UP A MOUNTAIN, DOWN A HILL

Mt Elgon, 27 February 2002

I've earned my 15 minutes of fame within the Mt Elgon guides and porters community - and boy, did I earn it!
The porter who accompanied me - in the absence of a ranger guide - for most of the trudge down the mountain was so impressed by my sterling performance he presented me with a bunch of matoke - the unsweet bananas which make up much of the diet of most East Africans. A "bunch" of bananas up here isn't measured in quite the same terms as the bunch you buy in a western supermarket. Here they measure the size of the stem which comes off the tree, holding dozens of bananas at a time.
Matoke can be used in much the same way as potatoes and they are quite tasty when you adapt to them not being yellow and sweet.
The hike started far less auspiciously than it ended, with Lisa electing to stay at base camp and look after Tigger while I went trekking with Yolande and Gilles, our Dutch fellow travellers. Within half an hour of beginning, and before we reached the top of the first hill, my left knee started playing up.
This was an old mountain biking injury which until now had not expressed itself in any other activity and I began to worry that I might not make it to the top.
By the end of the first day's tramp through bamboo forests to Tutum Cave and its waterfall, I was spending more time worrying about my knee than admiring the scenery.

Walk in the park
After a chilly shower in the waterfall, a wholesome meal of soya stew and bread, and a good night's sleep, I was ready for day 2 and the aches and pains it brought with it: a sore knee, tender hips (the rucksack's hipbelt), and a brew of threatening blisters (the result of good, expensive, lousy hiking boots).
Yes, I do sound like an old crock - and by then I was beginning to feel like one, hobbling along, groaning quietly to myself and wondering if I'd make it.
Estimated to have been one of the largest volcanos in Africa at its peak (sorry, couldn't resist!) about 24 million years ago, Elgon is now only 4 321 m high but it's still hard work getting up it, and I huffed and puffed through the day as my cigarette-damaged lungs realised how little oxygen there was around me.
The advantage of going up this mountain, in comparison to Mts Kilimanjaro ($800) or Kenya ($250) is that it only costs $90 and is visited by far fewer people and so has a more isolated, quieter sense of tranquility.
By the time we reached the second camp just after lunch, I was ready for a nap after soaking my feet in the frigid waters of the stream and a hearty peanut butter sandwich lunch.
The exercise was getting to me and I discovered previously untapped wells of sleepiness and hunger, scoffing unrelentingly monotonous stews of instant noodles and soya with true gourmand gusto.

Lazy sod
The sods who laid out this trail obviously did so with some sadistic forethought, with every day starting with a steep uphill. Fortunately the third morning brought some respite, Gilles offering to carry my pack and doing it for the rest of the day.
It was the third day which proved to be the turning point, with Yolande and myself wheezing for breath while Gilles soldiered on, appearing not to notice the weight on his back.
My knee stopped aching sometime during the day and I spent most of hike wondering if it had gone for good or would be back just as I began to hope my problems were solved.
Instead of stopping where we thought we were going to stop, Betty the AK 47-toting ranger guide surprised us with the news that we were in for another three hours hiking (which turned into four) to reach a camp nearer the summit. It proved to be a nicer camp and made the fourth morning's early start for the top that much easier.
We tried telephoning my sister from this camp - Mude Camp - but you just can't find a good mobile phone network nowadays, even if you are roaming!
The next morning, before getting out of the tent I indulged in a spaghetti act to put on every item of clothing I had with me - thermal long johns, leggings over that and shorts on top of those, with T-shirt covered by fleece and rain jacket over that, plus beanie. We'd been warned the wind on the summit was icy even though the temperature wasn't all that cold.

All dressed up
Looking like a licorice allsorts man, I finally climbed out of the tent to be met by a cup of tea brewed by Gilles - I love that sort of service.
As we followed Betty to the summit - a 3 hour walk - we began huffing and puffing more and more and reaching the summit was a bit of a disappointment: it doesn't have the typical "top of the world feel" and we were so busy trying to catch our breaths we hadn't noticed we'd arrived.
Gilles and Yolande were taking a different route down so Betty escorted me to another group going down the way I was and then left to rejoin Gilles and Yolande. I was stuck with a group of really slow walkers, two of whom wanted to stop every 3 paces to take pictures of plants that I thought they'd photographed 10 minutes before.
I eventually stomped off on my own until I found where the porters were lounging waiting for us and, accompanied by Chilemo Michael, started down to the overnight camp.
When we reached it, it was still early in the afternoon and we decided to push on to the next camp, thinking we'd gain some privacy by being the only people there and leaving only a 2 hour walk back to the exploration centre the next day.
But by the time we got to Tutum Cave, my feet were too sore to contemplate taking the boots off and put them on again the following morning. We were also so close I wanted to get home and see Lisa again.

A woman's place
Lisa, I found out later, had spent the four days doing really interesting things - washing, cleaning the truck and yakking to the women in the kitchen as they prepared another meal for 60-odd kids visiting the centre.
She found it quite amazing how the women managed, cooking over open fires in pots the size of Merlin's cauldron, hacking firewood into fire-sized bits and redistributing the hot coals with cold fingers.
Kitchen implements are kept to a minimum, largely due to cost and the distance to the nearest household wares boutique, and those that are used are traditional in nature. Mashing matoke is done by hand - literally - with the hands dipped into cold water when things got too hot.
I don't know whether this had anything to do with it but Lisa was enthralled by the sense of humour displayed by the women working in the smoky kitchen and the hospitality, with free food for the 4 days she stayed there. Of course, the food consisted of matoke, maize and beans in gravy for lunch and supper.
She did less than her fair share of work in return, helping to carry water up from the river in 20 litre jerry cans. We may one day make a reasonable domestic servant out of her!

Did I really ...
The last two hours of walking were a little painful - when we arrived and I saw the size of the blisters, I wasn't surprised! We arrived in the camp at about 8 pm, after 13 hours of walking. I was told that I was the first visitor to walk from the peak down to the Exploration Centre in a single day.
The following morning, as I tottered across the lawn to the kitchen, I learned that I'd walked 58 km the day before. "Stupid sod," I thought - but I did get a bunch of bananas for my efforts.