The Boy is notorious for his love of cuddly animals, whether or not they want to be cuddly…I am slightly more skeptical, but tend to go along for the ride, unprepared, but ready to write the story.   However, when our 5 and 7 year old niece and nephew learned we were going to Madagascar AND had never seen the iconic film, they sat me down for a viewing…  So when we woke up bright and early in the Mantadia rainforest, I was half expecting some lovely ringtails in grass skirts to welcome me…and instead I got Morris. [Ed. note: ring tailed lemurs don’t live anywhere near the rainforest…geez!]

Don’t get me wrong, Morris is a lovely man.  Somewhere around my dad’s age, but could run laps around us even if we weren’t sweating out the carafe of wine from the night before.  Morris grew up in this forest and knew just where to find the flora and fauna everyone desired…however much to his disappointment our interest lay solely in the cuddly fauna and not so much in the plants, bugs, and birds he kept pointing our way…[Ed. Note: “My birdwatching clients would be amazed that we are seeing this” is a phrase I didn’t export Morris to use, but I was looking for lemurs.]

No worry, we apparently have some good karma in our midst to make up for the medicine debacle and started our hike out finding lemurs along the side of the road (which was actually a kilometer into the hike because the bridge was still washed out but the forest reopened today for the first time since the cyclone…)  [Ed. note: “bridge out” really means “one of the 15 ‘bridges’ on this dirt road hadn’t been rebuilt yet.”  And by ‘bridge’ we mean “wooden planks or strong bamboo poles across the multitude of streams.”] Unfortunately, the Boy and I apparently forgot how to use our camera during the “boring year” which was 2016 because every photo of this red bellied lemur is blurry and out of focus…[Ed. Note: oops.]

Morris caught on to our desires and instead of pointing out the rare birds in flight, he took us “off road” through the rainforest, shouting “head” or “stump” to protect the Boy from beaning himself or me from falling (it didn’t help…) as we tracked the lemurs.  [Ed. note: Off-road in the rainforest takes on a special meaning. No trails, giant plants and vines everywhere, even a fallen tree to cross the stream!]  

Throughout this adventure, we did manage to locate many types of lemurs, including my personal favorite: the sloth.   I don’t know what kind of trip scientists and Kristen Bell are trying to pull on us, but you cannot look at this face and tell me this isn’t a skinny sloth, right?! [Ed. note: not a sloth. A type of cuddly lemur called a sifaka.  The dancing variety, actually.]

Our time with Morris was not limited to the treacherous jungle hike, we rejoined him after dark in another forest for some nocturnal lemur sightings.  As we were kitted up once again in our hiking boots and 100% deet bug spray, Morris wore flip flops.  Yes, he was prepared to cover the wet and treacherous ground for an hour in the dark essentially bare foot.  We looked like Boy Scouts over-prepared to earn their first badge and badly needed to save face here.   Luckily, the Boy morphed into a lemur spotting savant.  Morris said it was his height giving him the advantage (there was over a foot difference…) but I think he was embarrassed that Boy found 3 fluffy lemur for every one big chameleon or spider Morris found us. [Ed. note: what can I say? I like to find lemurs!]  The lemurs in the dark are not as funny as their daytime kin, leaping branch to branch, but they are much lower down in the trees so you don’t end up with a crook in your neck from staring straight up for an hour or two non-stop!

We made it to Madagascar!  I can honestly say that this is the least prepared I have felt for any country I was traveling to, including North Korea.   I let the Boy and the travel company lead this itinerary, not to mention that we were actually on our third itinerary as Madagascar travel demands a sense of adventure, patience, and humor.   Roads washed out in a cyclone in March and had not reopened, the relaxing beach trips needed to be canceled due to pirate attacks, flights around the country didn’t take off for days regardless of published flight “schedules”.  Throw in the last 27 hours of medical crisis and I officially adopted a “fuck it, whatever” vibe to this second part of our trip.  In my mind, we were near enough to South Africa to get good wine, and in a pinch I could just drink a lot of the notably bad Malagasy wine and power through…

But first we had to make it to the lemurs.  The only international airport is in the main city of Tana, which is notorious for its traffic.   [Ed. note: the airport itself was…well, it was something. Having been to Zanzibar, I expected a similar ‘African Island’ airport vibe, but the immigration queue (if you could call it that) was a free-for-all of epic proportions. And we were just getting started.] Now, we have been in many cities who pride themselves on traffic, although none have been riddled with the snafu which is the zebu cart.  A lumpy, horned cow pulling a wooden cart powering through the massive round-abouts alongside the SUVs and motor bikes.   And those horns are VERY pointy so the SUV drivers definitely gave way!

The drive up the country was on mostly paved roads, but the potholes rivaled Atlanta and they didn’t have any permanent metal plates to relieve the jolt.  Thankfully, the stress of the past 48 hours allowed us to sleep most of the journey (and forget the need to pee, of which they only option was the “bush toilet…”).  [Ed. note: our local guide let us know we were over an hour and a half late landing.  We pointed out that our airplane left Sudan late, and the Nairobi airport lost power for a bit. He didn’t seem to care…]  It could have been worse of course.  The “local buses” that kept stopping to pick up riders were a minivan with an assistant hanging on the open back door by a rope, collecting the 500 ariary fee per passenger (yes, that is a full 16 cents USD…) and packing them in 15 to 35 deep, with the live chickens strapped on the roof…

Tomorrow we finally find lemurs…on an uphill rainforest hike…

[Ed. note: I’ve got this one.]

So, Rwanda was an adventure in more ways then originally expected. First, the medicine thing. The lodge/front desk manager made a mistake.  We had confirmed twice for fridge, even agreeing where the fridge was, not frozen, yet…someone tossed it in the freezer.  Be that as it may, that’s why for any trip we always buy travel insurance, and when we’re in Africa we use a travel company to actually book (we plan) the in-country parts of the trip. The travel company, their local guides, travel insurance, and my dad all did a lot of work on Memorial Day to keep this trip on-track, and for that I am very thankful. Major thanks so that by the time I was checking into the Nairobi hotel, insulin delivery was already there waiting.

With that out of the way, some Rwanda quick-hits!

• It is clean.  They take incredible pride in keeping their country clean.  Even the rural villages we drove by – clean.  No trash on the side of the roads/etc.  Apparently one Saturday a month everyone helps clean up.
• They take pride in their country as a whole it seems like. I think this is a conscious political and social choice since the 1994 genocide – the entire country has bought in to the concept and has for over 20 years.
• Speaking of genocide, that’s basically what anyone thinks of when you say Rwanda. It happened, it was awful, we did a half day at the museum and memorial – they aren’t hiding it, blaming anyone really, they fully explain how it came about and the consequences. It was a powerful museum and memorial, but the country I think became stronger learning from their (awful) mistakes.
• GORILLAS! Holy wow gorillas are everything and then some. We’ve never really seen primates (some monkeys and baboons on safari, some monkeys around the Cambodian temples), so to get a long time mere feet from some mountain gorillas…yeah. Everything was worth it to see them, even for just an hour.
• Golden Monkeys – these guys are hilarious. Spectacularly playful and everything you’d think of when you think of a stereotypical monkey, only even more colorful.
• All in all, Rwanda was an awesome place. The mountains, volcanoes, rainforests, the people, and then of course the primates. Definitely a place you should go experience.
• LATE ADDITION!!! I emailed my pen pal, and he just emailed me back (6/16/2017)! I think we’ll send them a soccer ball, they could use one for practice purposes.

hello sir [Boy]
how are you?
how was your family?

please i a very interesting to hearing from you again and i am so happy to mail you again

thank you so much for your kindness and thank you so much for your kindness.

i am so happy for this pictures.very nice. i am very happy for how you allow me to contact with you in my dail life.special thanks to you.

how was your job? and how was your wife?

for me now i am at school .as i told you i would like to be the future guide. but i don’t know if i will achieving it.how was there?

please sir allow me to contact with me in my daily life.please sir say hello your wife

thank you so much for your kinness and your lovely heart.

i am waiting forwards from you again

love and all the best wishes.

Elisa.

And now, some photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I left you in this tale, we were in Rwanda with enough insulin to last us 2-3 days if all things went according to plan, which as the past 24 hours had shown, was unlikely to continue for the next 2 weeks in Africa.  So we had our guest rockstar of this saga, the Boy’s Dad, working furiously to mobilize the forces between our travel company’s American and UK offices, their local partners in Rwanda and Nairobi, Kenya, and the emergency medical team of our travel insurance [Ed. note: something we initially forgot, but our travel company told my Dad, he told me, and I told him to contact them for me].  It was basically a version of Intern Olympics: whoever solves the problem fastest gets the job.  Once we finished learning about the birds and the bees from the golden monkeys and got on wifi again (because there was literally nothing else we could do so when in Rwanda…) the flurry of emails around the globe offering different versions of medicine and locations and why that option would not work was daunting.  As suspected, the medicine simply did not exist in Rwanda, even in the capital city of Kigali, so we had to proceed on our flight to Kenya with little more than a hope and a prayer…

Thankfully, after the 4 hour drive down the mountain we found wifi once again in the airport lounge and got news: the main Nairobi hospital had a supply of the 5 daytime pens and 2 similar nighttime pens that they could have delivered to our hotel that night…if only we paid the small fee of $234 USD…Honestly, it was much cheaper than I expected, and only 25% of the cost in America (yes, the Boy is expensive…) so we did a little happy dance and give them all the details of our flight time and the hotel name. [Ed. note: I worked email hardcore, confirming this and that. Props to everyone on the chain keeping up and helping.] And then I started counting our cash…

We always travel with a supply of USD, it’s a fairly universal currency and Visa isn’t accepted when internet and power don’t exist.   However, we also have a magical ATM account that works around the world (except when we take a horse and buggy from the Nile River to the bank  in Southern Egypt…) so we do limit the amount for safety.  After a quick count, I had $247 left…plus around 50,000 Rwandan franc.   This would barely cover the cost of the medicine, the necessary tip that would have to occur, and then we had to consider 11 days in the most third world country we had ever been, with warnings to not expect to find any ATMs…  Okay, we had an hour before boarding, I can solve this problem.   I left the Boy in the lounge with his passport just in case, confirming the exact details (with someone whose email was emergencyflydoc.org or something daunting like that…) and set off in search of an ATM.  [Ed. note: how is there not an ATM inside the cleared-customs secure area of the international airport?]  First stop: currency exchange.   Unfortunately, the Rwandan currency exchange office was not owned by Travelex as many in the States and Europe so he did not have an ATM…but he provided some insight.  If I just talked to a security officer, they would escort me to the ATM outside of the secure area and back up, no problem.  Famous last words…

Twenty minutes later, I have officially spoken with EVERY person wearing a badge or uniform in the Kigali International Airport terminal…and many of them have started speaking to each other in Swahili on my behalf.   I threw around the words “medical emergency” and “life saving medicine destroyed” at will until my pathetic, panicked face finally convinced the powers that be to allow one customs officer and one armed security official to leave their posts and come with me.   Yes, I was escorted through the back channels of the Kigali airport by both a customs officer and an armed security officer…and then I fell down the stairs. [Ed. note: At one point I started to wonder where she was, but email was still flying amongst all interested parties, so I just hoped for the best…]

Complete wipe out, flat on my face, missed 2 marble steps and barely caught myself from a full on concussion.   And they just watched.   As did the two Rwandan men whose feet I almost kissed.   Granted, they paused their conversation and I sprung up pretty swiftly, but yes, that indeed happened.  

Thankfully, the rest of the endeavor went seamlessly.   The ATM changed to English, it didn’t reject my card, and the nice currency exchange man only silently judged me as I handed him 240,000 francs to turn into USD… And when we arrived in Nairobi, there was a man waiting in the hotel lobby with a paper bag.  He seemed mildly surprised by the large, white male hugging him, but once I handed him wads of cash he hugged back and went on his merry way.   And we celebrated as any good American should: room service pizza. [Ed. note: New medicine safely in hand, I could turn my focus to more pressing concerns – how many lemur species can I find?!?]

I think we can all agree that the unrelenting demand to see Susa and only Susa was a poor life choice. [Ed. note: I do not agree. Susa gorillas were super-cool.]  We tortured ourselves for 6 hours and the Boy has a badly bruised hip as thanks from the Silverback. [Ed. note: day 2 bruise hurt more.]  Plus, all the pain medicine necessary to even make it up the mountain was making the boy feel very ill.   I had basically decided that the Golden Monkeys were going to play on without us the next day…and said as much out loud around the local guide.  What I failed to say was that I still intended to pay for our Golden Monkey permits as that money is important to the conservation and support of the village.   So our local guide gets in the car and starts selling how easy the monkey hike is, 20 minutes, not uphill, etc, etc.  This eases the mind of the Boy and he tells me we have to go, we’ve come all this way to see them. [Ed. note: damn right. I’m not about to let a little frozen life saving medicine, a bad back, and a bruised hip stop my primate tour de force! Onward!]  Fine, I can do an hour tomorrow, but I’m going to have a long nap and a large beer now and a very nice massage at the first place we’re staying in Madagascar that has a spa…or running water and electricity for more than 3 hours a day…

We met our group for the Golden Monkeys and it seemed that luck was in our favor.   For their gorilla trek 2 days prior, they walked 20 minutes through the farmland, then entered the bamboo forest for about 9 steps and look, there is the gorilla family!  They got to spend the same hour as us with 13 gorillas and they were home before lunch! Considering we had a flight at 7 pm at an airport four hours  drive away in Kigali, home for a shower, nap, and lunch before the drive sounded perfect.  Let’s go!

As before, we hired a porter for our small bag and trekked behind the group into the farmland.  This section of the park was just beside our lodge so we really could be home early.  We got to the edge of the bamboo forest and our guide said we needed to wait a moment as he had not heard from the trackers yet about where the monkeys were playing.   No problem, we chatted with our Australian friends about each other’s travels and our gorilla experience…and after 10 minutes passed in the cool, damp jungle with no word, the guide suggested we go back out into the farmland to wait in the sun.  During this thirty minute wait, we joked that our monkey group was missing and they were just waiting out the other half of the tourists who saw the monkeys first to finish their hour…

The guide finally said let’s go and we headed into the bamboo again and turned left…up the hills, down the mud pits, tripping over vines and through ant piles.   We weren’t going deep into the forest [Ed. note: define “deep”. We were still trekking up and down muddy bamboo hills.], but rather horizontal to the farmland across…again, highly suspect that this is the same monkey family the first group just found.  When we finally came upon them, they were wonderful!  Jumping limb to limb, hanging from their curled tail. Like Susa the day before, they gathered in a clearing so we could see them without obstruction of the trees and leaves. Our guide even took a cellphone video of two monkeys grooming each other and I always know I’m seeing something special when the guides who do this daily start taking photos.  

As we were preparing to leave, we headed back into the forest and found another playful group.  There were 10 small monkeys horsing around, literally swinging on a vine and wrestling. [Ed. note: monkeys acting like monkeys!]  The Boy had been away from me during this section, so afterwards I was telling  him that it looked like a daycare and then he showed me what he was so intently observing at that time: two monkeys getting it on. Confirmation that we had stumbled upon the rebellious teenage babysitters existing across the species…

Our porters had snuck across the forest while we played with the monkeys and were just near the nursery school as we wrapped up with all our stuff.   The guide said we were taking a shortcut…and 4 minutes of walking later we were in the farmland.   Yes, our “easy” and short day of hiking turned into double the walk from one planned monkey group to cutting across the muddy bamboo forest and waiting almost an hour in the sun to share a monkey group with the others.   But at least the Boy got to watch some monkey sex!

In case anyone here ever had a burning desire to know all about the inside of a rural Rwanda hospital, today is your lucky day…

Yup, we somehow managed to survive 3 months in 22 countries with barely a cold, AND we trekked to the farthest gorilla family and back today with only a few aches and pains to speak of, but somehow still found ourselves speeding down the dirt mountain roads after dark tonight in search of a doctor.

I should probably rewind.   The Boy is a Type 1 Diabetic, which means he is dependent on 2 kinds of insulin daily to keep at his bad decision making ways.  [Ed. note: This is true. It hasn’t stopped me yet though!]  Over all the continents, we have managed to travel with an ample supply safely; keeping it cold in the Sahara and warm on Antarctica without fail. We’ve even entrusted our “stash” to hotels in many languages to store in the general fridge…until Rwanda.  When we asked reception for our bag of medicine back tonight to take a dose, they seemed to have trouble locating it.  We waited in the lobby a few minutes, but when the hotel manager told us it would be brought to our room shortly, we didn’t worry too much and headed on down.  But when the porter delivered a solid, frosty ziplock bag, we entered panic mode.   In less than 24 hours, our hotel had managed to freeze and ruin a month’s supply of insulin…while we were 2 weeks and 8,000 miles from home. [Ed. note: panic mode doesn’t really begin to describe my mindset when looking at a frozen block of life-sustaining medicine that should never ever ever be frozen.]

Thus, we found ourselves in the back of a safari jeep, careening down the unlit, unpaved side of a mountain to the nearest hospital 30+ minutes away.  The driver (who just met us in our panicked state) was trying to assure us that this would be fixed quickly, however our confidence in locating the right medications and enough of it in basically a third world country that we were leaving the following evening was low…or rather non-existent.  On top of this, neither of us could get our cell phone to pick up reception (because we are on the side of a mountain in Rwanda and don’t have coverage through the annoying “Can you hear me now” guy…[Ed. note: who is he with again? It doesn’t matter, the cell phones weren’t reception-ing.]), so we couldn’t initiate our go to world travel emergency plan: call Boy’s dad…(This man is the true hero of this story by the way, as well as the hero when we got stuck on the continent of Antarctica for an extra day and almost couldn’t find a flight to Easter Island; and the on-call hero when we were unsure if we would make it out of North Korea without lots and lots of bribery money…although for that one we just left his cell phone number with our friends in Hong Kong and said to call him first if we didn’t confirm a safe arrival in China, and only after speaking to him to then call the US Embassy…) [Ed note: I got reception once on the entire drive, long enough for the automated voice to say something in some language and then hang up. Great.]

A Rwandan hospital…is open air.  There was a basic roof that almost enclosed all the walls and internal doors for exam rooms 1 and 2, but no external doors to speak of (or keep anyone/thing in or out…including the stray cats).  HIPAA laws also have no place here.  The exam room was a revolving door of spectators.   Granted, this might have had a partial correlation to us not speaking the language, however the doctor was fluent in English so the need for our normal driver, our tour company’s other employee (who was at our lodge and actually drove us), and the third unnamed participant (who I believe drove our driver from their lodge…) to be in the room with us as we explained the problem eluded me.  The doctor started examining the 7 damaged insulin pens [Ed note: completely rendered non-usable] while I showed him a PDF of an expired prescription on my phone as “proof” we should have this…

The Boy finally grabbed cell signal and got his Dad on the line.   Dad, cheerful and ready for a chat on what was his Memorial Day mid-morning, answered the call with a “hey, how’s the trip going?!”  The Boy calmly [Ed. note: Maybe “calmly” isn’t the descriptor I’d use…serious and with suppressed panic?] reminded Dad that this call was costing $10 per minute and he needed to listen closely then pull up the itinerary we e-mailed and call the emergency number listed at the bottom (which I thankfully told the Boy to include when all he wanted to list was “Find Gorillas” or “Find Lemurs” next to a country…)  With the bat-signal deployed and Dad mobilized to get someone in America (and the UK…our travel company was based in both countries so why not call everyone?!) on board to find a full resupply in Kigali or Nairobi, we returned to the imminent need: the Boy had no insulin to take tonight and only one pen of the main insulin when we were traveling with 6…[Ed. Note: one shot at night, the other when I eat. Easy and simple regime to follow…until you don’t have anymore available.]

The doctor couldn’t replace the main insulin, or match the nighttime insulin exactly, however he wrote out a prescription for some other nighttime insulin and told our driver to go down the road and collect it.  I offered Boy’s passport for identification and they said no need…then I saw the Rx was simply written for “Boy” and decided I would go along to confirm what was actually being dispensed.  The pharmacy was, unsurprisingly, open air, however there was a mini fridge from which the medicine vial came so I felt slightly relieved from that fact. [Ed. note: because insulin must be kept cold. Not frozen.] The next problem was this medicine is in a vial and the boy uses pens with screw on needle tips.   No problem, a little English to Swahili translation and I am handed a sheet of syringes…yup, nothing can go wrong now that we will be traveling with unknown medication, a bunch of loose needles, and a handwritten prescription paper (in French, so honestly who knows what it really says!) as we have to cross customs 3 times in the next 36 hours…[Ed. Note: we got this. It couldn’t be too hard, right?]

Back at the hospital, the Boy has calmed down and is showing the doctor photos on his phone (because apparently this is his favorite way to pass time in Rwanda?) [Ed. note: yeah, this one was a way to take my mind off of things. Plus the guy was interested in penguins!]  I hand over the tiny vial and the imminent danger is behind us.  We still have to solve the bigger issue at hand before we board a flight from Nairobi to Madagascar in 48 hours (because no wifi, little electricity and running water means we’re not risking the hope that we can find medicine in that country…), but our Rwandan hospital visit was basically a success.  

However, when the receipt came back for our payment for the hospital visit, he was registered in the official Rwanda computer as “Boy Boy”…and Boy is in fact a nickname so wish us luck if we ever try to obtain a full copy of his medical records in the future…especially since these were also in French.  The final puzzling part of this encounter was the payment.   I have been to a hospital in a foreign country before thanks to a very klutzy year and a broken arm in rural Ireland.  Therefore I understand that America’s astronomical healthcare system isn’t the norm elsewhere.   Be that as it may, when I was told to pay 7,000 francs and the receipt showed a charge and payment of only 1,014 francs, I couldn’t help but feel a little ripped off.  Luckily, my anxiety addled mind did manage some simple math and I decided not to fight for the equivalent of $7. This means our receipt to claim this back from travel insurance amounts to $1.50.   Think it’s worth the deductible?

When the boy gets an idea in his head, there is really no changing his focus.  Therefore, when he learned that the Susa family of gorillas was the farthest away and the biggest, his mind translated that to mean best and no other family would do.  [Ed. note: why come all this way to not make sure you visit with the best gorillas Rwanda has to offer?]  We ignored the warnings of an up to 7 hour hike, the signs from literally everyone we told in Rwanda about this hair brained plan with reactions of shock and concern, and we begged our driver to go early that morning to “fight for this group”… Which is how our lovely driver Theo took it upon himself to call around to Ruhengeri on Sunday and convince the trackers to go out specially and find the Susa family up the volcano.  Yes, even though it is now busy season, no one was trekking Susa that day…or week…or in fact no one was suspected to trek Susa for another month until all 80 gorilla permits were sold out and they needed to fill each group!  This also meant that the unlucky trio from London who just asked for a nice longer hike got grouped in with the two of us and had to endure the pain and suffering that lie ahead…

A quick recap from our round the world adventure in 2015: I don’t like to hike.  I especially don’t like to hike uphill.  And when the Boy ignores A and B, I tend to hit a stopping point and plop down allowing him to go ahead with the guide and see more of the things up, up and away while I wait at a still acceptable altitude and pine for when we are back down with a cold beer.   Recap #2: The Boy convinced me to first do this hiking madness with him years ago by bribing me with cold beers at the bottom.   I believe his track records of actually providing said beer is around 1 in 10…probably less…[Ed. Note: I call it motivation because you never know which hike will end in a beer!]

The problem with that life plan in Rwanda: the hike is 100% uphill and only stops when you find the gorillas, then it’s one hour of visiting and back downhill.  If you plop, you don’t find the gorillas you came so far to visit, plus the trackers with the very large rifle and machete have to stay with the group, so you are basically bait sitting along the trail.  Fine, so I’ll chug along, how hard can it be?  The first 30 minutes makes you think you’ll be fine.   After two 9-hour plane rides in the last 24 hours, it feels nice to move a little and the farmland you are crossing is relatively flat with happy children waving at you along the way. [Ed. note: relatively flat is relative. Compared to the mountain slope, yeah, it was pretty flat. Compared to something flat, it was quite uphill.] If you look up in front of you (instead of down like you’re supposed to because the fields are peppered with large rocks that want to trip you…), you may have given pause to the volcano peak looming surrounded by a thick jungle.   But you don’t, nor did you really think at all about where gorillas like to live and how the current 75 degree temperature might not suit them and the reason there are snow capped mountains in the world is because it is colder as you go up…

Heading into the jungle seemed innocent.  We walked about 50 feet through a bamboo forest which looked eerily similar to our friends’ back yard, so if it can sustain in Atlanta it really can’t be too bad!   Then we rounded a corner and the ground tilted.   This wasn’t a gentle roll of a hill, but rather a near vertical muddy slope we were expected to hoist ourselves up aided only by the bamboo shoots that snap in half at your touch.  I suddenly felt part of an Indiana Jones movie where you needed to solve the booby trap puzzle to encounter the treasure…and Indy was a wimp, I’ve seen all the films, his booby trap lasted 5 minutes tops and it took twice that to get up the first 400 feet…

So as we mentioned, the Boy was in a car accident a month before our trip.   No fault of his own, he was literally stopped at a red light and the large SUV driving 45 mph didn’t stop until his rear end made her Jeep…halfway into the intersection in fact.  The doctors warned us not to go, or at least to amend the activities, but the Boy is stubborn and nothing was standing in his way of the primate snuggles he planned for the past year. Unfortunately, we didn’t account for the hour and a half drive from the gorilla permit place to the start of our hike, so by the time we actually began the ascent up the mountain, all the pain medicine he had preemptively taken had worn off…and every step up jarred one or six of his herniated discs… Thankfully we hired porters so there wasn’t a backpack weighing him down along with this, but we were only half a kilometer up the hill and already had taken 2 breaks.   The long day was just getting longer…[Ed. Note: I am stubborn, and I was told I should look into cancelling the trip by both the Dr. and my PT guy.  It turns out medical professionals might know what they are talking about, because every step hurt – bad.  My legs were happy to move, my back not so much.  But as noted, I was going to find these gorillas.]

Truthfully, I have blanked on a lot of the details of this hike.   It was painful and I didn’t have an injury.   The altitude adjustment was challenging as we live not far above sea level and were climbing a mountain.   Oh, and it was a muddy rain forest jungle so my sure-footed self was missing as usual and I kept falling.   Again, thankfully we hired porters because while they lacked the turban to hoist me up, they did hold my hand for the greater portion of the the hike, both ways.   And for being farming people, his palm was surprisingly soft…

Three horrible uphill hours later, we came into a clearing and found several more trackers waiting for us…we had reached the Susa family!  At this point we dropped our hiking sticks, our porters and packs, and the armed guards, and proceeded towards the 13 members of the troop with only our cameras in hand.  We were lucky to find our gorilla family in a clearing instead of inside the jungle itself as we were able to move around them for photos and have unobstructed views.   [Ed. note: Amazing!]

It honestly wasn’t until a few days later when I was looking over the photos that I appreciated just how massive they were.   Part of this could have been that I had some solo time with a baby and he was around the size of my two year old niece (and probably just as destructive!).  The Boy however had no doubt about the actual size of these Silverbacks.   This family has 3 Silverbacks and we were hanging out with 2 of them: the main one who is 32 years old and #3 who is around 17.  When #3 was behind us, we decided to frame up a selfie, as any good American tourist must, and after we snapped the photo with our backs foolishly towards this giant beast, he was suddenly  on the move…towards us!  There was no time to react, let alone move out of his way, but not to worry, the Silverback solved that issue by shoving the Boy aside to make room! [Ed. note: gorillas are actually stronger than they look, and they look pretty strong.] It wasn’t quite the snuggle that my Boy had dreamed of, but his hip does have a beautiful bruise left behind as a souvenir…

As I mentioned, on our first night in Northern Rwanda, we felt the need to stretch our legs a bit and kick around in those awful necessities that are hiking boots, so we set out from the lodge on a quick stroll.   The driver suggested we walk down the road we had come up, but you all know the Boy by now, why would we go someplace familiar and confirmed safe when there is a perfectly lovely field of cows [Ed. note: and trees! it was a forest-esque landscape that happened to also have grass. And cows.] to our right that we could wander through.   Little did we know that this hike through farmlands would actually do a part in preparing us for Susa…or rather familiarizing us with the early Susa terrain because nothing can prepare you for that torture…except maybe Everest.

So back to the cow field…We were trudging down the grass innocently enough and heard a voice behind us.  A local teen is strolling past with some friends and says hello.  We reply warmly as we normally do and continue walking…and the teens fall in step with us to start a conversation.  I answered their questions “America…first time in Rwanda….yes, gorillas tomorrow…” and tried again to talk to my husband, but somehow these crafty teens had managed to get us into 2 rows.   The chatty one was walking with me and his two friends lagged behind with the Boy.  Try as I might, I could not fall back into step with him and he seemed completely oblivious to my attempts, as he was now showing the teens photos on his phone like a proud papa (yes, of course it was photos of his first love, the penguin…)   [Ed. note: look, they had never heard of a penguin before, so of course I needed to show them what awesome animals they are!]

Accepting this temporary fate, as we were walking towards a soccer field and the boy mentioned they had practice, I decided to roll with this brief chat and help the kid practice English as he said he desired.  The conversation quickly focused on soccer, their practice for the upcoming championship, and how they could win a scholarship from playing.  All very wonderful and I understand why these kids wanted to get out of their small village and study in Kigali for more opportunity…but then came the hard sell.   See, they had no soccer ball.  It had been damaged, so they actually could not practice.   Oh, well you can do sprints.  It’s soccer, you need to be able to run a lot!   At this point we’re very near the field where 5 other teens are waiting…I bid my friend good luck in the championship and tell the Boy we should head back now.  Oh, no worries, they will walk us…they will ALL walk us.  

Next thing you know, we’re leading an impromptu parade of Rwanda teens around cow patties…and still talking about the soccer championship and the damaged ball.  I commiserate, I offer alternative training, I quite literally turn out my pockets to show that I have no money to buy them the requested ball…but no worry, I can come back tomorrow and get them a ball, they will be around after our hike!

I about face at this point to make the Boy step up and help me out and he is taking photos of the teens and handing them his cell phone to type things…what?!  Turns out, the Boy has a new pen pal.  Yes, while I was getting the shakedown to buy the local kids a soccer ball, the Boy was giving out his e-mail address to start up a chat… [Ed. note: I thought it’d be nice to send them the photo…] Below is the first message received.   We haven’t responded yet, but will definitely at least send them the photo requested…and perhaps get their mailing address to send on that soccer ball…

 

Date: Mon, May 29, 2017 at 9:23 AM

Subject: greetings and nice trip.

 

dear sir

how are you?

how was is it to day?and how how the gorilla,s tracking?  i hope that is well?

please sir i am very interesting to mail you and to wishes to you all the best to you and to your wife.

i  would like to greeting you and to wishes you nice trip, and say hello to your wife in behalf of my name.

please sir are you remember me?  i met with you in Rwanda nearest mountain Gorilla view lodge

when you walking with your wife. you have our pictures in your camera as there guys and we gave to you our name. please sir if you are remembering me please can you let me know? will you walking again to day.?

thank you so much for your kindness and your lovely heart

i am looking forwards from you again.

love and nice trip.

Kind regards

Elisa.

So here we are, back in Africa…my favorite continent although no one who sees me in my everyday life of skirt suits and Louboutins would believe that.   I have a secret alter ego who enjoys the adventures of the great outdoors apparently…even though I hate the ugly brown boots that this requires (or perhaps I just love that this country demands daily naps and bedtime by 9 pm…).  Tomorrow we begin the first (and biggest) adventure of this trip: trekking up the volcano to find the Silverback mountain gorillas!  And at this moment, I find myself once more questioning our decision making skills because our quest is to find the Susa family…the largest, farthest family of gorillas that can be an up to a 7 hour hike uphill one way in the rain forest jungle…

Before our trip, we researched the families, we went on a few practice hikes, and we told our travel planner of our hope to see Susa above all others.   She warned us that only the very fit would be able to sustain that hike, but we could tell our local guide and try it.  We chuckled as we’re world travelers, we are completely capable of the hike.   We were on Kili after all!  (Granted, we didn’t summit Kili…and in fact we barely survived the half day hike to waterfalls while our guide chain smoked and mocked us, but that is a story for another day…)  It wasn’t until we actually arrived in Northern Rwanda, in the village of the gorillas where every employee of the lodge sees the trekkers daily before and after that we begun to question our life choices once again…

“We’re going to do Susa tomorrow!” said your favorite wanderers to whomever would listen.  

“Oh…wow…you’ll need a packed lunch” replied the hotel manager with a look of maternal concern.  She’s just like my mom, a worry wart.

“We’re going to be in the Susa group” we told the gang of local high school students who joined us for a pre-dinner walk through the cow fields (just in case that hotel manager’s face held any truth, we wanted to stretch the legs and break back in the boots for an hour today…)

“That is very, very far” the teenagers told me in their practiced English…and then suggested we help fund their needed soccer ball now instead of tomorrow just in case…

“We’re doing Susa” we told the waiter as we ordered our packed lunch after dinner.

“Oh, ummm….oh, yes” he stammered with a shocked look of panic and fear.

Alright, so we might have a history of making bad decisions when we travel (see secret trip to North Korea, et all…), but at this point even we took pause to think about what these signs (or rather very shocked reactions of the locals) actually meant.   Was the plan to see Susa really so outlandish for two 30-ish year old, mildly fit people?   We hiked…a few times a year.  We didn’t join the American expats living in Lagos for their pre-dinner cocktails (even though they brought some really good duty free bourbon…) and settled for beer instead.   And even though we didn’t disclose it to anyone important, we had completely accounted for my husband’s recent back injury (six bulging discs…) due to a car wreck when finalizing the Susa group decision!  [Ed. note: we really hadn’t completely accounted for the accident. Physical therapy for a month only reinforced that my back was not exactly in a good happy trekking place…]

We can totally do this…and if we can’t let’s hope the porter is wearing a turban for that essential haul up the mountain just like the Berber man on the Saharan desert dunes…

Hello again, long lost friends and family!   Your favorite wanderers are back at it again, in a very abbreviated 17 day fashion because real life is hard and 2016 was boring.   Our giant hiking backpacks have been stuffed once more (and somehow weigh more than when we left for 88 days…) and the Boy threw a pin at a zoo map and decided we needed to find a way to cuddle the Silverback mountain gorillas in Rwanda and all the lemurs of Madagascar.  [Ed. note: really though, I was thinking about neat categories of animals I haven’t cuddled yet and decided “rare primates” fit the bill.] You know, two simple to locate and friendly species to add to the list…

So the next couple weeks will be our trip in review…sadly this time we aren’t posting live simply because there isn’t infrastructure in Madagascar to support lots of paved roads, running water, or electricity for the full day, so sufficient wifi to write, edit, post along the way seemed ambitious!   [Ed. note: wifI? Hahahaha] The good news is, you know that we ended up home (or currently as far as Paris…) safely and basically in the same state as we left!  

In case you need a reminder of the set up, I write the stories, the Boy peppers in his cheeky editor notes, and after each country he does a wrap up with extra pictures and a map of our stops.  

Enjoy the adventures!