Msafiri Kyrea - The Blog: The Rwenzori Journey

Eager to catch a red sunrise reflecting off the low peaks that we noticed the day before, we did an early ramble up into the outer limits of the bamboo zone. The cloudy east made it an anticlimax but at least we had a flavour of the treacherous incline that awaits us. Because of the end of the rain season, this zone was not as notoriously boggy as it is famous for.

View of the lush rainforest from above the bamboo zone (Photo courtesy of J. Chow)

The Blue Monkey (Photo courtesy of Save Viruga)

We were lucky to spot the blue monkey. Richard made a beckoning call to a young member of this beautiful and curious species. The monkey even mimicked Richard's open and close hand gestures. Richard explained that during the formative years blue monkeys can be stubborn and persistent in their curiosity but eventually realise the need to survive and take care of the troop. This also means keeping a wide berth of humans. The inclines were getting increasingly difficult but magical distractions in the flora and fauna surrounding us kept our senses busy and our thoughts more focused. This featured birds like sunbirds, whose slender and curvy beak is ideal for sucking nectar, and the Rwenzori turaco, famous for the seven different colours on its plumage.

Looking for the little birdies

The Red-Chested Sun Bird (Photo courtesy of Sean Crane Photography). The collared sun bird was often seen as well.

The Rwenzori Turaco (Photo courtesy of Wise Birding)

We left this steep ridge and at Kalalana were able to looking back at the steamy rainforest and look ahead to the heady montane terrain. At Kalalana, at an altitude of 3,147 metres, we had a tea break. Eager to mark this milestone we scampered off the path for a photo opportunity at the signpost surrounded by a flurry of yellow flowers. Over the other side it was beginning to look and feel alien. Giant cacti such as the lobelia and the giant groundsels, clumps of fine grass, abundance of moss and still alive with bird life.

Andama and Jimmy rest next to giant groundsels

Mountain urchin....no, actually a cactus

After clearing some passes we decided to have lunch at a postcard location with a gentle stream, smothering heather covered rocks and surrounded by mangled looking winding trees with wispy strands known by various names like the old man tree and the giant heather tree. This period was busy with porters for other expedition teams either trekking up with fresh supplies or charging down with lighter loads heading to the RTS office in Kilembe. As we admired the dreamscape, we enjoyed ham and tomato sandwiches (with the standard sweet bread, a Ugandan favourite), banana, and apple & mango juice drink. The porter's austere staple at lunchtime are high glucose biscuits, water and fruit. Pleasantly stuffed I ambled over to the stream edge to refill my water bottle with fresh water. I am normally cautious but this time I had my guard down, and as I stepped on a wet flat piece of rock I had a feeling that either I would flawlessly get my heaven made water or wind up flat and wet on my own arse. I will leave it to you to guess what happened. It was the perfect cue for Richard to announce: ''Gum boots on!''. We all put our Bata boots to begin our squelchy odyssey. From then on it was intervals of sinking into the dark mud, walking over wooden broadwalks, stepping over purposefully laid down broken twigs and branches and clambering up rocks.

Stepping into the dreamscape

The beauty got more intense as we approached our campsite of the day, Mutinda Camp. The were more moss encrusted giant heather trees, the groundsels. Skipping across more small streams, browned by the mud, we emerged into into a great valley that the lowest reach of an enormous fire almost exactly a year before, in February 2012, that destroyed most of the vegetation in the valley up to an altitude of about 4,000 metres. The intense fire left hundreds of trekkers, guides and porters stranded further up the trail but all managed to escape and some had to be airlifted by helicopter. We absorbed the vastness of the charred wilderness as it unfolded, and we were all of a sudden surrounded by peaks upwards of 3,500 metres in altitude spotted with scattered trees, and plenty of shrubs and rocks varying in colour from brown to bright white. This was exactly when we were at the same level of the low clouds and were engulfed with a hail storm that constantly pinched my ear lobes. The ferocity of a North Sea storm above the Equator!

The stairway to heaven must look like this

A mark of a resilient ecosystem - signs of recovery 1 year after the great fire

The Mutinda Camp (at an altitude of 3,975m) used to be a rock shelter for duiker hunters. This was our sleeping spot for the night. We hoped to catch a better sunset but before we students could go out on an evening discovery, our mountain guru, Richard, had already laid down creamy tomato soup, curry and rice. James led our little scout survey up a root infested ledge towards a massive white rock. Being a wildlife specialist himself, he did some tracking and spotted some duiker droppings and what looked like leopard prints. There were also numerous traces of leopard droppings! The duiker presence must have been recent as males are known to mark territory at key positions. It was impossible to tell when leopards may have passed through, though that didn't stop my back hairs from standing on their ends.

Sunset at Mutinda Camp....

We had earlier met some Hungarian trekkers descending from the big peaks, including Margherita itself. They looked spent, and their expressions were enough to catch a glimpse of the reality of this challenge. Mutinda Camp, with the intimidating overhanging rock shelter and the charred forest below was a gloomy place to be but at least the toilets, I mean the holes in the earth, were a massive improvement from the previous camp. If the long walk to the funky smelly toilet is not worth looking forward to, a bright moon pasted on a clear sky at 2 a.m. was worth waking up to and witnessing whilst doing a number 1.