Over the past (Australian) summer I was fortunate to be able to spend 3 months in East Africa. I have been meaning to write a post on my trip, which included two significance treks (Margherita Peak (5109m) and Kilimanjaro (5895m)) for a while now, but have been pressed for time. I have decided to give run down of the Rwenzori climb in this post and will add another post about Kilimanjaro if I get the time. I’ll add photos as well I hope.
My first month in Uganda was with a number of fellow medical students near the Rwanda/DRC border. We were working on some health projects that we had been raising capital for over the previous year. I do not plan to talk about this side of things much, but will give a plug for the fully student founded and managed organisation named the ISSUE Foundation (http://www.theissuefoundation.org). I have written a bit about this first month as an add-on at the bottom of this post.
After we had completed our work in SW Uganda, the four of us traveled to Lake Bunyonyi in far SW Uganda to see the place many other backpackers we had spoken to had been talking about. It was a nice place to visit, and the rice terrace style sides of the large lake along with the many small islands make for a worthwhile trip, but we were soon ready to move on again. We headed to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, to see in the New Year, which was a great time, and I never expected I would enjoy Kampala as much as I did. Kampala is an international city with a very African vibe. I found it much safer than Nairobi and Joburg, and more relaxed than Dar, and would happily return. A quick shout out for the amazing Japanese restaurant Yujo, which was a great find and filled a big sushi hole after a 5 weeks of matoke, posho and rolex's (If you've been to Uganda or similar areas, you'll know these local staples well- hopefully not as well as us…).
With a ridiculously crazy/bizarre/scary NYE behind us we said goodbye to two of our fellow travelers who were heading to Rwanda and onto Tanzania. As for my travel partner, Ana, and I, we were heading for the Mountains of the Moon on the border of the (not so) Democratic (barely a) Republic of (definitely the) Congo.
To get to these mountains, known now as the Rwenzoris, required yet another prolonged bus trip on the exceptionally poor Ugandan 'highways'. We needed to travel from Kampala, to Fort Portal and onto Kabale in far western Uganda, where we would then get a private hire (basically a taxi) to Kasese in the foothills of the Rwenzoris and where we would meet our guides and porters from the Rwenzori Trekking Service. This was planned to take a whole day, as we knew the way these buses traveled from previous experience: Heart stoppingly fast and overloaded on roads seemingly made for enormous head-ons, but with very frequent stops which were often prolonged. Don't even get me started on the "afro-beats" going full-bore from some blokes enormous speakers which I am sure he must have had to buy a second fare for. Anyway our plans dissolved very rapidly when we were duped into getting on a bus heading to Kasese but not via Fort Portal as I had been under the impression it was, but via Masaka, Mbarara and Queen Elizabeth NP, near where we had been doing our work for the last month. This is a very round about way to get to Kasese, and ended up adding ~7 hours to our bus ride. Take home message: Really, really be sure your not being had when you buy your ticket in the highly crowded and filthy Kampala bus park. Also be sure you don't hand your pack to anyone, regardless as to if you think they are working for the bus company, it will only end in tears.
So we arrived in Kasese at the Rwenzori Trekking Service (RTS) base at about 9pm. We had booked the trek months ago via RTS directly and it was strange to rock up, having discussed your plans with an RTS employee via email, and pretty much have no one know who you are. We soon got over this, and would soon just come to know this as a trait of African life. The next morning was very busy, the guides were up at 5am getting all the gear ready and assigning porters. For a party of 5 (3 Germans and 2 of us) we would require 21 porters. These seemed totally extreme to me, but the guides knew what they were doing, and we had already paid for it all (how much would 21 porters and 5 guides cost for a 9 day trek in Aus…I imagine about 100-120x what I paid for this trek), and the company had assigned the team to complete this walk. Incidentally, RTS is owned by John Hunwick, an Australian. I got on very well with the two lead guides, both Ugandans, and also the assistant guides, who we spent most of our time around. Over the course of the trek, I became good friends with the assistant guide who I walked with most days of the 9 day trek, and I valued this part of the trek a lot. Despite not receiving much in money in our terms, the employment the RTS has brought to the Kasese/Kabale region is great. The porters get more working on the mountain than in most other jobs, and get food as well, plus they rightly receive our tips, which are like a second payday for them at the end of the trek. The Ugandan porters were much more appreciative and needy than their Kilimanjaro counterparts, and I happily assisted these people who had assisted me greatly (I’ll hopefully talk more about tipping in my Kili post…I have a rant to make and nothing is going to stop me!).
My only gripe with RTS is the porters’ accommodation on the mountain is rather poor (especially at the high camps were the weather is extreme and shelter hard to find), and the company should do more in my opinion to provide appropriate clothing for their porters. As far as I could tell the porters associations we see in Nepal and Kili etc. haven’t made it to Uganda yet. Also, the company is not treating the park with respect in terms of walking tracks. In some places the ‘tracks’ are 30-40 meters wide and they were always total mud pools, with the groups being led around the edges every time. This really annoyed me, and our guides would laugh at my suggestions to just power through the mud to save time, and the environment, but they seem to think all clients want to remain as mud free as possible…which is pointless as most end up mud swimming at some point anyway. Many clients I met on the mountain also talked about this, and the Ugandan Wildlife Authority who manage the park need to do something, but I don’t think that is at all likely.
Access to the Rwenzori NP is restricted to parties with guides and porters. This makes good sense and allows the local community to benefit from the interest in the region. It would also be foolhardy to venture into the park alone with the many threats from the very challenging terrain (incorporating the thickest of thick jungle to glacier traverses), dangerous animals (jungle elephants, gorillas, monkeys, snakes) and poachers, let along what would happen if you encountered DRC rebels who are known to hide out in the park). UWA rangers (who we saw once in the park as part of a rescue team for a European party who had encountered some altitude medical issues near the top of Margherita Peak – another whole post…) and also guides often carry weapons in the park.
The trek was planned to be 8 nights and taking in the highest peak of the park, Margherita Peak (5109m) of Mt. Stanley. The peak is the 3rd highest in Africa behind Mt. Kenya and Kilimanjaro. The trek was very challenging due to the severe rain we encountered in the jungles along with the hot weather, and extreme mud, not to mention the very steep valleys we were traversing and the altitude gains. For 3 days on the way in and 3 on the way out we walked in mud very similar to the Sodden Lodden (old Frenchmans Cap track in Tassie), and we were covered from neck to toe in mud each night as we reached camp. The environment (terrain, climate and flora and fauna) in this high altitude equatorial region is I believe rightly classified as extreme. To be standing up to your waist in mud surrounded by otherworldly plants and often animals, wearing a t-shirt and knee high gumboots and wide brim hat looking up to a glacier and peaks towering above was quite the experience.
The trek went very smoothly for Ana and I and we made it to Margherita Camp, the last prior to trying for the summit in good health and very hopeful of reaching our goal. Two of the Germans didn’t adjust well to the very challenging 4 days of jungle and mud fighting we had just had to get to this camp and decided they wouldn’t push for the top (these two had far more high altitude experience than both Ana or I, but had never encountered anything like the slog to get into the Rwenzori’s in their trips to Nepal, North America or South America. I think Tassie is a great spot to prepare for the terrain we encountered on this trek. So it was 3 of us, and the 2 lead guides who left camp at 1am after trying to sleep for the few hours we had since we arrived at the camp in the afternoon of the day before.
The climb up the rock fall to get to the Stanley Plateau (a large icy glacierish region) took many hours, and some basic rope work was required. The guides are well versed in this and we soon found ourselves crossing the Stanley Plateau to drop down again to the base of the Margherita Glacier proper. The glacier is steep, and long. We moved very slowly up the glacier in huge winds and no views, but we soon got towards the top, straining for breath and all of us with decent headaches. The final 30minutes to the summit were hard, in the -10 C temperatures and very exposed climbing. Concentrating on traversing the final climbs on the ice-covered rock without rope was exhilarating. To reach the summit was a great achievement and the winds seemed to calm a bit for the few minutes we were there, but maybe it was my imagination. I even got a bit hot in my layers and unzipped my down jacket, but this didn’t last long. We had no views, but it was a great physical experience and one I still relish.
The descent was long and much the same in the mud. We passed some other groups on the mountain on the way down (there were very few in total), and had some good chats with them. The diversity of the people attracted to the region was great, from Everest conquering Europeans to first time traveling Americans to older Israelis and young and naive Australians (Ana and I).
It was sad to say good-bye to the RTS team, especially the assistant guides we had gotten to know well, and I still communicate with one. There is another trekking company who operate in the ark, called the Rwenzori Mountaineering Service (RMS), and they offer treks on a different route in, which is apparently easier but not as diverse. The only other comment to make here is that I have no idea how the two companies compare other than what a porter told me which was that they don’t pay their porters as much as RTS and that RMS didn’t seem to be requiring their services as much as RTS did lately.
I should also add that in 2007 after a unprecedented dry spell a huge wildfire burnt much of the Rwenzori range, which was shocking and much of the places you walk through are early on in their regeneration, but this was intriguing in itself, plus there were plenty of very old areas of alpine/rainforest communities untouched.
We headed back to Kampala, this time via Fort Portal thank god but we didn’t escape the ‘afro-beats’, this time raging from speakers in the bus itself and also surprisingly accompanied by the super weird video clips that appeared to have been filmed gonzo style by young Kenyan or Tanzanian rappers using the video capturing quality of a calculator. A relaxed day in Kampala was followed by the next beginning of our trip: starting our overland travel to Nairobi. I won’t talk about our travels to Kenya, and our time in Nairobi. We soon found ourselves running out of time to get to Kili, so we took off to Arusha and then Moshi, both in Tanzania. Moshi was where we started Kilimanjaro from, and I will write about this in the future.
Health projects in Uganda:
ISSUE was created a few years back by some guys who are now graduate doctors and who created the pathway for future students to follow in terms of planning and carrying out health based project in Uganda. ISSUE is well aware of the problems that surround many foreign aid type organisations, especially the youth-volunteer style organisations, and we actively work to eliminate these problems. We work in the same local community every year (providing the best continuity of care we can - we have a group in the district for one month of the year every year). We now have a very positive relationship with a number of local Ugandan social workers and health officials, who now kindly assist us in our projects. The best part about this work is that we can ensure that ever cent of money we get donated to us is spent on the ground in Uganda on our projects. The Uganda teams fund all their own expenses, no exceptions. We continued an ISSUE trend of including an anti-malaria insecticide treated mosquito bed net distribution project; the most evidence based technique of helping people protect themselves from Malaria, and joined with local social workers carrying out HIV testing and counseling. Other projects were the funding of a manually powered dental chair for a very remote rural health clinic in an area with some of the poorest dental standards in the world and a number of smaller elderly assistance and orphan projects.
All our projects are undertaken with a focus on sustainability. We do not carry out projects of short term benefit, and thanks to the great relations we have in the regions we work, we actively seek input from the people living in the communities we want to assist as to what they need most, and how we can work with them to improve their long term health.