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.