Tag Archives: Africa Travel

Uncategorized

AFRICA DAYS 12: Ruwenzori Summit and Ituri Rainforest

Leave a comment

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.

Uncategorized

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.