Two aspects of Africa

At the headwaters and along lower reaches of the Nile

East Africa (with a brief pass through Libya)

With a newly minted Bachelor's degree, and before I plunged into earning my Ph.D, I took all my savings, some borrowed funds, a borrowed camera, and my well-worn hiking boots to spend a summer camping around Kenya, Ugada and Tanzania. These countries were barely 7 years beyond colonial status in the summer of 1969. We were a collection of youth traveling with a couple of former Peace Corps folks as coordinators. I was one of 2 members of the group who funded the expense herself instead relying on parents. We followed a more extensive itinerary than I have ever seen offered by any adventure travel company. We slept in real beds and had access to showers about once a week. Otherwise we pitched tents and cooked our meals in the wild. For this life-long camper, it was the only way to go, even though it took 3 extensive rinses to wash a week's worth of road dust out of long hair. When the first moonwalk was televised I was at Murchison Falls in Uganda and many miles from a television set. The youth of our group was a novelty at a time when tourists were less common and most were past the age of 50. Our willingness to use a rudimentary ability with Swahili added to our experience.

Nature was a primary focus of the trip. Flights between Zurich and Nairobi provided great views of the Alps, Khartoum, and the varied expanse of the Sahara. In addition to constant viewing wildlife from our Land Rovers, we took boat rides on Rift Valley soda lakes to get better views of flamingos, fish eagles and kingfishers. An elephant at Lake Manyara bluffed us into a hasty reverse with a pseudo charge. Hippos walked through our camp 3 miles above Murchison Falls on the Nile in Uganda, and a hippo that had the misfortune to be carried over those falls floated near the base when our boat approached. Other hippopotami bumped our boat enroute, and of course crocodiles monitored our progress. Cheetahs and lions only paused when our Rover came near their stalking line of sight. Night time trips to the outhouse required carrying a lantern and latching the door to avoid the situation of a cornered baboon within attacking the next visitor. Monkeys did not get our cameras, but it was not for lack of trying. There is a spider at Olduvai Gorge that looks like a scorpion at first glance. Tse tse flies bite worse than Horse, Deer or Black Flies, and one scout along a column of Siafu army ants left a memorable bite on the leg of a carefully curious biologist. Snorkeling among colorful fish in the Indian Ocean off Malindi, then realizing it is BLACK below because you have ventured beyond the drop off of the continental shelf also leaves an impression. Python tracks a foot wide and crossing your tire tracks in the dusty track that you just pulled into camp on heighten your awareness. So do the eyes of a Cerval cat in your flashlight. You could almost set your watch to the orographic movements of mist on Mt Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. We walked along the Sirimon Track only into the bamboo zone on Mt. Kenya as a warm-up for the longer hike on Kilimanjaro. This mountain walker wanted to go much higher up Mt. Kenya.

The only photo I have digitized thusfar is of a memory important to this mountain-walker. I am relaxing at approximately 14,500 ft on the saddle between Mawenzi and Kibo peaks of Kilimanjaro. We are above any water source, almost past all but micro-plant life, and I am celebrating the fact that I have walked higher than anything that Colorado, my home state, could offer. After a short night in Kibo Hut (on the flanks at 15,520 ft) I summited Kibo at sunrise, descended for a short nap at Kibo Hut, and by the same time the next day was on my way back across the saddle to the hut below. I walked 80 miles in five days, climbing and desceding nearly 16,000 vertical feet. Porters, who were barefoot or in flip-flops, carrried our gear, while we had the luxury of only carrying daypacks. I used a friendly pair of boots, but beach and snorkel time in the Indian Ocean helped heal my feet from the abuse of a literal downhill marathon the last day.

There were cultural revelations as well. We were allowed 3 nights camping in the crater of Ngorongoro, where we visited a Masai boma and sat inside their huts of dried dung. The Masai were sorry for me because I was 21 and unmarried, and they were fascinated by blonds in our group who had southern accents. A Chagga boy who walked a couple of kilometers with me conversed reasonably well in English. I marveled at the endurance of Islamic women in Mombasa walking around in equatorial sun dressed head-to-toe in black when everybody else favored lighter colors to deflect solar radiation. I had traveled 4WD tracks in the American west, but upon returning to the states after months in the bush I saw lines painted on paved roads, extensive signage and abundant lighting as luxuries.

There were also political experiences. Our low-budget charter turbo prop airliner refueled in Benghazi, Libya between Zurich and Nairobi. Ghadhafi was not yet a well-know name in the States, but while our plane was refueled we deplaned to a room with no furniture where 4 men armed and in uniform took an alarming interest in the passports of Jewish Americans in our group. Kenya's VP was assasinated on our first full day in Nairobi, but no one used lighter-skinned tourists as an excuse for other outrages. We visited universities in Nairobi and Kampala, where students assumed we were government agents, because we all wore what they saw as a "uniform" (jeans). We were not pushing politics, but the students were still quick to assure us that socialism was the best solution for their countries to improve. Big Daddy Amin would not devastate Uganda for a couple of years, but a policeman with a dog paced outside our hotel in Kampala. Tanzanians displayed an admirable pride. They resented the Peace Corps and placed Swahili over English on road signs.

Finally, there were health issues. The only shot on a long list that we were told was not necessary was for plague, so having been stuck multiple times for many other threats, we all passed on the plague shot. We could not enter Arusha, Tanzania because it was quarantined for plague. We saw what is now called AIDS in rural Uganda and in a hospital in Uganda. What they then called Wasting Disease was a well established scourge in men, women and children, but it had not yet caught the attention of non-African nations.

I consider this my "trip of a lifetime", although many other fine experiences have followed.

Egypt

Ever since a high school teacher of Ancient History brought Egypt to life recounting his travels along Nile prior to the flooding of the high Aswan Dam, I had wanted to go to experience it myself. Throughout much of my youth and during the Cold War, Americans were not particulary welcome, but for a few years tensions eased. My opportunity came when an art historian colleague was leading a group in January 1989. An Egyptian-American co-leader added wonderful cultural insight to our travels. I have been in nearly as many Mosques as I have European Cathedrals. I learned things about Islam on this trip that I have not heard represented in post 9/11/01 reporting.

This was an active tour. We walked across medieval Islamic Cairo, squeezed through several suks, and crawled through pathways in the Great Pyramid. There are advantages in maturity -- women my age did not get the offensive "help" that younger women were subjected to from men stationed at ladders. Dr. Zahi Hawas gave us a lecture at Giza. I rode a camel around the pyramids at Giza, sailed in an Arab dhow and swam in the cool waters of the Nile just below the Aswan Dam where Shistosomiasis did not threaten. We shared tea in a home in a Nubian village on an island in the Nile above Aswan. We cruised down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor stopping at many sites along the route and visiting some that most groups did not visit. Everywhere we went we were greeted with Hibiscus tea and a different composition of tabouli.

Awareness of time is altered by a visit to Egypt. Standing in Soccara at the foot of what looks like a loose pile of rocks that is known as the Step Pyramid, it is important to recall that the structure has remained through 5000 years despite occasional earthquakes. Seeing tracks of water in places in the Valley of Kings that do not see rain for perhaps years is a testomony to the resistence of some loose rock to wind. How have the adobe walls survived the elements? Evidence in the stonework of ancient temples of subsequent habitation and graffiti left in that stonework by Greeks and Romans, expands awareness of the passage of time.

I am glad that these treasures survive to remind us of past human activity, but I regret that human activity in the twentyfirst century has again made them less accessible.

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This page created and maintained by S.A. Miller. Last modified: December 2010