While in Uganda, we took advantage of the fact that we were driving across the country and planned a small detour after visiting the Gorillas to drive through Queen Elizabeth National Park. Famous and expansive as the Serengeti ’tis not, but beautiful it certainly was in its own right.

We witnessed a truly drop-dead gorgeous landscape, with scenery that would make any Hollywood director jealous to the core. The Diploman kept saying, “this is what I imagine when I picture Africa“. It had a lot to do with the light, which was gorgeous and plentiful, and also the weather, cool and comforting, and finally the trees: majestic, umbrella-like beauties home to dozens of bird species. We didn’t see many cats or dogs, but plenty of elephants and monkeys, and after dark we were amazed at how many hippo sightings we were privy to on the banks of the rivers next to the main roads. What strange, huge, and blubbery creatures!

After an overnight at the park’s Hippo Hill Lodge, we organized a river ‘cruise’ the following day—getting us closer to hippos than normally would have liked. We were lucky to catch a glimpse of the famed national bird, the Ugandan Crane, beady blue eyes, mohawk and all.

We also saw herd after herd of water buffalo and lining the banks of the river, and learned (witnessed, too) that the older adult male water buffaloes are exiled from their herds after a certain age; these small clan of 5-10 old elder states-buffalo wind up living together in retirement-home-like groups down the banks from the rest of the groups, giving proof (and a bit of relief from guilt) that we humans aren’t the only ones who disregard our elders.

We cruised down the river until we witnessed the DRC horizon just beyond us. We saw a local village, existing in the area far before designation of park borders and thus who were left in relative peace— as peaceful as one would be surviving among hundreds of pods of hippos, I suppose.

Africa, you always trick me with your crime-ridden statistics and your dusty, packed cities, but ultimately you win– big wins, for your majesty, your gentle giants, and your natural grace.

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Speaking of travel: We all travel with a checklist of things to do; goals we must accomplish while spending time in a foreign country. While these goals can be as vague as trying a local dish or as specific as visiting a famous landmark, these goals quickly become more a checklist as one spends more time abroad. So that when you’re living overseas, this checklist becomes exponentially grander, with a scope of activity and achievement higher, faster, bigger, and more accomplished.

This stint of mine living in Africa, well, it might just be that—a stint. The Diploman and I aren’t really hard-core ‘Africa’ folks like some of our friends here; those who studied abroad here, served in the Peace Corps here, and have since made their living working in development here. Neither of us imagine ourselves in Africa for long, although of course we’d both love to see what a country like Senegal has to offer, perhaps live in a place like Mozambique or Morocco one day. And certainly we could both see ourselves living in South Africa in a heartbeat—although that is hardly Africa, to some.

As the Diploman and I peruse through a list of options for our next post–as close as one year away– we realize how lucky we are to have this option of seeing drastically different corners of the world. We also clearly see that our tendencies lean towards Asian and European countries. And as such, I have a few things I definitely want to check off a great big, grand ol’ to-do list while living here.

Above all else, there are five things I have really wanted to do while living in this region. Going down to Cape Town and seeing the southernmost tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope was one-- check. Another is to witness the grandeur of the Serengeti, which I will accomplish when my parents come to visit later this year. There’s also the obligation of living here and having to climb Kilimanjaro, although that’s definitely more of a guilty ‘I-can’t-live-here-and-not-do-it’ ordeal rather than something I actually desire to accomplish. I also desperately want to see Madagascar and the singing, dancing lemurs, although this one thing that probably won’t happen, sadly: Both the fictitious singing, dancing lemurs and the actual trip to Madagascar.

The last must-do on my ‘Top-Five’ list is to see the Gorillas, which was scratched off the list in early May. The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest that spans from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along with the neighboring Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda are two of the few areas on earth inhabited by the rare species of Mountain Gorillas, who purportedly cannot live in captivity. Half of the world’s population of Mountain Gorillas live in the Uganda part of Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest—quite a daunting name, and though not completely eponymous I will say it comes close enough.

These three countries are the only places in the world where tourists are able to see these magnificent creatures. While obviously, entering through the DRC is not recommended, most to travel to Rwanda for this experience simply to minimize car time; Volcanoes Park is a 1-2 hour drive from Kigali, Rwanda; Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, on the other hand, is a rough 8-10 hour drive from Kampala, Uganda. But, a good friend was living in Uganda, so from Uganda it was.

(On a side note, Kampala is a great city, and minus the homophobic bullshit happening right now in that country, I’d love to go back one day and spend more time there. A lot more cosmopolitan and buzzing, a lot more sprawling and connected than Dar, Kampala is also called the city of 7 hills, with a landscape slightly reminiscent of the Bay Area’s similarly hilly sprawl)

We drove far out of Kampala, west across the practically the entire country of Uganda (though, not without car troubles—a car whose lug nuts from one tire had been stolen, thus leaving us close to without a tire on a stretch of highway…but this is perhaps a post for another day). We arrived at our lodging after midnight, well past a much earlier midday ETA. Stumbling around in the pitch black around to our modest cabin accommodations, we tucked ourselves into bed— thankful to be lying down rather than sitting in the backseat of a car. Again, I’ll stress, go to Rwanda if you if you are planning to trip to see the gorillas.

The next morning we woke up to a dewy, misty, magical jungle scene. We received a quick briefing and split up into two groups of eight, the maximum group number enforced by authorities. There are only 9 or 10 gorilla groups tracked at the moment, three around the area of our park entrance. The tracked gorilla groups are the only human-acclimated groups thus the only ones allowed for tourists to view. We are told the acclimation begins by locating the groups and sending in one human being every day until the human is accepted as a non-threatening presence. The gorillas eventually allow any human to get closer and closer until the gorillas are adapted to the groups of tourists that are brought through each day.

After a short drive up the mountain, we began our hike from a little village bursting with banana trees and coffee plants. A one-hour hike led us around the mountainside, past local children selling crayon drawings of gorillas, up a sloping hill past drying coffee beans, and through brush and bush. We arrived at the edge of the protected park area. At this point, we were instructed to ready ourselves for the gorillas, which where about an hour’s walk away.

The trackers, mostly locals who grow up in the surrounding area, follow these gorilla groups virtually 24/7 without the use of any high-tech devices, lest you consider a two-way radio a high-tech device. The trackers tag team their efforts, leaving the gorillas at night and finding them again in the morning, monitoring their route through the dense forest. Despite seeing humans on a regular basis, the gorillas are by no means completely acclimatized to human civilization. They do not depend on food left by humans nor are they vaccinated against human diseases. As such, it was stressed the importance that we on the guided trek do not leave a single item behind, and that we do not step more than 3 meters close to any of the gorillas— less for our safety, than for the protection of the gorillas. Also as such, the time with the gorillas is limited. Each group, upon finding a gorilla clan, is only allowed one hour.

Most of this hour is spent in the quiet (minus the click-zoom-click’ing of camera devices), and observing the unpredictably gentle creatures. Really observing the most mundane of inactivities, such as watching one gorilla pick his eye boogers and eat them, watching another gaze up unenthusiastically into the tree canopies, and watching the two little ones run around and tumble into one another like tumbleweeds across the desert. An elder gorilla provided great action as she plucked roots and shoots and leaves from beneath her and chomped away, and Alpha Silverback and his huge hands provided entertainment with his mere size as he sat meters away from us watching over his clan while scratching the nether-regions of his hairy body.

The hour goes by quickly, the camera batteries and SD cards deplete and fill up just as fast. It’s one of the most hard-to-describe feeling of simultaneously witnessing something so mind-blowingly amazing yet so incredibly mundane and uneventful at the same time. The probably has to do with the obvious fact that these creatures are so similar to us humans. Seeing their gleaming intelligence (really, you could see the intelligence!) in their observant eyes, seeing the fingernails and knuckles that are so similar to ours on their black, hairy hands; it made me wonder whether this was the experience I thought I would have, and wondering exactly who was watching who. I think we humans are just the suckers that ended up paying several hundred dollars each for a permit to do so, leaving me to say: who’s the smarter species now?

To read more about the gorillas and Bwindi, check out the Bwindi National Forest website, which has some great condensed info about both topics.

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Doorways and Alleyways in City Centre. Portals to entirely different worlds in Dar es Salaam…no flight necessary!

We are going away on a super super exciting trip for the weekend, which I’ll be sure to blog about after the fact. Actually, the entire month of May is going to be filled with travel, too– after about a year of being more or less stuck in Dar, we’ve got some exciting trips ahead. Finally!

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04’19’14 >> #daladalasofdar

Happy Easter! In Tanzania, Good Friday is a bank holiday as is this coming Monday (to celebrate Easter), so almost everyone is in the midst of a four day weekend. While the Diploman and I were, at first, bummed to have stayed behind, it’s already proven to be a great decision– so many of our favorite people in Dar have stuck around, as well. Throw in a little birthday in the mix, and, well, it’s been a good weekend.

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So after a dinner party with friends where the conversation led to stories of a successful road trip to Kilwa, it was settled. Kilwa is a small fishing village (there seem to be so many in Tanzania) about 300km south of Dar es Salaam, along the main (only) highway, B2. Like any other road trip from Dar, getting out of the city is half the battle— it took us about 45 minutes to get out of the city proper, and that was considered a good day.

After 4 chicken sandwiches, one roadside restroom stop, a short stretch of unpaved road, lots of checkpoints, countless speed bumps, and one split second where I thought our car was going to end up nose diving into a deep mud pit, we made it to the little town of Kilwa.

Kilwa is a sad little story of a 14^th century powerhouse (due to its strategic location between Africa and the Eastern Arab and Asian world), who rose to power under the rule of one former Persian prince who arrived in Kilwa town to purchase the neighboring island. Legend says he purchased the land for “enough silk to wrap around the circumference of the island”. Thereafter, great palaces and mosques were erected on the tiny island, and soon enough it became the seat of power in East Africa in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. After centuries of domination as a stopover for ships and tradesmen, it changed hands to the Arab, Portugusese, and eventually over to the Omanis.

That’s a quick, one-minute history of Kilwa. Today, it is far overshadowed by Dar’s large and deep water port. It’s island is now inhabited by local villagers who have since built up their farms and huts under the shadows of once-great mosques and castles. On mainland Kilwa, a small strip that is the center of town exists, with one bar, small single-standing shops propped under metal sheeting, two two-pump gas stations, one bank, one post office, and a few guesthouses scattered along the beach. We were witness to bustling weekend activity, as villagers walked back and forth the strip of beachfront, performed running exercises, played with their children in the shallow ocean bay, and in general gathered to hang out along the breezy shore.

We stayed in a beachfront property recommended by friends, a place run by an Italian woman who preferred the quaint quiet life of Kilwa even to the more glamorous paradises of Zanzibar and Fiji. The lodge itself was a perfect balance of rustic amenities and modern comfort–Housing were bandas that opened up to the beach, with sparse yet comfortably furnishings: the locally familiar four-post beds and mosquito net, along with large open showers that pumped out hot water at any time of day and electricity available at any time. No a/c was available, but powerful fans were supplied in the rooms and a strong island breeze swept through each night.

Speaking of the night, with a waxing crescent moon our party of four saw more stars than ever visible in Dar es Salaam; More stars than I’ve seen since spending time in Montana two summers ago. It was as if a careless painter completed a haphazard paint job, splattering droplets of white paint against a massive wall of black. With the lights off in our banda and no devices to connect to internet, the blackness and silence was completely humbling. It certainly called my attention to how much artificial stimulation is constantly present in my life, where every night in Dar there is always the glow of the security lights just outside my room, an a/c humming throughout the night, and my phone(s) sitting beside my bed and occasionally glowing upon the reception of an alert.

Both night and day, Kilwa was a nice break away from it all, and such a great road trip from Dar.

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04’05’14 >> Ladies on Kilwa beach. I twish I could document all the things that I’ve seen Tanzanians carry on their heads.

This photo was taken last Sunday, when a few friends and I were lazing on Kilwa beach over a three-day weekend. More info and pictures about Kilwa coming up in a couple posts next week!

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