Tag Archives: Villages

Benin Part II – Stilt Villages and Voodoo

20 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Benin

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

The Stilt Village of Ganvie

The bus journey was actually quite comfortable.  If you can stand the fact that they insisted on blaring loud gospel music for hours starting at 6am, followed by God-awful Benin-ois soap operas played back to back for hours on end, all of which had essentially the exact same plot.  There would be a room of men shouting at one guy, the victim.  He would eventually get beaten with a stick and have his shirt taken from him while all the men continued yelling.  Then there would be a “romance” scene with a man and a woman in some passionate embrace, followed by them having a falling out.  The woman would then grasp her face in both hands, crying, and begging the man to not leave her (am guessing here) while he loudly berates her before storming out.  Then the final scene would be the crying woman seeking comfort from her father/friend about the awful man who’d yelled at her.

I swear it was the same plot every episode – and the people on the bus were absolutely mad for it and laughed up a storm.

The good thing about this very long journey was the fact that we had air conditioning.  The bus also actually stopped a number of times for bush pees – and I learned a fascinating thing.  The women in Benin use large rectangles of fabric, much like the material they use to tie a baby to their backs, to cover themselves while they squat and pee out in the open alongside the men!  It’s ingenious!  The only trick is to skip wearing panties, and presto – the woman’s nightmare of peeing in the bush in Africa in private is partially solved.

Our lovely air-conditioned bus from Tanguieta to Cotonou

Sure beats holding it in for hours, I can tell you.  I made a mental note to make better use of my sarong for next time.

After weeks and weeks of public transport and bus stations – I can tell you that what Africa needs above all else – is an abundance of clean, available, usable, public toilets.  We take toilets for granted.  Toilets are a luxury item.  And peeing isn’t a big deal for guys – though some very funny signs in Togo and Ghana warned that urination against a particular wall carried with it the penalty of death!

We got off the bus in Abomey-Cavalie, the town where there was a port where one could catch motorized pirogues (long wooden fishing boats) to the stilt villages of Ganvie.  Hundreds of years ago, the local people started building homes on the lake to try and escape being captured in the slave trade.  Since then, over 130,000 people now call these settlements in the middle of the lake home (and, presumably so does the raw sewage they must pump out into it on a daily basis…)

Men and women sporting matching outfits in pirogues in Ganvie

We were met with the normal swarm of moto-taxis vying for our business.  Two guys who were particularly aggressive told us they knew where our hotel was and started grabbing our bags before we had negotiated a price.  They asked for 1500 and I stated I wanted to pay 1200 and they started arguing violently talking about the price of gas, blah and blah as per normal.  However, they were also super pushy, so I decided against going with them and walked a little further down to a nice quiet rider who immediately agreed to my stated fare.  At that moment, the two guys who’d lost my business come over and start screaming at this man saying he doesn’t get to give me and Mike a ride.  This escalates and Mike and I take a step back as now a larger group of men are screaming at each other and starting to fight.  The whole thing is ridiculous.

A “supervisor” of sorts comes over and asks me what is going on.  I state that I want to ride with my chosen moto-taxi.  He takes our luggage and starts walking away and gives it to two totally new moto drivers and we are forced to leave this melee that is quickly worsening.  I turn around and try to tell the poor man who is being attacked that I’m sorry – and off we go.

Not exactly what we wanted for our first 10 minutes off an 11-hour bus ride.

We arrive at our accommodation for the night and immediately order some dinner and beer.  After half an hour, the driver who was attacked shows up to apologize.  He told us that the two guys who first tried to take us to our hotel were drunk and it was good that I had avoided them.  At first I am taken aback by his kindness, but then came the predictable “sob story/ask for help/please can I call you in the US and you can get me a visa?” part of the conversation.  By this point, I was hoarse with my standard sore throat/cough and could barely speak English, let alone French.  I was exhausted, but I didn’t want to send this poor guy away empty-handed.

I told him, in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t help him come to America.  That it wasn’t the prized solution he thought it was – it was a tough and unforgiving place where you need to speak English, not French, to get by.  I told him if he was determined to leave Benin, he should consider France first – but also to consider that perhaps life in the West was not as glorified as he imagined.  I asked if he wanted the opportunity to make some money and make up for the business he had lost that evening.  He said yes.  So – I asked him what he would charge us to go buy phone credit for Mike and some cough/cold medicine for me.  After another short lecture on how important it is for him to decide what the value is for his time (since so many Africans rely on the “pay me whatever you think my services are worth to you” mentality) we came to an agreed amount.  He happily went and ran our errands for us, and we were able to pay him for his time.

It felt like a positive outcome from a negative event.

The following morning, we moto’ed again over to the port to await the arrival of our orange truck.  It felt a little weird and good at the same time to be seeing our friends again, and we soon got a message from Sinead that they were running a little behind schedule.  A commotion on the dock drew our attention and we wandered over, only to find ourselves in the midst of an annual Voodoo ceremony commemorating the start of the Voodoo calendar in Benin!  It was quite a spectacle.

Priest officiating the Voodoo Ceremony

Woman, feeling the “spirit” move her

There was a couple hundred people all dressed ornately in white, some with face tattoos/painting.  A priest, I’m assuming, was chanting over some lit candles which were, in fact, not candles at all but lit cigarettes mounted in a tall candle-holder.  He was holding a pigeon that was presumably going to get sacrificed.  All the while, musicians played rhythmically on drums, drawing shouts and dancing from the crowd.

After a few minutes, several women starting showing signs of contortion and flailing about, as if possessed.  They pawed at their own faces and started screaming in gibberish (though, of course, we couldn’t quite tell the local dialect from gibberish, so whether or not they were speaking in tongues or not remains a mystery.)  It was quite a spectacle and Mike and I were proud that we had taken the initiative of walking over and getting involved with this local ceremony – we were travelers, unlike the other white “tourists” who stood waiting for their own pirogues to show up on the docks – completely ignoring this authentic display of culture because it wasn’t a part of their organized itinerary.

Soon enough, the Dragoman truck showed up and we were greeted heartily by our friends old and new before piling into two boats that headed out into the lake.

The stilt village of Ganvie was a photographer’s dream because it was full of people going about their daily lives, so very different to any other we’d seen, because their life was on the water.  It was a Benin version of Venice.  In addition, since it was a Sunday, and the start of their New Year, many locals were dressed in their very best – and even better, entire boatloads of men and women passed by our chosen hotel for the night dressed in identical vibrantly colored and highly-patterned costumes.

One of our pirogues used to get to the island

Our hotel was very basic and unfortunately, not all rooms had fans in them and we were facing a very sleepless night in the bug-infested, hot and humid night air.  In addition, the hotel was built out of wood with very rickety floorboards that had massive gaps/holes in them – our room being situated above the kitchen such that we also got the conversations and the plethora of aromas rising up from below.  Add to that the fact that the bed was on a sloping floor, we both committed to sleeping somewhere out in the open that night – especially after deciding to move the bed clockwise so that the slope was from head to feet rather than lateral, and realizing too late that this meant our mosquito net would no longer fit the bed.

Some of the oldest structures on the lake – over 120 years old.

We passed lunch with beer catching up with friends and watching life boat by us on the water from the convenient balcony above the restaurant which afforded a great viewing platform.  In the afternoon, we ventured out onto the water once more, visiting more settlements, some of the oldest stilt homes in the lake, and a few mosques/churches built on the few land masses/islands that existed at the center of this large body of water.

The oil needed for boats, generators and cooking in these villages came from Nigeria – and we were shown the giant jerry-can laden boats that make the hazardous journey via the lake across the border to buy illegal oil to bring back in the dead and dark of night.  We were also lucky enough to spot some beautiful kingfishers diving for their own lunches in the water.

Offerings on the ground at the Voodoo Ceremony

On our return, we saw a huge line of boats with villagers all patiently waiting for fresh water that is presumably pumped from a spring hundreds of meters below the lake bed.  The water was being dispensed by a giant pipe that one by one was filling the huge water containers that locals used for their freshwater needs.

It was a sight to see and the line didn’t seem to grow any shorter as the sun began to set.

My night passed quite fitfully and awkwardly – maybe one of the worst I’d had in Africa yet on this trip.  Mike, I and Jodie all opted to vacate our “rooms” above the kitchen to place our mattresses on the second floor of the hotel in a wide open space at the top of the stairs.  The air was still and hot, but at least it was cooler than our fanless rooms.

After about an hour, Mike fast asleep, I noticed I was getting bitten all over by mosquitoes.  I decided to go back to the room, realizing though, that our bed no longer had a mattress on it!  Thankfully, I had my own inflatable sleeping pad, but once I placed it on the bed – I faced two issues.  One – the slats of the bedframe were too big to properly support my small pad, and Two – the mosquito netting only covered the pad partially, inviting my original problem back with a vengeance.

Realizing that Jodie had also left her room, I went next door and settled my sleeping pad on her bedframe which was made out of wire and therefore supported my pad.  Unfortunately, without her mattress on the bed frame, the mosquito net also didn’t quite reach me, and some of the little buggers were able to fly up for their blood-feed through the wire frame of the bed.

It was 2am by now and I was exasperated and tired.

I decided to take my sleeping pad and try the other side of the hotel where perhaps additional breeze meant fewer mozzies.  I found Ron, one of the trucks’ passengers trying to catch some Zzzz’s in a chair – telling me it was just too hot in his room to sleep.  Sympathizing, I offered him my sleeping pad, and resolved to go back to where Mike was still happily asleep.

I doused myself in extra repellant, took an ambien, and hoped for the best.  I finally managed to get a few hours’ sleep before having to awake for breakfast and our boat ride back to the mainland.

Grabbing our luggage from the hotel in Abomey-Cavalie, our guides from Ganvie were kind enough to drive us to a taxi rank and negotiate for us a ride to Ouidah – our next stop along the Benin coast.  Turns out that the screaming/arguing we had observed a few nights’ prior amongst moto and taxi drivers alike – is standard practice.  At least we weren’t involved this time as it took about 15 minutes for our guides to negotiate a fair and reasonable fair to the coast.  I was so tired, I was glad to have someone else deal with this apparently unavoidable discussion/fight that ensues at almost every stage of navigating the logistics of public transport.

Super happy and chillin’ in our lovely hotel pool in Ouidah

On arrival in Ouidah, we found a lovely and well-maintained, clean, rather upscale hotel with a beautiful pool only ten minutes’ walk from the beach.  I was thrilled, and after some lunch and a swim, enjoyed a glorious nap to make up for my prior mostly sleepless night.

Burkina Fasso Part II: Royalty and what you do-do in Ouagadougou

10 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Burkina Fasso

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

Riding a bicycle around Tiabele

Sleeping out on the roof was quite the experience and the stars were absolutely brilliant and shone magically, aided by the lack of streetlights. It will be something I will always remember, especially listening to the village noises in the night. We had heard drumming at around 1 in the morning (apparently there had been a funeral) and a rather upset donkey who brayed at regular intervals through the night, matched only in force by several roosters who I’d gladly see shot. Upon rising to take breakfast and returning – we even found little goats prancing around our mattress, having jumped onto the roof in curiosity.

Our bed for the night was a mattress on the roof of the traditional style home. In the morning, goats were frolicking about.

Arnaud’s cousin, Herman, would take us on the tour that day since he did speak some (broken) English, and with my broken French – we made a passable attempt at understanding one another. The royal court housed approximately 300 people and was marked at its entrance by a seating area surrounding an altar-like building and a mound behind that, rather disturbingly, we were informed contained the buried placentas of all the descendants of the King of Tiabele.

Ok, then.

And so began the running theme of the day: what men can do and what women can/can’t do in this tribe. To start, this seating area was reserved only for men – it was forbidden for women to sit here. Then we were shown the various structures for dwelling – the rectangular houses for grandparents and the children/unmarried women – the round houses for single men over the age of sixteen (who get to live alone while women have to do as grandma says till she finds a man) and the hexagonal units for couples.

The homes in the Royal Court

Built out of clay, these homes all have very low door entrances, presumably to keep the interiors cool. Once inside the initial room, they can extend another two to three rooms further back, with each room requiring a dexterous crawl to enter. Though super impressive in terms of the organization and how there was a place for every conceivably needed tool, I started getting super claustrophobic at the thought of needing to crawl 3 times before getting to daylight again.

Each March, after the harvest, the women of the village use local plants/reeds to make inks that they use to paint the homes with symbols like turtles, trees, birds and all kinds of patterns. Just the women. (Me, rolling my eyes.)

After the royal court, we got on scooters and had Herman and his cousin Charles take us to another village where we had a woman show us how she made pottery, and another village called Tangassouko. For me, the most memorable time during this very hot afternoon, was stopping in the shade at this brightly green painted bar in the middle of nowhere for cold beer and donuts. Somehow, Africans always forget to include plans for refreshment and peeing in their trips.

They’d get more tips if they did.

Could this dude, in Tiabele, be any cooler if he tried?? Check out those shades!!

After a much needed nap, we then rented bicycles and after a slight delay getting new SIM cards cut to nano size, and a foray to the market in search of paw paw, and an improvised way to eat it, we set off on the very dusty road out of town in search of the nearby lake.

This was my first time on a bike in West Africa and incredibly, this rickety old cruiser fit me perfectly. We were quite a sight to the locals and quickly stirred up lots of kissy noises (sound Africans make to get someone’s attention) waves, and invitations to come over to where they were socializing.

Woman making pottery

We stuck to our bikes as the sun was already starting to set and we didn’t want to have to return in pitch darkness.   As it turned out, we did, because we decided to make one more stop for a drink at a roadside café that was playing too good of a reggae beat to pass up.

We used our iPhones as bike lights for the return to our Auberge and dinner.

Arnaud was a musician and he had planned a musical performance and dance for a group of Belgians that had arrived that day, and us, that evening at the Auberge. It was actually rather good, it felt genuine and was especially entertaining when about 20 children poured into the courtyard and took turns showing us their mad skills at the traditional form of Tiabele dance, which involved a lot of stamping and rhythmic arm movements. We westerners often got pulled into the circle, but alas, our skills were quite lacking.

Mike was very thankful when the festivities ended around 10 o’clock and like the true grandma and grandpa that we had become, we exhaustedly hobbled up the steps to our rooftop mattress for the night.

Arnaud and his band entertain us with song and dance

We had learned that there was a minibus going directly from Tiabele to Ouagadougou that Tuesday morning at 7am, and that would save us from needing to rent the car for another day. Since the bus was leaving from the center of town, a dusty ½ mile away, Arnaud had offered to pick us up on his moto (or at least our luggage) at 6:30 to drop us there.

Unfortunately, he didn’t show up and we started walking ourselves in the dawn light, armed with packed coffee for the minibus. Herman walked up and said goodbye and that Arnaud was still asleep. That riled me up and I called him. He lied and said that he was working with the Belgians. He didn’t know that Herman had just told me he was still sleeping, and moreso, that the Belgians were staying at the same Auberge as us and we had seen a handful of them up brushing their teeth or sleeping – so it was a rather obvious lie.

When I pointed out that he’d offered us a lift to the bus the day before, he paused, remembered, and said he was “coming”.

About 100 meters from the bus, he pulled up on his motorbike and started telling me how my French is bad and that I had misunderstood him yesterday. I thought: Is it really necessary to drive all this way just to insult your paying guests who are about to leave? Even IF I had misunderstood his offer to give us a ride to the bus, was it necessary to come over just to tell us that? And not, instead, just apologize for the confusion and wish us a good onward journey? Thank us for visiting?

Burkina might be suffering from a lack of tourists, but Arnaud was not helping himself out in any way by treating the rare guests he did get badly.

Luckily, we made the Tro Tro and got the front seats again. The tro tro left five minutes early and we were on the way to Paga. The coffee I had mixed with milk from yesterday and I think it had gone a little bad because I had explosive diarrhea on arrival in Ouaga and fortunately found a bathroom in a hotel in the nick of time while a taxi waited for us.

The journey had taken five hours in total from Tiabele and there hadn’t been much to see other than a group of elephants that were on the side of the highway just north of Paga! The driver seemed very happy about that. Our seats were relatively comfortable except for the fact that the gear shift was literally against my left leg and the driver had to touch and move my leg away every time he wanted to shift.

Entering Ouagadougou

Burkina and all the northern latitude locales in West Africa are so full of dust, red dirt and pollution this time of year that my cough was back in full force, and Mike’s throat would swell up each night and he was suffering with nose bleeds. This has made traveling here that much more arduous and I haven’t really felt well since we left Amedzofe. I am almost recovered now, writing this from the beach in Benin.

Taking the oldest and most unreliable vehicle you’ve ever seen – we made our way through the capital to our reserved hotel for the night – Hotel de la Liberte. Mike has converted me to Maps.me – and it is super fun to be able to direct a taxi driver how/where to get somewhere, offline, in his city – better than he knows it himself. This cab was so old there was a thick film of dust all across the dash, the roof was sagging, and the windows were permanently rolled down.

Our hotel could not have been more of a welcome oasis. Quiet, clean, simple, with a lovely back courtyard bar/restaurant and just enough creature comforts in our second floor room to offer us some needed rest after our journey.

We later ventured out on foot, with caution, to Kwame Nkrumah street. We had decided to get coffee and cake at Cappuccino, figuring that with the armed guards and body scanner at its entrance, this was probably the safest place for us to hang out, despite its awful history. We ordered cappuccinos, a strawberry cream cake and a chocolate mousse cake.

Divine.

Coffee and cakes at Cappuccino!

Walking back through the city, we debated whether to get a cab as the light was fading, and decided together that we both felt quite safe and this was a chance to get some exercise and take in the city’s vibe.

There are a lot of motorbikes in Ouaga…far more than in other cities. People often carry a scar on their cheek, which is intentionally cut into the face of babies to signify their tribe. The practice is very common in Benin too. Streets were wide and buildings spread out and designed in such a way that Ouaga reminded me very much of Harare. It was, of course, dirty and littered trash was visible everywhere alongside the roads. We passed businesses of a large variety and tried to avoid the darkest of streets. On arrival at our hotel, we found there was a power outage, so we waited for the lights to come back on before ordering a simple dinner.

We were, as yet, undecided as to whether we would stay another day in the city or not – and fell asleep committed to making plans in the morning.

As it turned out, our goal was to meet back up with the truck in Ganvie on the 28th of January. If we still wanted to see Pendjari National Park in northern Benin, we would have to leave the next day and get as close to the border as we could.

So we opted to get a taxi to take us to a number of the more tourist “sites” in the city for some photo opportunities, and then to take us to the Autogare for the bus that headed east to Fada N’Gourma at either 12 or 2pm– information obtained with great effort in over an hour of conversation and calls with the front desk lady at our hotel.

Ouaga Sculpture

God how we take getting information as simple as bus departure times via the internet at home for granted!!!!

Our taxi driver, being a little overzealous in his estimation of speed, got us to the station after the 12pm bus had already left. Luckily, there was a waiting area with a TV playing the move Alien: Resurrection, in French to keep us entertained.

The signs said the next bus to Fada was at 1500. The guy who sold me tickets confirmed that there was a bus at 1400. Then another guy asked to check my tickets and told me I had tickets for the 0600 bus and that I should go back to the window. More questions, and the ticket guy just crossed the 0600 time out in colored marker and wrote 1400 in, which seemed to appease the other guy.

Seriously, NOTHING is simple here. Fucking NOTHING.

In need of a beer, Mike agreed to let me walk down the dusty main street in search of one for him and I. I finally came across a street side bar that was full of men, four across sitting at the bar directly opposite me, staring in disbelief. One asked “who are you? Who do you think you are, as a woman buying beer in the middle of the day?’ – or, at least, something to this effect. I replied “Une femme qui a soif “ or a woman who is thirsty. All four of them raised their glass to me at that, and it was quite a funny moment.

After our beer, we boarded our old, falling apart, large, but comfortable bus that was heading to Fada. We got a row of seats each and despite it being very hot and dusty – it was actually a rather comfortable journey of five hours.

Me getting dust off our nasty mattress

Our crack den for the night in Fada

We arrived in Fada just after 7 and I immediately thought I’d landed in post-war zone Iraq. At least what I imagined that would look like. It was desolate, dark and covered in red dirt streets. We walked to a hotel that we’d found in the Bradt guide and found an abandoned building.

Not a good sign.

Taking two motorbikes across the river to a second guesthouse – we found what appeared to be the same thing (we later found out that the lights were just turned off and that we could have stayed there…I guess if we’d yelled loud enough?) and then found a guesthouse that was open, but no one had stayed there in over a year – or so it seemed by the layer of dust on the crappy mattress and the cobwebs in the ceiling.

Mike told me to take a breath and deal – it was, after all only $10 for the night.

Strangely enough, we managed to have one of our best meals of the trip that night which came to $4 including a beer each.

Tomorrow, we’d be heading to the Benin border!

Burkina Fasso Part I: Swine by Candlelight

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Burkina Fasso

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Entering a traditional home in Tiabele

We ordered a private taxi to take us back to Domango where we would pick up a minibus heading back to Tamale and then north from there to the Burkina Fasso border. We asked that he make a stop along the way to a famed mud and stick mosque that’s over 700 years old in Larabanga – and it’s still in use today!

Here are the photos. These types of structures are most famous for being located in Mali, but they do occur in other places across this latitude.

At the Mud and Stick Mosque

Once we arrived in Domango we found a minibus that was slowly filling up to take people to Tamale, but it was progressing rather slowly and something just didn’t feel right to me when I was told that this was the “only” form of public transport going to Tamale. In looking for a bathroom, I stumbled across the public bus station and lo and behold but a large bus was about to leave for Tamale for the same price!! I was so mad and told them to wait before having to run back down the road, scream at Mike to come and demand our money back from the lying minibus driver before just making it and finding seats.

Though the bus was slow going and rough going over those famous Ghanaian speed bumps, we were glad to at least be moving, and we might have been waiting over two hours for the first form of transport to depart.

Once arriving in Tamale, rather strangely in the middle of a food market (what the actual fuck) we took a cab to the Tro Tro station that served northern routes to Bolgatanga. Since the Tro Tro was full, we were offered a private car for 25 cd’s each, but we had to wait for it to fill. So, we decided to pay for 3 seats so we wouldn’t be squashed in the back and we could leave sooner.

The driver of this taxi turned out to be a total douchebag and tried to charge us mid-journey another 5 cd’s each for our luggage in the trunk. We argued that since we’d bought the middle seat in the back, we would happily move our luggage to occupy the empty space between us – and he started arguing “what IF a third person was sitting back there – THEN where would you put your luggage?” I really lost my temper at that point and told him that the time to inform a passenger of ALL applicable costs was BEFORE the journey commenced and that he could take his illogical hypothetical nonsense and shove it because he was being an idiot. If he didn’t like it – we would get out of the car there and then.

I could feel Mike cringing next to me, but I’d had enough and was unwilling to let patience and politeness rule the day with this man. Fortunately, my abrasiveness paid off – he didn’t know what to do or say to me and kept quiet the rest of the way, even showing a willingness to take us further on to the Burkina border for a reasonable fare.

I guess he wasn’t used to having a woman stand up to him.

I was initially nervous about the border crossing and traveling there as Burkina Fasso had recently experienced an enormous drop in tourism since the two terrorist attacks by the Northern African branch of ISIS in 2016 and 2017. Over 30 people had been shot at the popular coffee spot “Cappuccino” on Kwame Nkrumah avenue and the Splendid hotel across the street in Ougadougou in January of 2016, then in August of 2017, 18 people were killed just down the street at Aziz Istanbul restaurant. Both attacks had targeted westerners/ex-pats and Burkina has seen a sharp drop in tourism since then.

At the Burkina Fasso Border Crossing

As it turned out, the border crossing was simple, and the customs guy on the Burkina side was overjoyed that two Americans were coming to his country. Plus, it was nice to speak some French again.

We had arranged to visit a unique set of villages in a place called Tiabele, which was only about 60kms or so from the border. A guide named Arnaud had been recommended to us to arrange accommodation and a tour of his home, made famous for both its culture and for how they are made out of mud clay and then painted in a variety of symbolic artwork and color.

We took a very very old and rickety taxi to Po, where we would be meeting with Arnaud. Burkina turned out to have the oldest ramshackled vehicles on the trip thus far, with drivers using brute force to change gears, or even open a window (with a wrench kept in the glovebox for this purpose.) Since we didn’t have a sim and we were running about an hour behind schedule, I borrowed the driver’s phone to let Arnaud know that we were on our way.

I was hot, dusty, exhausted and thirsty when we arrived and the very last thing I wanted to do was have a long conversation in French. However, when Arnaud suggested we start with a cold large beer for refreshment, that certainly perked me up somewhat.

Arnaud seemed very genial – he explained that his village system had a royal court/family and that he was a prince (ooh la la) and we would be staying at an Auberge only 100m from his residence in a traditional style hut with rooftops where one could take a mattress on hot nights to sleep outside. He suggested we get showers and a good meal tonight and then tomorrow he would plan a full day’s activities for us.

Once acquainted, imbibed, and a guinea fowl purchased (alive and presumably for Arnaud’s family dinner) we hopped in his rented vehicle and drove to Tiabele, arriving as it was getting dark.

Arnaud driving with the shortly doomed Guinea Fowl

We showered and walked over to the restaurant that Arnaud had arranged for us. It was a couple’s home, with a few tables and chairs laid out in their garden. The host was super gracious and friendly, and fixed a candle to the table itself by pouring hot wax first to hold the candle firmly in place.

Our bed for the night was a mattress on the roof of the traditional style home. In the morning, goats were frolicking about.

Our meal could only be described as maize based white sticky paste and a side dish of brown mush that may have contained some nuts and meat. It was edible and another beer helped wash it down.   It was the ambiance that was so indelible, and I joked with Mike (who is like a brother to me) that we were really missing out on this opportunity to gaze at each other, and drink some wine by candlelight in this romantic spot.

He laughed and looking around and seeing the family’s chickens, goats, cats and pigs all meandering around us, he replied, “Well, we do have SWINE by candlelight, for sure!”

Ghana Part V: Going it Solo from Ho to Hohoe in a Tro Tro

04 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

These places do exist

The first section of our independent journey took us to the mountainous region of Lake Volta, close to the border with Togo. Since the area has a bit of altitude, we were promised some cooler breezes, which would be oh so welcome after Accra.

First, we had to use the services of the Dragoman “fixer” (essentially a local guy who can arrange things that are difficult/get shit done) to go straight to the Burkina Fasso embassy to arrange for my visa, and have them understand that it would be ok for Isaac to pick the passport back up for us that Friday and bring it to the airport in time for us to fly to Mole.

I was amazed at just how quickly the process went. I paid my $100, filled in a form, and we were out of there in under 15 minutes. Mike was perturbed and assured me that other things would definitely prove to be more difficult, moving forward. Haha!

For this section of the journey we would be utilizing many different forms of public transport. To date we have used Tro-Tros (basically a minivan that leaves a starting point once it is full, and that means full in the African sense of the word; literally not a cubic square inch of air that doesn’t contain a person, animal or cargo; and is quite inexpensive and probably the most popular form of public transportation) Buses, Motorcycles (that put our large pieces of luggage on the handlebars between their arms as they drive) Motorcycle drawn “motorcart”, car taxis, bicycles, and our two feet.  It has actually been a lot easier in certain sections than I was expecting and it was more difficult in others.

Taking Moto to Biakpa

On this journey to the tiny village of Biapka, near Amedzofe, we took a Tro Tro, or minibus and it was quite cramped and stiflingly hot inside the vehicle. I was also cursing myself for bringing a small day pack and my travel purse which sat heavy on my lap. We were heading to Akosombo in the hopes of making it there by 3pm to take a tour of the dam there that creates Lake Volta. Unfortunately, it became clear that we weren’t gonna make it by then, and so we got off the Tro Tro at the next intersection and boarded a different one headed to Hohoe and the accommodation we were planning on staying at for 3 nights – Mountain Paradise lodge.

One of the main difficulties with public transport in this region of the world is needing to plan around bladder issues/maintenance. There are very few public toilets and most guys just get off the tro tro at a transfer stop and just pee against a wall. With hundreds of people around, such a location does not make it easy to pee as a woman. As such, we would typically limit our liquid intake during the day and try to rehydrate at night. It is all part of the experience that locals suffer through every day, so I’m not gonna complain about it.

By the times we reached the crossroads where we would try to get a taxi to Biakpa, it was getting close to sunset. Luckily there were two moto drivers there waiting (possibly notified of our arrival by our hotel manager, Tony) to pick us up.

It will be one of the highlights of my trip in West Africa, remembering that cool breeze flowing over my sweat-drenched body as I held on to the back of my motorcycle driver, as we winded up the mountain road through beautiful lush green scenery as the sun was setting.

Cool breeze as we wind through the mountain roads

The view on arrival was jaw-droppingly beautiful. Our hotel was situated on a cliff overlooking the valley below with a curtain vista of mountains surrounding the location. The hotel bar/restaurant was perched on the edge, and our room enjoyed a pretty verandah with potted plants and a few fearful kitties roaming around. It was peaceful, and more importantly, the temperature was refreshingly cool.

The staff at this accommodation were some of the most client-service focused we’d come across. The coffee was local and NOT Nescafe (win!) the food freshly prepared and delicious and there was plenty of information about the surrounding attractions and transportation options.

Our first day started off lazily with breakfast and obligatory post-breakfast nap. We then headed out on a long hike through the village of Biapka where we were told we could find a local to show us the “route” through the forest to the village of Amedzofe from where we could climb the second highest peak in Ghana, Mt. Gemi. Unfortunately, we came across a young lad who said he knew exactly where said path was, but after taking us to it for about 15 minutes and pointing in a direction saying we only needed to go straight, we found ourselves in need of a machete as the trail became impassable for vegetation.

Heading out on a hike to Mt. Gemi and Amedzofe

The young lad had clearly led us astray and we weren’t exactly sure of his motivation. Was it to earn the few Cd’s we gave him? Was he embarrassed that he didn’t really know the way? Or was it the classic African “I don’t know the answer to this white person’s question so I’ll just tell them something because I want to be helpful and that is clearly better than telling them that I don’t know, even if it means they will get completely lost.”

This happens all the time.

It ended up being quite funny and definitely adds to the story overall, I think. We came across what looked like a deadly Green Mamba snake that had a beautiful blue head and green body sitting bolt upright on the trail. We gave it a wide berth and escaped what would inevitably be a much bigger diversion to our day had one of us been bitten.

Getting back into town we thought it safer to stick to the road, and soon we were picked up by a motorbike who had been told to look for “two white people walking to Amedzofe”. TIA.

The driver was very sweet, but his bike was less than powerful and struggled to carry the three of us up the steep road to Amedzofe without stalling every few hundred meters. Eventually, we made it to the village which was very charming.

After registering for the hike to Mt. Gemi, and purchasing some popcorn on the side of the road, we made the climb to the summit where sat a large metal cross, clearly signifying something that wasn’t explained.

While beautiful, the surrounding scenery was obscured by thick harmattan air quality, but we were enjoying finally getting some cardio after weeks and weeks of mostly sitting on a truck.

At the summit of Mt. Gemi

Heading back to town, we stopped at a family’s home to purchase some home produced honey and then to the local village bar where we bought two large ice-cold beers to celebrate the afternoon’s exertions.

We became a point of focus and people greeted us as they walked by, and we sat happily watching the village afternoon pass by complete with wandering chickens, goats, shoeless children and curious local folk.

Cold beer after a hot hike = happiness

A man called Frank, wearing a Givenchy Paris t-shirt with the American flag on it, stopped to make conversation and we were soon engaged in an interesting discussion about homosexuality. Apparently, he was curious about how gay people integrate into society in America, and how we felt about them in general.

Being a strong Christian, he shared the belief system of many Ghanaians in that he felt homosexuality a “sin” and a “choice” that men made that shouldn’t be permitted by society. He seemed somewhat open, however, after I pointed out to him that being gay was as much a choice as his being black or our being white.

That seemed to get him thinking, which made me happy.

Frank

Since we were connecting, Frank offered to take us to a waterfall once we had finished our beer. We were delighted and accepted his generous offer.

The hike was steep going down to the falls, and one had to hold onto a bunch of ropes that had been constructed alongside the trail. We were having a lot of fun, playing Michael Jackson songs upon learning that he was Frank’s favorite US artist.

The waterfall was pretty, but it was mostly the magic of connecting with a local, combined with the chance to explore the outdoors again that was putting a big smile on my face, making me know for sure that I had made the right decision to travel with Mike.

Upon our return to Mountain Paradise, we learned that one of the staff members had successfully been able to procure some much-yearned for weed for Mike and I to enjoy. Neither Mike nor I had much in the way of experience of rolling a joint, and unfortunately, the pot had arrived packaged in lovely little brown paper parcels, but no rolling paper.

Ofe Falls in Amedzofe with Frank

What ensued was hilarious as King, the member of staff wickedly helping us commit this crime, took pages from his math homework book and rolled us a home-created joint. We took photos as the written fractions burnt away as we happily smoked and laughed at the scenario. Who knew you could roll a joint with exercise notebook paper?

It felt so good to be stoned again. And dinner was extra delicious;-)

Smoking King’s Math Homework

The next day we left on motorcycle early to visit the Monkey sanctuary in Tafi Atome, a 20 minute ride away. Though totally wild, these Mona monkeys are habituated to the villagers and will come and eat bananas directly from your hands, climbing all over you in the process.

I was glad I had chosen to wear long sleeves!

It was a unique, up and close wildlife experience, even if a little disconcerting when multiple individuals jumped up on you at the same time to grab banana.

Our driver took us to the local market afterwards where we happily drank some fresh coconut water and bought a pineapple for “dessert” later. After taking lots of pictures, we were ready to head back to the lodge for a siesta.

Mike and I with the Mona monkeys in Tafi Atome

Later on we took another hike to a local waterfall. Since we had to walk on the road to the trailhead, we laughed as Felix, our motorcycle driver with the weaker bike from the day before, spotted us and pulled over to drive us to said trailhead for free. We were becoming known by the locals.

The waterfall was well worth the steep hike and as was becoming normal in this region, we were the only people there as we jumped in for a refreshing swim. With some wise planning, I had brought a large beer with me which we sank into the runoff to cool while we swam.

Cold beer. Waterfall. Beautiful hike. Solitude. Amazing.

I absolutely loved my time in this region. I would highly recommend it to anyone else coming to Ghana. It has such a slower pace of life than Accra or other cities. That evening, we enjoyed another well-deserved joint and giggled through dinner. As exhaustion and a pot-induced haze sank in, we settled in the lodge garden for some of the pineapple that we’d set out to enjoy as dessert.

Inexplicably, we lost the pineapple and couldn’t stop laughing as we shone our headlamps on the ground by our feet wondering where it could possibly have rolled off to?

Lost pineapple. Newly-found joy.

Cote D’Ivoire Part I – Bamboo Forests and Roof Surfing

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in Africa, Cote D'Ivoire

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

Roof Surfing on the truck

January 1, 2018 turned into the best transit day I’d had yet on the truck.  We had been warned that it would be excruciatingly slow going due to the fact that the road from Nzekore to the border with Cote D’Ivoire had taken almost ten hours the last time the truck had made the journey.  Lucky for us – the dirt road had been worked on somewhat and although not tarmac’ed yet, we made amazingly good time allowing us to cross the border a day ahead of schedule.  Since this was a very rural border crossing, we were able to use the “Roof seats” on the truck.  They are amazing and sitting up there on the top of the truck gives you an incredible vantage point as well as the sense, sometimes, that you’re riding a literal rollercoaster.

We journeyed through a hauntingly beautiful bamboo forest, and through some really lush tropical forests, interspersed with lively villages where the children and adults inevitably came running out to wave at the truck and us sitting on its roof!

Beautiful Bamboo Forest as we left Guinea

Getting a bit too close to the local flora

We kept on driving after the formalities of the border were fulfilled (a humorous moment was when Sinead was told that all the passengers who had listed their occupations on their entry forms as “retired” had to list their actual former occupations, and we all had a good laugh shouting out absurd careers for each individual.  “Wayne?  Exotic dancer!  Andreas?  Oh oh!  Beautician!  Graham?  MI6!!”…

You get the idea.

That night we bush camped close to a village that Sinead had arranged for us to have a tour of in the morning.  The villagers had recently had to move each and every home, being promised 200,000 CFA’s (about $400 USD) per person if they moved to allow for the Chinese construction of the new highway which engulfed their former village.  It was sad to learn that so far, the villagers had not received any payment, and whether it was the Chinese construction company or the government that owed them the money was unclear.

Another night, another bush camp with village spectators!

The tour of the village was well worth it and it was a great use of some of the time we had gained by not being stuck getting to Cote D’Ivoire in the first place.  We headed to Man (I know…what a strange name for a city, even in a country where they speak French!) and our cook group did some shopping and we all were feigning with excitement at finding a grocery store that had such variety of the foods and goods that had been absent in Guinea.

Crossing a treacherous wooden bridge…all passengers had to get off the truck while it was maneuvered across

Cote D’Ivoire has turned out to be a gastronomical delight and the meals I’ve had there were the best of the trip (so far!)  The supermarket even had fresh brie cheese and red wine for sale – and since I was going to be cooking that night for the group – I couldn’t help but buy a small wedge which I promptly ate on the bus as we continued on in the direction of Korhogo.

Before lunch we stopped at the waterfalls outside of man and took a swim.  Well, I should say a few of the ladies chose to take a swim and the men stayed dry and watched.  I was not about to pass up an opportunity to get the dust and grime off of my body…some people are just far more comfortable being dirty and smelling bad on this trip than me.

At the waterfall in Man

After our swim we made a potato salad in a field next to a school and ate in the basking hot sunshine.  As we headed out of town, I had a scary and shocking moment befall.

Sitting in the front row of the truck on the left side, I rolled the window all the way down as the truck got up to full speed to enjoy as stiff a breeze as possible due to the humidity and heat.  Since there was no oncoming traffic and we had barely even seen another vehicle these past 24 hours – I luxuriated in the cool sensation of the wind by sticking my left arm fully out of the window and “rode the air” with my hand letting it refresh me.

Then, almost immediately after I pulled my arm back into the truck, a bus overtook us, hurtling at breakneck speed from out of nowhere.  It was going so fast and so close to the truck that it actually smacked the left hand side mirror to where it snapped back and had to be manually pulled back – luckily it didn’t break.

I was stunned and just turned my head to look at Jack sitting on my right and she said “Oh, My God!  I’m so glad you pulled your arm in when you did!”

No shit.

Truck with the open window seat at the front being demo’ed by Jack!

For the next few hours, I was rattled just considering what might have happened should I have waited a few more seconds before retracting my beloved and vital appendage.  Thoughts of exactly how my arm would have broken, or whether it would have been swiped cleanly off leaving me to bleed out to my inevitable death were hard to put out of my head.

In any case, I was very lucky and I have avoided that seat on the truck ever since.  Miller, a passenger who had started the trip in Senegal came to me later and said that was the first time he could recall the truck being overtaken like that since the very start of the trip…so he understood my not giving a vehicle coming from behind on the opposite side of the road any weighty consideration.

Thankfully the rest of the drive passed without event and we arrived at our second Bush Camp location which was, for once, not within hearable distance of a village – and so we were able to make dinner without onlookers.

Village Life

I shared my red wine with my cook team while we worked away – I was also very excited to make custard from scratch and serve it hot for dessert with chopped bananas.  I used to make custard at home as a child, and while it isn’t very popular as a dessert in the States – It really is one of my favorites!  It turned out extremely well – smooth, no lumps, and just the right thickness.

I think with the Brie, wine and heaps of custard, I had really overdone things and once I’d finished dessert, I immediately abandoned my washing up, running into the tall grass in search of some private place where I might empty out the contents of my belly.

Which I did.  Another three times.  From both ends.  Oy vey!  And being sick, throwing up and having diarrhea is bad enough in a hotel room – but it is additionally challenging in the bush with no running water.  I went to my tent early and laid there, awake, much of the night waiting for further rumblings to attend to.

The kind of crazy-overloaded vehicles we see everyday on the roads

Luckily I felt fine by the morning and we had a long long and quite uneventful day driving all the way to the north to Korhogo – close to the border with Burkina Fasso.  Uneventful except for the fact that we got stopped at police checkpoints four times and once had to report to the local police station where Sinead was interrogated about our group’s “Purpose” for being in Cote D’Ivoire.  Apparently the road we were journeying on is frequently used to move drugs.

This journey eventually brought us to Korhogo – an important art/textile/handicraft center in Cote D’Ivoire and many of the passengers were very excited to go shopping.

I wasn’t one of them 😉

Guinea Part II – Ebola and Vine Bridges

16 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Africa, Guinea

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

Vine Bridge in Guinea

On the morning of the 29th, I woke up groggy and tired from a very fitful and restless sleep.  That day we had some more heavy miles to cover before reaching the town of Gueckedou – only made famous as being the site of patient zero during the Ebola outbreak of 2015 when a young boy got bitten by a bat and came down with the virus.  Additionally, we were staying at the Hotel Fatou Rose which was set up as the logistics central point for dealing with the crisis in the town.  Our guides told us that the hotel used to have a swimming pool, but during the Ebola outbreak, scared and ailing victims hurled themselves into the pool seeking relief from their burning symptoms and the pool had since been covered in concrete.

Fatou Rose Hotel in Guedeckou with the newly covered pool

Unfortunately, I found myself coming down with a nasty cold, probably hastened by my very cold night two nights before.  After checking in, I gladly took a bucket shower and crawled into bed.  With my symptoms worsening, I decided to spare my roommate the prospect of sharing her bed with me while I was hacking and sniveling and chose to upgrade to my own room for another $20 USD.  After the hotel in Faranah, this place was a palace, but I still had a hard time getting the staff to give me the basic necessities that one simply takes for granted as being included with a hotel room for the night:

  • A top sheet (it is very rare in West Africa for a bed to have a sheet underneath the top blanket/cover)
  • A bucket of water (most hotels in Guinea don’t have running water)
  • A bin for rubbish and toilet paper since the toilet didn’t flush
  • A fan
  • A different fan because the first fan I was provided didn’t have a power cord that fit any of the power outlets in the room
  • A towel
  • A key that can be removed from the lock (yup, you read that right)

It has since become habit to check for all of these items when one arrives in a hotel room in West Africa.  And if you’re lucky enough to have air conditioning, it is additionally important to check for whether there is a temperature setting, or whether the only recourse when you are awoken by arctic frigid conditions in the middle of the night – because it just keeps spitting out progressively colder air like a refrigerator – is to yank out the plug.

A work of art, despite not working

That evening, a wedding reception was held in the hotel’s grounds and a particularly beautiful woman dressed in an exquisitely beaded gown walked into the bar area.  Another passenger and I introduced ourselves and complimented her on her dress before my friend asked if she might take her photo.  Her girlfriend seemed non-plussed and ran off and got the attention of a man who promptly walked over and informed us that he was this woman’s husband.  “Ok…”, I thought, “What does that have to do with anything?”  He then proceeded to explain with a great deal of agitation that if we wanted to take a photo of his wife, we would need to ask his permission.  This is the kind of behavior you read about happening in remote muslim-practicing areas of the world, but it is another thing entirely to come into direct contact with it in such a way.  I chose to say nothing and remove myself from the situation, in case the wife was “blamed” for attracting attention, but my friend chose to give the man a piece of her mind.  While he didn’t speak English, her tone left him in no doubt as to the injustice and disrespect she believed him to be showing.

After a brief dinner, I passed out around 8pm feeling quite sorry for myself, but grateful at least that my experience at the Fatou Rose Hotel wasn’t of life threatening Ebola-like symptoms but just a common cold.

Old signs like this one educating people about Ebola prevention are everywhere in Guinea

The following morning, still sick, we headed out after cook group shopping toward Nzerekore where we would be spending two nights, and ring in the New Year!  We had a lovely stop en-route hiking to a 100-year old Vine bridge that we each got to cross across a river.  Despite being ill, it was so nice to be off the truck and getting some fresh air and exercise.  The countryside was jungle-like and beautiful albeit very hot and sweaty.

Beautiful Guinean Landscape

Guinea is definitely the most economically impoverished countries we visit on this itinerary.  In some places, we were able to purchase a small local bottle of beer for about $0.60.  The currency, like in Sierra Leone, only afforded really small value notes – at 20,000 Guinean Francs, the largest note only carried $2.10 in purchasing power.  Compare this to Cote D’Ivoire (where I am writing this entry from) where the Central African Franc, guaranteed by France, has its largest note as $10,000 which is worth just over $18 USD.  That’s almost ten times the purchasing power of the largest note in Guinea.  What ends up happening is very interesting in psychological terms.  It is similar to the original transformation all westerners go through when they first arrive in West Africa and begin converting prices from their home currency to the local one.  While haggling, you inadvertently sometimes are arguing over pennies rather than dollars.  As soon as you arrive in Cote D’Ivoire, it becomes much easier to spend larger amount of cash, and prices are roughly 2.5 times what they were in Guinea.

Typical Guinean village with round huts

In Sierra Leone and Guinea – sometimes to pay for a larger item, such as a hotel room, one had to count out multiples of 10-30 notes to pay for something because there were no larger worth notes.  In Cote D’Ivoire, the problem is reversed – Notes signify more money, but getting change for small items is next to impossible.

It’s an interesting issue to have juxtaposed as we progress through each country.

In Nzerekore, I opted to upgrade to my own room so I could really focus on progressing to a full recovery – and it turned out that I got a lovely two-room suite to myself.  We had some drama among the ladies of the group due to who our leader paired up each of us with each night – and it certainly was something I could have done without and was quite stressful.

New Year’s Day traditional practice of demanding money for getting through a village by the “devil himself”

I really needed a few restorative days and while many left to go on a hike the next day, I chose to sleep in, write some of my blog, and get lots of rest and fluids before our New Year’s Eve party.  Sinead had made fajitas, and a pineapple rum punch.  It was lovely and there was dancing and some celebrating to be had.  Tried as I could to stay up till midnight, I ended up retiring around 10:30pm hacking away and still needing more sleep.

Sierra Leone Part III – Tiwai Island: Christmas and Monkeys

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Africa, Sierra Leone

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Arriving by canoe on Tiwai Island

Tiwai Island is home to the densest population of primates in the world.  Red-tailed/black and white colobus monkeys, chimpanzees, and spider monkeys abound.  I was looking forward to a respite from the traffic heavy city to a totally natural environment that we had to get to by boat.

The drive, as is the case with any overland travel in Africa, was arduous.  For those of you unfamiliar with overland truck travel – we travel in a 4×4 overland truck that can accommodate up to 24 passengers and crew.  Everything we need to camp in the bush is on the truck: tents, stoves, utensils, gas, water jerry-cans, a fridge, plus we collect firewood as we go.  The passengers are divided up into group for truck jobs such as sweeping out the truck at the end of a long drive day; and we have cook groups made up of 4 persons who rotate to prepare meals on the road for the rest of the group.  Cook groups plan and organize shopping in local markets for gathering supplies for dinners, breakfasts and lunch; though sometimes we don’t get included meals which we would then purchase locally at restaurants – when we can find them.  West Africa, especially Guinea and rural Sierra Leone – see very few tourists.  Many villagers and especially children have never seen white people before.   As such, we are often greeted with the kind of enthusiasm that is reserved for celebrities.  Everyone waves at the truck – sometimes a local woman will start dancing with excitement and start shrieking with euphoria and spontaneous eruptions of applause are not uncommon.  It leaves one feeling both honored to be visiting such a remote location as well as providing a sense of privilege due to the lack of melanin in our skin that is quite uncomfortable to say the least.

Villagers greeting the truck

About half of the nights on the trip are spent camping in tents, and the other half is spent in local guesthouses/hotels which have ranged in quality from very basic to downright worse than camping.   In Guinea, for example, all of the hotels carry a double bed only – and since we all agreed to “share” – the women and the men are assigned a roommate and one is “forced” to make do sharing a bed or choosing the floor if that is too unsavory an experience.  This requirement has set off a number of problems within the group and tensions have surfaced resulting from fractions between certain members of the group not liking other members enough to sit next to them for a 10 hour long, hot, dusty truck journey – let alone a shared bed at night without so much as a fan for comfort.

Having said that, vast majority just accept it or choose to upgrade to their own room.

Building a fire at a Bush Camp on Christmas Day

Roads in this part of the world are notoriously bad and the further back in the truck one sits, the more one feels the impact – quite literally – of the bumps and potholes encountered along the way.  On bad road days, one really can’t nap or read a book – and so many hours are spent watching the countryside rolling by or engaging your fellow passengers in conversation.  Sometimes, conflicting desires between silent contemplation and conversation come to a head and a compromise is reluctantly found.  It can be quite a tiring and physically brutal way to travel.

I knew full well about these drawbacks – but the adventure and allure of traveling somewhere that other travelers rarely go was too appealing.  And so…off we headed to Tiwai Island.

We arrived a little late on schedule with the sun having already set.  Armed with just our daypacks for 2 nights, we boarded small power boats and set off from a jetty to the jungle island of Tiwai.  It was one of those moments when traveling where you can’t believe you’re in the middle of nowhere with the stars bright above you and nothing but nature and zero electricity awaiting you.  Crossing the mighty river you feel a bit like an ancient explorer and its very romantic.

On arrival, we set up tents under structured platforms and then enjoyed a very late dinner of bony fish and coconut flavored rice.  We would be enjoying a full day of structured activities and so I headed to bed at a reasonable hour.

Campground on Tiwai Island

Despite the oppressive heat of the day, I was glad for my 55 degree Fahrenheit rated sleeping bag and woken up in the night with a sense of chill in the air, I gladly crawled into my bag.  The inevitable “need to pee in the night” got me up around 3am and I walked to the bathrooms by headlamp listening to the sounds of the animals around me and my snoring fellow passengers.

The following morning was Christmas Eve and we gathered at 6:45am for a nature walk.  After about an hour of not seeing anything but hearing the crying calls of hornbills and monkeys, we finally saw a group of red colobus monkey effortlessly jumping from branch to branch in the canopy overhead.  We saw the white crested hornbill in its impressive display of winged flight and took some pictures of the giant trees that I’d only ever seen before in Cambodia, enmeshed with the temples at Angkor Wat.

After breakfast and some free time, four of us took a boat back to the mainland to enjoy a village tour which turned out to be fascinating.  Our guide explained that the 300-person village was primarily Muslim, but that they drank alcohol and were planning to celebrate Christmas.  We saw their school, vegetable gardens, how they grew rice and processed it, their beds with mattresses filled with grasses and dried leaves, the community water pump, as well as meeting and greeting with many adults and even greater masses of children who constantly harangued us for attention and photos – shrieking with excitement when we showed them the taken pictures on the camera screen.

Family with infant on Village Tour

Excited village children

While waiting for a canoe to take us back to the island – we had a good laugh when our guide excused himself to “make a call” for the boat to come.  He walked to the edge of the river and literally made a loud patterned cry, cupping his hands around his mouth.  We had all assumed he was going to call someone on his cellphone but we were mistaken!

Later that afternoon, during my favorite time of day – the “magic hour” – we went out on four person canoes to explore downriver.  There wasn’t much to see in terms of wildlife, but the atmosphere and cool breeze from the boat was definitely worth the $10 it cost for the two hour trip.

Canoe ride on Tiwai

Definitely one of the strangest places I’ve spent Christmas Eve – we gathered around the fire after dinner and sang Christmas carols and told stories about our personal Christmas traditions.  It was a fun evening – the highlight of which was listening to our 68-year old Spanish passenger Carme tell hilarious inebriated stories from her childhood when Spain was still under rule by Franco, lying to get a visa to enter the United States and refusing to serve a racist customer at her first job as a waitress in LA.   She has quite the personality and is easily the most loved member of the group.

Our Canadian tour leader, Sinead, came and announced that the villagers had invited us to spend Christmas morning and lunch with them.  It was an offer we could hardly refuse, despite concerns I had about any awkwardness that might result from two very different sets of people coming together to celebrate a common holiday which has widely differing expectations in terms of how it is recognized.

Children fascinated with my hair on Christmas Day

My fears turned out to be largely unsubstantiated and it was a delightful, if exhausting morning.  We were literally besieged with snotty nosed children all clamoring over the women in our group…some of us got groped, had our hair pulled and ten children grasping at our fingers looking to hold our hand as we headed off to the area designated for the party.

I found myself rather attached to a little girl who didn’t offer a single word and seemed to be very picked on by the other kids.  She seemed sad and in need of some affection so I sat with her for some time giving her some needed hugs.  At least she smiled when I did this.  Music was played and beer brought out – and those passengers who still felt rhythm in their feet got up and danced in the jungle with the villagers, united in the common celebration that Christmas still is – even if presents and holly, and mistletoe are absent.

Little girl on Village Tour

Quite exhausted but with filled hearts, we boarded the truck after finishing a delicious lunch of fried beignets and freshly cooked (and slaughtered in our honor) chicken.  We had a long drive in the direction of Makeni to complete – and since we were delayed in our journey, the plan was to find a new, good spot to bush camp for the night.

These plans made sense until you took into account that most open countryside is dense forest and/or tall grassland – not ideal for pitching tents to accommodate 22.  And we had our own Christmas dinner shopped for and to prepare for.

Jack taking pics of village kids

 

Late in the day, we pulled off the main highway at a number of promising looking locations that proved unsuitable upon further examination.  Being told there were several villages with flat ground up ahead on a dirt road, we took a 20 minute detour only to find a village all out and dressed to the nines celebrating Christmas in the open air of their local soccer field.  The entire crowd of at least a hundred came running up to the truck and started whooping and hollering in excitement at seeing us.  It became quite apparent that if we asked to “borrow” their soccer field for the night, we would be besieged with people utterly adamant in their curiosity to not give us a moment of peace.

So we pressed on as the sun began to set.

Kids playing on Christmas Day – Mike photobombs too…

After another ten minutes or so we came across a different villages’ soccer field with only a few individuals roaming around.  Their shocked faces turned to bemusement, suspicion and incredulity as our fearless leader asked if we might be able to pitch our tents in their field.  Trying to explain tents to Sierra Leoneans was rather difficult and we were asked several times what our “purpose” there was?  That we were just driving through West Africa on our way to Ghana did not seem at all plausible to these villagers, but they acquiesced and invited us to use their soccer field.

Little by little, as we poured out of the truck and began pitching our tents and preparing our evening meal, the villagers came out in growing numbers to witness the spectacle that was us.  Rarely have I felt so self-conscious, but by the time we served up the pit-roasted chicken and grilled stuffing to each other but a crowd of at least 50 were simply standing in awe of us and I got the strongest sense of what it felt like to be a chimp at the zoo.  The villagers didn’t grow bored and just kept watching us for what felt like hours as we moved on to dessert and whisky.  Of course we wanted to share our meal with them – but had we done so – we might have set off a mob with people all grabbing for food.  There wasn’t enough to feed both groups anyways, so we ate, as best we could under the ever so watchful eyes of our new neighbors.

Making Christmas Dinner with a crowd of onlookers

In setting up my tent that night I also got a little surprise of my own when I found two hapless lizards whom I had accidentally prematurely murdered when I rolled them up into my tent on Tiwai that morning.  Luckily for me, one of the Peters on the group was kind enough to extract and dispose of the poor things for me while I grimaced in disgust from a distance.

Ewwwww…..

And so, Christmas was had and enjoyed by all in a most unforgettable and strange way.  My second Christmas in Africa in three years.

Into the Ugandan Highlands – Gorillas, Pygmies, and a Tragedy

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Africa, Uganda

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

The indomitable Silverback

The indomitable Silverback

After my emotional day in Kampala we had a long drive to the town of Kabale located near the Rwandan border and the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park where we were going to trek deep into the jungle in search of the mountain gorillas.

I have been slightly obsessed with gorillas ever since childhood when I first saw “Gorillas in the Mist” with one of my hero actresses Sigourney Weaver, as the passionate conservationist Dian Fossey. She spent the majority of her life in this part of the world documenting the Gorilla’s behavior and was instrumental in creating the national parks and the facilities therein that would give them at least some chance of survival.

One of the unfortunate ramifications of the creation of these national parks was that the Batwa Pygmies, an ethnic tribe who had resided in these forests for hundreds of years, were forced to leave their homes and their lifestyles with nowhere else to go. I need to do some further reading on this topic as I’m unsure to what degree these people could be blamed for the poaching and subsequent diminishing numbers of gorillas in these mountains. Having said that, fewer than 800 are now recorded to be living in these thankfully protected areas (the gorillas that is, not the Pygmies!)

Heading into Bwindi

Heading into Bwindi

That isn’t to say that visiting the gorillas is absent of any ethical considerations. It’s more of a catch-22 situation. We visited the Ugandan park in May when the permits are discounted by 40%, but typically it costs about $700 USD for a day permit to visit these creatures. Without this revenue, the parks wouldn’t be able to hire the kind of manpower that it takes to protect these magnificent animals from poachers. On the other hand, selling these permits means that each of the family groups’ of gorillas gets visited by eight people + guides per day – which has lead to the gorillas being completely habituated. On top of that, I do believe that my visit to the group of gorillas we saw absolutely did cause them stress. Not that it was just our presence – but the guides were extremely aggressive in pursuing the members of the group, often hacking at vegetation with machetes to allow our group better viewing and photo opportunities.
So, as I recall this amazing experience, it is with mixed feelings of both awe at having seen them in the wild, together with regret that they can’t be kept safe from both poachers and from being hassled by daily visits.

Still coughing from my cold, I was a little worried about the arduous day of hiking in the heat and humidity that was before me. I kept my inhaler with me and managed to keep the cough under control most of the day. We were picked up around 5am from our campsite in Kabale and driven into Bwindi where we had an initial orientation and were then split up into two groups of 8 (together with some non-Oasis travelers.) We headed out up a rather steep trail and I felt myself echoing the steps of Dian Fossey as we began to penetrate the impentetrable forests of Bwindi.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

The views were extraordinary with thick blankets of fog covering the lush green slopes. The sweat was already pouring off of us by 10am and the temperature beginning to soar. It was a little over 3 hours into the trek when we were informed that a group of approximately 11 adults and a few babies had been spotted.

Me and a Gorilla in the background

Me and a Gorilla in the background

Our group in the early morning mist

Our group in the early morning mist

The next hour was filled with incredible moments. From the very first glimpse of the silverback sitting and chewing grass not more than 15 feet from where I stood, to then being charged, twice, when he sensed our group had overstepped his privacy threshold. At one point, a mother gorilla with a few months’ old baby clinging to her back rushed out of the bush and practically ran into the middle of where we were standing. I couldn’t believe how close these creatures were to us.

The highlight for me, however, was observing the group as they ascended and later descended from the high treetops. I managed to capture a lot of the action on a video sequence that I will happily share with you here.

Baby Gorilla

Baby Gorilla

On our return to the jeep, the heavens opened and we experienced a downpour which was accompanied by thunder and lightning. It really added to the memorable nature of the day for me, such an atmospheric element to our descent. When we got back to Kabale, the other group hadn’t returned yet, so we set about making dinner as they were obviously going to be very hungry and tired by the time they got back. A little before they arrived, however, our drive, Pete, informed us that one of our group members, Greg, had tragically died of a suspected heart attack only an hour into their trek.

That evening and the next few days were very hard for us, and there was a lot of emotion shared – the group grew closer together for support. It was such an unexpected and shocking turn of events. Later in the trip, I was very moved when we learned that his family had requested that half of Greg’s ashes be taken to Cape Town and released in the ocean so that he could “finish the journey he had started”.

I will never forget him.

Lake Bunyoni

Lake Bunyoni

The day after our emotional sojourn to see the Gorillas, we traveled as a group to Lake Bunyoni to spend a day with a Pygmy village. This village was funded and created by a group of Ugandans who wanted to help a select group of displaced individuals who’d lost their home and their land when they were ousted from the national park system in 1994.

It was a rather strange day for me. While I really enjoyed the scenery of the lake and the surrounding countryside, and watching the amazing performances put on by the people and their children, it all felt a little bit like a “Human Safari” to me. I kept asking the group leader about what the community’s long-term plans were? Were they going to be able to secure land that they could farm for their sustenance? How were they going to survive?

Well, it turns out that they were entirely dependent upon charity and the proceeds from tours such as the one we were on. That made me slightly uncomfortable. Our leader explained that the schools that they had built would serve to provide the offspring of the people an education, so that hopefully, the kids would be able to graduate and go off and get work and then help support their families in turn. I found that to be a little optimistic, but I didn’t want to judge at the same time.

Pygmy father and his baby

Pygmy father and his baby

Th entire time I was there, I couldn’t help but think one thought – how BAD do things have to really get before people stop reproducing so much?!!! I know, I know: in Africa, one’s “success” in life is very often measured by the size of one’s family…and yet – I couldn’t help but wonder – WHY? when you have little food, and your family is hungry, and the babies you already have are malnourised, AND your women are so malnourished that they can’t produce enough milk for those babies, AND you have no means of supporting yourselves….WHY not practice birth control? At least…the withdrawal method? (if there are no condoms available) These were the reactions that I couldn’t help having.

I wanted to provide condoms for these people, not food.

Does that make me a bad, judgmental person?  What do you think?

I hope you enjoy the video I took of the children dancing for us. There is one fact that cannot be denied: these people have the most incredible innate rhythm and sense of music. It warms my heart!

Kampala – My Life Changing Experience in the Bwaise Slum

23 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Africa, Uganda

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

IMG_0704After a couple of long days driving on the truck, I was beginning to feel better and had purchased an inhaler to help with my hacking cough that was now a month old. We made a nice stop in Nakuru at a lovely campsite that had a nice pool to lounge next to as well as an annoying and aggressive flock of geese.

I had no plans specifically when we arrived in Kampala, but I decided to do the “Slum Tour” as I was interested in seeing how many poor Ugandans living in the capital dwell.

This day took me completely by surprise and has become the absolute highlight of the entire trip.  Salim Semambo Mukasa was the director of the Slum Tour company and came to the campsite in the morning to collect myself and Emily to go visit Bwaise – the slum that he himself grew up in. I was immediately impressed by his English, his passion for creating this eye-opening experience for tourists and his selfless attitude that was demonstrated when he explained that every cent of the proceeds from the tour goes directly to the everyday needs of 25 orphans that live in an orphanage his volunteer organization established.

IMG_0714I was so disheartened that he’d been unable to come to the Red Chilli Hideaway backpackers the night before in order to explain this to our entire group – I’m sure more of them would have come if they’d known that $20 was going to directly feed kids and not to a “for profit” business.

In any case, we took public transport to Bwaise and the experience really began there. I asked Salim how he’d come to start giving these slum tours and how he helps tourists overcome their fear of it being a “human safari” experience. He explained that he knew all of the residents of the slum – it was the slum where he grew up – and that the people are always happy to see Mzungus coming to see where they live, experiencing it, and coming away with a fresh perspective. Salim’s father had died when he was young, and it was due to a neighbor’s generosity that Salim was able to get an education through “Primary 7” which I believe is until you’ve reached 12 years of age. The neighbor had started the volunteer organization “Volunteers for Sustainable Development” and when he died, Salim felt it was important to continue in the work that his benefactor had begun. He now runs these Slum Tours for people visiting Kampala together with several other volunteer friends he knows from living and working in Bwaise.

At the orphanage

At the orphanage

Salim was right about our welcome, and how the residents would perceive our visit. Everywhere we walked, people smiled and waved and were extremely welcoming. The children followed us in droves as if we were celebrities, unable to wipe the wide grins from their faces.

Of course, it was difficult to see the conditions that people have all but grown accustomed to contending with. Many of the residents’ dwellings were made from temporary or poorly constructed materials, trash floated on the waterways that ran through the slum, children ran in bare feet and tattered, dirty clothes, and some people sat in doorways looking visibly sick and hungry. It was tough to see, and yet, this is the daily reality for so many people – I felt a responsibility to see it for myself. This was the real side of Africa.  The one that hasn’t been artificially sterilized and designed only for tourists.

One of the highlights to the tour was learning how Salim also works with donations by providing micro loans to women in the community to start small businesses. With just $50 or $100, we met with several women who between them had started a sewing business to make school backpacks, and another who had built and was running a small food stall. It was heartening to see these women being industrious and taking pride in providing for themselves and their families. Salim explained that it is always the women who show such a spirit of enterprise as all too often, a loan given to a man will be squandered on selfish temporary pleasures such as alcohol or sex.

Salim with his friends, the orphans

Salim with his friends, the orphans

Salim also took us to the sex trade area of the slum which was a real eye-opener. A customer can buy sexual favors here for as little as 50c, and of course, HIV infection is a real problem. As we were walking through, a woman started talking to Salim in an agitated voice, and I learned later that she had been complaining about how he hadn’t come around in a while with fresh condoms for them. I was amazed at the amount of impact and assistance this one very industrious young man was able to provide.

(Salim, you are amazing!)

IMG_0705We visited the home of a woman who was sadly dying from AIDS. I learned something which up until this point I was very ignorant of. Despite the fact that the Ugandan government does supply its’ HIV+ people with free anti-retro viral drugs, these drugs are not always readily available for a person to continue their prescribed course without interruption. The drugs themselves are very hard on the body, and having balanced and quality nutrition in one’s diet is vital to their being effective in suppressing the virus and boosting the immune system. So, what ends up happening is that these drugs are being taken by people who can barely afford to stem their own hunger with maize and beans. The consumption of fresh greens and fruits just isn’t a possibility. Therefore, when a person goes to pick up their week or month’s supply of drugs and they’re perhaps out of stock and they are told to return in a few days time, this person’s body reacts violently and sometimes they can deteriorate very rapidly, even dying while waiting.

The Gadaffi Mosque

The Gadaffi Mosque

This lady whom we met had been infected by her cheating husband, who had since died himself leaving her with their three children. She was upset because she’d spent her last 3000 shillings (about $1) going to the medical clinic the day before to get her prescription of anti retro virals re-filled and was told they’d ran out and to come back on Monday. I held her hand and gave her 3000 shillings from my purse so that she could go back again, and I hoped that she would have the strength to do so.

Salim explained that her biggest fear is what would happen to her children if she were to die. I asked him what would happen, and he just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest children becoming orphaned because of HIV was just another reality of slum life that he had grown accustomed to, though not unaffected by.

We visited one of the slum schools and I was surprised to see that the kids were learning on a Saturday – out of choice, because they loved going to school.  I was quite impressed at what the children were studying – one of the 7/8 year old classrooms were learning about the process of cell division through meiosis and mitosis  (which I don’t think I studied until college!)  We sang some nursery songs with the kids in the kindergarten aged classrooms and thanked their energetic and lovely school teacher profusely for introducing us.

walking around Bwaise

walking around Bwaise

At the end of the tour, we were going to visit the orphanage, and both Emily and I wanted to first go to a store and buy some food supplies to give to the kids. We bought several kilos each of rice, beans and sugar and then hand delivered them. The children immediately swarmed around Salim as he sat down and tried to wrap his arms around as many of them as he could. While many of the kids were clearly smiling and happy to see him, you could also see in some of their faces the knowledge that they’d been abandoned and that they were unwanted. That is what broke my heart – not seeing them poorly fed or poorly clothed – but knowing that they were wanting of affection, hugs, and emotional security.

Salim explained that some of the kids were found abandoned in a toilet nearby, or perhaps the parent had just left them wandering the streets a few blocks from the orphanage. Without additional funding, he really can’t afford to accept any more children into the orphanage because it is already full…so the fate of additional orphans is hard to imagine.

Getting fitted for my visit of the Mosque

Getting fitted for my visit of the Mosque

At this point, I was very moved to help Salim and his orphanage. I was interested in learning more, so at the end of our tour, I invited him to lunch so that I could ask more questions about how he managed his organization. I also just wanted to buy him a really good meal because it looked like he could use it – if only to bring him some good cheer.

We ate chicken curry and I had some beer. Salim seemed to be enjoying himself so I asked if he’d be willing to show me around Kampala after lunch? It turns out he didn’t have plans, so we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon together.

After lunch we visited the main market in Kampala and it was just a see of craziness and activity. Just crossing the streets of this incredibly busy city was exciting and lucky for me, Salim was there to help me navigate the crowds. After having walked in chaotic surroundings for most of the day, I was relieved and happy to find myself in the tranquil buildings of the Gadaffi Mosque. I had to rent a ha jib head covering for the occasion but actually found the garment to be most comfortable to wear.

One of Salim’s friends was also a tour guide at the mosque and his name was Ashiraf. Ashiraf has a real character and regaled me with the history of the mosque and even sang some islamic songs for me in its blissfully empty and serene interior.

I was having the most wonderful time.

Being silly with Ashiraf

Being silly with Ashiraf

We climbed the tower for a lovely view over this city that is named Kampala because it was where the British would camp with the Impala. It was a fantastic vista and again, I found myself laughing hysterically at Ashiraf as he demonstrated how warriors would welcome Uganda’s king at the palace.

Feeling a little tired, but very content with my day with Salim, I asked him what he would do, if he could do anything. “Get some ice-cream?” – was his reply. I heartily agreed that this was a fantastic idea as I am always up for ice cream…and cake if that was also a possibility?!

We found a delightful coffee bar called Javas that also served the most amazing ice cream and cakes. I ordered a white forest gateau and he had praline and vanilla ice cream. We sat, eating in silence for some minutes- both with huge grins on our faces.

I really enjoyed meeting you, Salim. You have changed my perspective for a day – and for the rest of my life. I will always be appreciative to you for that.

PLEASE consider making a donation to Salim’s organization.  You can contact him on Facebook at Volunteers for Sustainable Development.

The Drakensburg Mountains: Visiting The Amphitheater and The Kingdom of Lesotho

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Africa, Lesotho, South Africa

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

At the Amphitheater Escarpment

At the Amphitheater Escarpment

I was well and truly ready for a day of rest on the bus as my body was spent from two days of hill climbing and I was well and truly hacking up a storm. We headed back up in the shuttle to Mthata where we managed to scramble a quick lunch before piling on the Baz Bus for my penultimate stop in South Africa – The Amphitheater Lodge in the Northern Drakensburg mountains.

Drakensburg literally means “Mountains of Dragons” and they are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. As we arrived at The Amphitheater Lodge, we couldn’t help but be impressed by the stunning “Amphitheater” of mountains that formed the backdrop to one of the nicest looking lodges I’ve stayed at on this trip.

The Grain Silo Dorms of Amphitheater Lodge

The Grain Silo Dorms of Amphitheater Lodge

That’s not to say that the hotel stay itself was great – the staff were some of the rudest, strange people I’ve ever come across while traveling. For example – we bought a bottle of white wine on our arrival (the four Baz Bus peeps – Lea, Yarrick, and Amy were together again and I was glad of it because the place was kinda empty) and asked if we could keep it in the fridge behind the bar to keep it cold. Returning a half hour later to get a refill, one of the owners behind the bar bluntly told us “Yar, I don’t know where your wine is – you’ll have to go find the bartender” – despite the fact that she was behind the bar, we didn’t know where the bartender was, and she didn’t even make a single effort to look in any of the fridges! The food in the restaurant is a three course “set menu” and when we asked if we could please just buy some dessert we were told “No, you can’t.” ?!!! This is just a few examples of many I could share that would explain some of the Trip Advisor comments we’d read. So, if you go here, know this: the place is stunningly beautiful, but the service is horrendous.

The four of us enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and elected to make our own dinners that night before retiring in our converted-grain-silo dorm room. The following day, we had elected to go on the famed Amphitheater hike to the 2nd highest waterfall in the world – Tugela Falls.

Starting out on our hike to Amphitheater Escarpment

Starting out on our hike to Amphitheater Escarpment

As it turned out, the waterfall was most definitely not the main attraction of the trip. In fact the waterfall was running almost dry at this time of year, and even at full flow, the hike gets you to a vantage point at the top of the falls, so you can’t really appreciate seeing it cascading down the mountain as I’d been expecting to. In fact, I wasn’t paying attention at the moment when our guide, Adrian, was pointing out the top of the falls, so I didn’t even get a picture of it – the others pointed it out to me later during our descent when I asked “when are we gonna get to see this damn waterfall?”

Silly me.

Trying to be Superman

Trying to be Superman

The hike was really quite stunning and I can see how it is regarded as one of the best day hikes in the world. Despite it being an almost two hour drive from the lodge to the trailhead, you ascend quite a lot in terms of altitude, meaning that you start the hike in an alpine environment to start out at 2500 meters or 8,200 feet, ascending to 3100 meters or 10,000 feet at the top of the Drakensburg escarpment. The last section of the trail is a bit of a scramble up a steep grassy/rocky scree slope, but the view as you emerge is well worth the effort.

Overall it was extremely enjoyable all except for the wind which beat on us with such ferocity that it gave my lungs an additional beating alongside my cough that was already wreaking damage on me. On our return to the lodge, I was so happy that we’d elected to pay the somewhat extravagant price to get the 3 course meal – and since it included rump steak and malva pudding with ….wait for it!…HOT CUSTARD for dessert, I was well and truly in bliss.

At the top of the falls with my Baz Bus "Family"

At the top of the falls with my Baz Bus “Family”

Sadly my three friends all left me the following day, but I was luckily joined by two Germans on my day trip to the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho (pronounded Le-Su-Tu). Lesotho is its own independent country and always has been since it was granted independece from the British Crown in 1966. We wouldn’t, unfortunately, be venturing too far into the country – on a day trip from the lodge, the roads in Lesotho alone would prohibit any such journey since they are almost all unpaved in this mountainous small country that is hailed as having the highest “low point” of any country in the world.

On the "ladders" for the descent

On the “ladders” for the descent

Even so, I got a wonderful day-long glimpse into the rural culture of this magnificent place and its people. Adrian, our guide from the hike was in even rarer form on this tour and you could tell how much he loved sharing his passion for the community that we visited. In fact, what will probably stay with me the longest is the memory of his enthusiastic and loud greeting of every villager we met and his admirable attempts at the Sesotho which is the language spoken by the people of Lesotho, the Basotho. He even greeted the children with a ton of energy to which they responded, sometimes even dancing and shaking their little hips together with him and slapping his hands mid-air.

IMG_0594

Overlook into Lesotho

Overlook into Lesotho

The people in the village we visited just over the border from South Africa live a rural subsistence life and are very poor, in fact, most don’t even have cash and use foodstuffs, hay, livestock, and locally brewed beer in trade for most goods. They live in traditional round homes that were reminiscent of the ones I’d seen on the Wild Coast build by the Xhosa people.

Basotho wearing traditional dress

Basotho wearing traditional dress

IMG_0632The style of dress that the locals wear is extremely unique – characterized by hats worn barely atop of the head and a large blanket that is wrapped around the shoulders like a coat. Everyone we met was extremely friendly and seemed very happy that we were there to see their village. We were shown around the school (that Amphitheater Lodge helps support) and were given the chance to buy some jewellry with proceeds going towards school supplies. I bought a lovely wooden bracelet.

Adrian dancing with the local kids

Adrian dancing with the local kids

Adrian took us on a hike to view some ancient San rock art and we sat and ate lunch looking out over the stunning Lesotho mountains. A really nice custom they have in the village is that of erecting a white flag at one’s home if one has brewed beer available to sell. Not wanting to pass up on such a rich cultural experience, we visited with a family and tried the (rather putrid tasting) beer from a giant plastic bucket and took a bunch of photos. We also visited with a local shaman and learned a little about how this tiny and beautifully frail little woman was “chosen” to be a healer through a dream sent to her by her ancestors.

Drinking beer with the locals

Drinking beer with the locals

The whole experience will stay with me for some time to come and I was very moved, emotionally, by the warmth and hospitality we encountered from everyone we met. I also am very grateful to Adrian for his passion and enthusiasm for Basotho culture in this visit to the 3rd poorest country in the world.

IMG_0606And the cultural experiences didn’t end there. On our return to The Amphitheater, I was thrilled to learn that we were going to be getting some live music performed by a local Zulu musician that evening. I cannot even begin to describe the incredible rhythm this man displayed. Only a YouTube of his performance will do it justice, and I promise I will most definitely upload it to my site’s facebook page as soon as I have internet powerful enough to allow me. He literally played a guitar while simultaneously singing, using his feet as drums, and doing a traditional zulu dance which sometimes requried acrobatic feats of high leg kicks and backward rolls while continuing to play with the guitar wrapped upside down around his head.

I am not joking.

I had so enjoyed my time in South Africa and was sad to be leaving for the airport in Johanessburg the next day. This country is so complex with a lot of confounding racial issues – and that will be the topic of my next post, which I hope you will find enlightening and challenging, but not offensive.