Journey to the Mountains of the Moon - 1994 (8)

July 17th and 18th. After our day+ of bus travel we awoke after a good sleep to a very misty morning. Partly what woke us was the Maribou Storks on the corrugated iron roof which sounded like half a battalion of infantry marching around. After breakfast we changed some more money at Us950 to US$1. There did not appear to be any currency control as we were frequently accosted by people on the street wanting to change money. However, we had heard of other people being caught up in illegal dealings so we do all of our currency exchanges through the banking system. We may not have got the most favourable rate but we felt it was better to be safe. With some local currency in pocket we headed for the market and bought a large bunch of bananas for Us400.

After strolling around the town awhile we located the Ruwenzori Mountaineering Service (RMS) office and obtained some information about deals and protocols. Because accommodation on the circuit is limited the number of groups departing is strictly controlled. One of the downsides of this type of trek is that there is generally little opportunity to slip in a rest day – you have to keep moving.

Pierre and Till arrived as planned around midday and after they got settled in we all went back to RMS to arrange a trip. The trip was arranged to start on the following day at 8am and would cost us US$370 for 8 days. This didn’t, of course, include food so after lunch we set off to purchase some necessary supplies. We bought pasta, biscuits, bread, soups, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, sweet potato, pineapples, tea, bananas which we thought would keep us all going on the trek.

The next morning. our 8am pickup to start the walk didn’t arrive until 9:10am and that after Pierre and Dominic went to find out what was going on. It is very hard for us 'westerners' to get used to African time. In South Africa I believe they often use a relative urgency specification system. 'Now' means 'sometime soon', and 'now now' means pretty much immediately.

Eventually we departed on the back of a utility to Nyakalengija where we were to meet up with our guide and porters. The whole selection process is somewhat of a cattle auction and one relies ont the guide - in our case Denesi - to do the selecting and rejecting. It wasn’t possible for us to determine how equitable the process is and it is quite possible that there are some degrees of favouritism involved. We had to rely on Denisi to pick men who will carry their loads for the whole trip without problems. Because we had 109 kilogrammes between the four of us we had to have an additional porter above what we had already paid for at an additional US$50.

Porter Selection at Nyakalengija.

Eventually everything got sorted out and at about 11:30am we started off on the first day’s trek. This was initially past shambas (small farms) before reaching the elephant-grass covered lower slopes. The porters set a cracking pace and initially we made the mistake of trying to keep up with them. They did slow down on the steeper sections but then sped up as soon as they could. Jerome, one of the older porters seemed happy to be going much slower than the rest and was much closer to my pace.

The pace and effort began to take their toll after three hours and we found that we had to drink frequently and also stop for many rests. After the elephant grass we entered the forest where at least there were trees to use for leverage and to have the occasional rest against. Four and three-quarter hours after leaving Nyakalengija we arrived at our destination for the day – Nyabitaba Hut. I’m sure that I arrived much lighter than I started out due to sweating heavily for almost the whole distance. Again we are already higher than Mt Kosciusko at around 2600 metres ASL. There are marvellous views over the forested hills on the other side of the Mubuku River valley and we can also see the Portal Peaks slightly to the west of north. These are about five kilometres away by crow flight and stand over 4300 metres high.

Nyabatiba Hut - The author sitting midway
along the verandah, Pierre and Till to the left.

A large organised Dutch group also arrived and set up camp nearby. The was apparently a regular trip for the guys running it and they were very self-sufficient. After dinner they decided to have a sing-a-long around the camp fire giving a rousing rendition of the old Max Bygraves song ‘Tulips from Amsterdam’. This rather surprised us as we had the idea that real Dutch people would shudder at that particular song.

While preparing our evening meal we discovered that bananas don’t travel well at all. We had put them into a plastic garbage bag in one of the porter’s loads. When we reached in to get a banana we got a handful of mush mixed up with banana skins. While it didn’t look good it was edible and nutritious so didn’t go entirely to waste. The hut was dry and we had a good sound sleep after a taxing day. Tomorrow we will go slower for sure.