastern Zaire to see mountain gorillas and climb volcanoes. And I’m already pining for the loooong trip we’re planning for this summer, across eastern and southern Africa. If only there weren’t this rude intrusion of work time between vacations! (Which does, of course, make it all possible.)”