Rwanda -

In Januanuary 2011, I made my way to Rwanda after climbing Kilimanjaro. Rwanda is beautiful, The countryside is beautiful, and Rwandan women are beautiful. Rwanda is nothing I expected. Im slowely learning that the media we receive about african life and current events is a total misconception of what is really out there. ..But ill leave it at that. I just need to say, that East africa is an amazing place and east africans are some of the coolest and kindest people ive met when traveling.

So with that out of the way, Ill quickley describe a trek I did in the Jungle on the border of the DRC and Rwanda. When we took off at six in the morning, you meet in a single spot to receive your gorilla tracking permits. There, you group up with other travelers in your fitness range and you take off in search of the some of the few remaining mountain Gorilla of Volcanes National Park. A place made famous my Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist -

We started out hiking up the volcano walking through what seemed like an endless collection of african farm houses and Farmers tending to their fields. The children would chase after us laughing and calling me an "ageezy" meaning white man - ha

Then after a fewe hours, we came to the last farm, and there we faced the wall of a bamboo forrest. I also need to take a minute to say how much I hate bamboo. The only way to describe it, is that its like walking through a forrest where people are constantly punching you in the face and all over your body as you try to push through, and crawl under or around the stems of that horendous plant. Death to Bamboo.

So after the bamboo forrest, the Jungle became more abd more dense - Giant bushes of stinging nettel - the thickness of natural jungle made it so the only way to move forward was to chop with the machete - Two hours in, the jungle plantlife was so thick, that we stopped even touching the soil, and we were just walking on a raised layer of plantlife. All the while was hot and damp and uphill. I was exhausted and still quite sore from Kilimanjaro 4 days before, and this jungle was trying its hardest to push me back and spit me out -

Eventually we reached amazingly peaceful bowl shaped valley with calm wind and quiet with only the random bird making a noise - As we stopped to rest for a minute, I saw two black medium sized gorilla climbing the lush green walls of the valley. My jaw dropped. I was expecting to see a gorilla or two, but part of me, the cinic in me thought Id only get to see a gorilla for a split second as it ran away - not for a minute would I expect to see what I was about so witness.

As we climbed up after the two gorilla; up the almost vertical wall of plants, while the guide was haking away with his machete, I was in front - and at the top he stopped and pointed towards a bush that was to my left - There in a shadowy little hole, a giant Silverback Gorillas Ivory Black face was sniffing and staring right at me from about three feet away. My heart stopped and we just stared at eachother. Absolutly crazy.





We then walkked around the bush and saw that we were in a clearing, and there, layijng down and relaxing like lazy tired humans, were about 20 gorilla; the biggest, the silverback, the size of one of those smart cars. The smallest, a 1 year old baby. I froze. My heart stopped. They didnt do anything other than raise an eyebrow to check us out - The feeling of being there with these creatures in their own domain was nothing words can describe.

Suddenly, a huge female gorille that was sleeping a few feet away from me, sat up, rested her head on her arms in the most human way imaginable, and looked at me, right at me into my eyes and stared and I put my camera down and stared back - It was like she was touching my soul and I was speechless. That was the best moment -

Then, suddenly, another got up and ran super fast right at me and sat down next to me - THe guide said softly in a calm way "please slowley backup up sir" as if to say - "you are in danger sir, please move away calmly before you get your face ripped off." My heart was beating crazy fast and I slowley moved and started taking pictures of the baby that was jumping around and playing with the elders -




I ended up spending a little over an hour with the Susa Gorilla family, and it ended up being one of the most moving experiences of my life.

Rwanda

Kilimanjaro

Im in Africa! Its amazing here. There's a energy that Ive never experienced. A feeling of excitement and vitality that's pumping some much needed life back into me after a years hard work. After I arrived in Niarobi, I chartered a bus to take me into Tanzania to a small town called Moshi. Moshi is a small city surrounded by farming villages that has been pretty built up in the center thanks to the thriving trekking trade. There, I got a hotel, and the next day, after a meeting with my guide, began the task of climbing Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjaro is an incredibly symmetrical and picturesque mountain that towers above Moshi. It barely looks difficult and I cant say that I really thought the trek would be a challenge. Now that I am off the mountain, exhausted and spent, I feel like i need to say that I completely underestimated Kilimanjaro. Its looks are deceiving.

Where from the ground it looks to be just a steady, smooth uphill climb that eventually reaches a slightly bulbous peak....I now know that Kilimanjaro is not a smooth gradual dayhike, but rather, an endless climb of up and down (mostly up)covered with its own mountains and valleys on its craggy surface. Daily, I found myself walking baby step after baby step making my way towards each camp.

With my walking stick, we climbed each day higher and higher. The Views were amazing. No matter what day- looking down, you see miles upon miles of east African plains, looking up was the beckoning peak. Sometimes bathed in red evening light - sometimes covered in mountain mist that seemed to move in with incredible speed. It was beautiful, peacefull, and freezing cold.



The Toilets. The Toilets were disgusting. holes in the ground full of waste, and you were lucky to have a door.

Also the other thing I need to mention is the porters. No matter how much I write how hard it was to climb Kilimanjaro, I really have no place to complain, because as I walked up slowley with my daypack, I was always accompanied by a group of porters that carried tents, food, and general supplies in backpacks three times the size of muy own, and often with low quality gear that makes us westerners look like pathetic whiney children. The porters of Kilimanjaro are amazing to watch, and talk to. They deserve real respect.



Summit Day:

Summet day wet down like this. When we arrived to camp, we were on the side of a windy rocky outcropping. There were tons of camp groups, and just as we arrived, two porters were carrying a young woman down who was suffering mounting sickness. People coming down from the mountain looked destroyed. There were blasts of wind blowing away tents and porters were chasing after them. I ate lunch and went to my tent to sleep at about 3pm. I didnt sleep a wink -

At about 1130pm, I got the wake up call. It was freezing and put on about 8 layers of clothing - I stepped out of the tent to see millions apon millions of stars. The combination of being so high, with pretty much no light polution from the surrounding african villages at the bottom of the mountain made it the most star filled sk I had ever seen. I drank a cup of tea, grabbed my walking stick, turned on my headlamp, and we started climbing.

The climb was rediculous. Up...and up for hours upon hours. in complete frozen darkness, we climbed up the loose volcanic gravel zigzaging under the stars and in freezing temperatures. I was shaking.. the more I sweat, the more I froze. I was in this wierd state of wanting to sit and rest, but if I stopped, I would start getting chilled to the bone, and so we walked. Slowely and at pace. People were being carried down the mountain from altitude sickness..and you would see sicky faces lit by thrir own headlamps and it was a scene of some wierd scifi war space scene -

When I looked back from time to time, there was the craziest view of an extreemly long trail of hundreds of headlamps of other groups in a line behind us making their way up. It was such a strange sight because you could almost make out the entire path you had made and that was all you could really make out of howe much progress you had made because it was so black, that you feltt like you were on some sort of terrible headlight lit, uphill, mountain treadmill. You really had no concept of pregress except for the light trail. It was completly sureal.

So the end is pretty much how youd expect. I reached the top at 6am. Ten minutes after i got there, the sun rose up slowley and gave view to an amazing panoramic vista that was so breathtaking, you almost forgot the paint and cold you felt. The view was flooded with pinks and purples and I swear you could almost make out the curvature of the earth from up there. The Glacier at the top, though much smaller these days apparently, was cracking and crumbling as the temperature rose and it echoed across the beautiful crater and down to the valley that was slowley waking up for another day in east Africa.

This was the highest I had ever been, and Im glad to of been lucky enough to of had this experience.

Everest Base Camp -

Well..Ive been meaning to write about my trek to Everest Base Camp, but I just never got around to It. But to Summarize, In 2009 I flew to Nepal, and met up with the same guides I had in Annapurna, and we climbed to Everest. It was. of course, an amazing experience in beautiful Nepal, and Ill try to come back to this post and really put in some detail -

Alex