1983 2 of 4
TRAVEL SUMMARY OF HAWAII AND LOS ANGELES, May 10 - 27, 1983
TUE,MAY 10: Wake at 6 and Jean-Jacques and I get 7:27AM subway to plane. 9:45-11:45 flight almost totally clear for viewing the United States. Cab to Amy's and she drives us to the Getty Museum: I'd seen the ORIGINAL statues (from the Italian villa he's reproduced) in Naples last year! Great collection of French furnishings. To Bonaventure Hotel for drinks in rotating cocktail lounge and back for Siamese Gardens dinner with Amy and Adam.
WED,MAY 11: Cross street to watch joggers at Santa Monica oceanfront, then we drive to LaBrea for fascinating museum of tarred bones and spend less than a half-hour in the LA Country Museum, which is worth much more time. Taxi to airport and fly 1:25 to 3:30 (local times; 5-hour flight). Phone Ben Carpenter and he invites us to his place. Rent car, get lost, chat with them, then north from 6:30 to 7:30 in dark to find the Laniloa Hotel and Restaurant for $40.
THU,MAY 12: Watch sunrise on ocean, north to the Banzai Pipeline surfing area, gratified that it's not at all touristy, and spend 3 1/2 hours at Waimea Falls: great flowers and Hawaiian games. Drive back through pineapple plantations to airport for 40-minute flight to Hilo, get our camper, and drive south to Kamoamoa Campground along scenic local roads for awful camper-cooked dinner.
FRI,MAY 13: Shut windows at midnight for rain. Watch clouded sunrise at 6. Along Chain of Craters road, visiting the current and old volcanic craters, and have lunch along the Halemaumau rim. To Information House for movies and exhibits, through the Thurston Lava Tube, then down to Kalapana for black-sand beach, painted church, and mangos on the road. Back through Hilo to Akaka Falls Park, sensationally beautiful, and overnight at Lapahoehoe Park.
SAT,MAY 14: Good sunrise at 5:48, up to Waipio Overlook in cloudy haze, and around to the Parker Ranch Museum, mediocre. North to Kohala and around to Pololu Overlook, then down to Keokea Beach for lunch. Blazing hot sun at Lapakahi Ethnographic park, then down to Kailua for overnight at the airstrip.
SUN,MAY 15: Rains through the night again. Jean-Jacques enjoys the beach and I write, having gotten too much sun already. Back north to the saddle road and up to 9,000 feet on Mauna Kea, where Jean-Jacques meets French astronomers who drive us to the 13,800-foot telescopes on top of the tallest mountain in the world (considering it comes from 20,000 feet below the surface of the ocean). Get a grand tour (in French) and I get a touch of altitude sickness. They serve us lunch and we're down about 4PM. Back to Hilo via Rainbow Falls, take a lovely four-mile scenic drive. End up at Kolekole with mango-orange dessert.
MON,MAY 16: Re-see Akaka and back to Hilo for 9-9:30 flight to Kahului on Maui. Get camper and ice for the icebox and groceries and up to Iao Needle for our first taste of wall-to-wall tourists. Good lunch in the deluxe Iao Broiler. East along the totally spectacular (and dangerous) Hana Road to find the Seven Pools JUST at 7:30, when TOTAL darkness sets in. Park right at ocean to eat.
TUE,MAY 17: Almost alone at Seven Pools in showers, then trouble starting the engine. To Charles Lindberg's grave at the Kipahulu Congregational Church. Get eaten by mosquitos at the Keanae Arboretum, worth it for the candy-striped Mindanao Gum Trees. Drive up Haleakala Crater at 3PM for spectacular clouds, stay for sunset and then for sleeping, wrapped in blankets against the cold.
WED,MAY 18: Up for sunrise that never happens, and I walk back to camper in freezing blowing drizzle. Fly 11-11:30, over Molokai, to Waikiki, then fly 11:40-12 to Kauai. That was with changing planes, too! Hawaiians take planes like New Yorkers take taxis; and at $29.95 air-fare between islands, they're about the same price, too. Get camper and have best meal of trip in the tiny Puhi Restaurant, a Hawaiian platter for $3.50: DELICIOUS coconut-gelatin Houpia, awful poi, great taro-wrapped pork of Laulau, and Chicken Longrice, along with a spicy salmon salad. I get flat tire on road: that kills 3 hours as someone drives out to fix it. No restaurants where we are, so we're back to eat in an atmospheric local dive with ukuleles playing and Hawaiians singing.
THU,MAY 19: Look out over Waimea Canyon Rim, breakfast in Kokee restaurant, up to Kalalau Lookout and Mount Poipu, trail a bit improved over my walk there in 1971. Swing back for lunch at the Puhi Restaurant, good chili this time, and up to Molaa Beach for snorkeling: not much coral, but good fish to watch. West to Annini Beach for clouded sunset and good dinner: we're getting into it.
FRI,MAY 20: Drive to Haena and walk along the NaPali cliffs to a flooded stream that prevents further travel. Back to "Create-a-Steak" for lunch and to THE most touristy sight: Wailua Fern Grotto: Nice woods, lousy tourists! 20-minute 5PM flight to Honolulu, rent another car, and return to Laniloa after a deluxe dinner at the Crouching Lion Inn, ending with double-crust hot-banana pie.
SAT,MAY 21: Spend day in interesting Polynesian Cultural Center, though the tour to Laie oversells Mormons, who run the place. Drive back to airport to find our 10:30 flight is delayed to 12:30! Dinner, watch people, and doze.
SUN,MAY 22: Fly 1:30-9 (local times, again) and Jean-Jacques goes to catch his flight to New York in time for a 9PM flight tonight to Paris. Long jaunt! I taxi to Amy's, wash clothes, and nap for a lot of the day, joining them and friends for Mexican food, ending watching "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid."
MON,MAY 23: Rent an "Ugly Duckling" car and drive to Disneyland by 11AM. Not many lines for anything and re-see all my favorite rides and a few good new ones, like the Inner Space Microworld, which I ride twice. Amy cooks dinner.
TUE,MAY 24: Drive to Magic Mountain by 11:45, lots of good rides, including the new Freefall that's like dropping off a 13-story building. Stop at the Bradbury Building in "beautiful downtown LA"; dinner at Ma Maison: $153 for 3.
WED,MAY 25: Look at developed slides of Hawaii trip, taco lunch, and to Universal Studios tour, good but not great. Out for take-out fish and ribs.
THU,MAY 26: Down to the Queen Mary and the Spruce Goose; up to Actualism for a body-session; visit the Santa Monica Pier, and dinner with Amy at Spago.
FRI,MAY 27: Fly back 10:30-6:30 local times. Busy (and expensive) trip.
In summary, the enduring Hawaiian sights are the volcanos and Akaka Falls on the Big Island of Hawaii; the crater of Haleakala on Maui; and the beaches, wildness, and sheer physical beauty of the entire island of Kauai, particularly Waimea Canyon, the Kalalau Lookout, and the NaPali cliffs. The road on Maui around to Hana will be even better when it's improved and they manage to continue paving the road all around that end of the island. Though I've been there twice, in 1971 and in 1983, each time for about 10 days, and once in 1981 as just a day stopover, there are still things I haven't gotten around to seeing: the tourist center of Lahaina on Maui, the various Pearl Harbor exhibits---and I'd love to take the helicopter flights over the Kalalau Valley. This time I saw remains of an eruption only a month before, but I'd still love to see these "tame" volcanos in eruption. I don't doubt but that I'll return to find many things changed and many things the same, sometime in the 1990's. Puzzled only by the fact that I'd heard hydrofoils were replacing inter-island hops---I guess the three highly competitive inter-island airlines stopped them.
6/1/83: It seems there should be some new format for writing. This will start with a dream, continue through thoughts, and end up with something that would properly belong to "IT." The dream was pretty bad, and it followed a night of coming awake and going back to sleep, as if "something were going on." After a class in which I experienced such intense personal joy that I again was "hounded" by a vision of an immense cloud-white and sky-pure horse with a mane of red-gold flames, the powerful epitome of physicality (based in no small part on a feeling-filled dinner at Noodles with David Hoch that started with a small glass of white wine and ended with anisette-filled coffee), I went to sleep at l:l5. Then, past times of waking at 6 and 7, I had a vivid dream in which a Sylvester Stallone-type and I were wandering on some kind of trip (prompted no doubt by my debate about joining David and his gay Rolfer friend on a one-week trip to Rio to visit Dorothy Hunter for the first week in July) which involved some sort of gold-link ruby-and-sapphire-inset necklace that had become a chain used in torture. It proved that he had something to do with the discomfiture of our present captors, and though I tried to influence him not to brag about the fact that we HAD the chain, he flaunted it until our captors realized that he WAS the cause of some of their discomfort, and they resolved to punish him, but the pain he was suffering and their delight in his torture grew so much that they stripped off his pants and began lashing his genitals with the cutting edges of the golden chain. He began to scream and plead for mercy, but that seemed to goad his torturers to flay him even harder. The scene began to be played out in silhouette and, far from being sexual in that I might enjoy the sight of his body, I so cringed at the thought of his pain---and the certainty that his torture was to the death and I didn't want to be there to witness it---that I BEGAN TO CONTROL THE DREAM and knew that it would be better if I simply fainted, and somehow knew that I HAD CONTROL OF FAINTING, both in my dream and out of it. I woke without that sweaty feeling I get when I've had the very worst of dreams, and the IMPORT of what I had done began to seep through to me: I had WILLED ABSENCE from a scene, WILLED NONEXPERIENCE of a painful sequence of events, which circumstance with only a tiny bit of expansion became the possibility of WILLING DEATH when life got too unpleasant! I lay thinking about it, feeling the pleasure of it; remembering class last night when I thought of myself as holding ill-will FOR EVERY LIFE (in my own personal train of lives) BUT MY HERE-NOW ONE---and here-now I was actually facing the possibility of TERMINATING a here-now experience (by fainting, by withdrawing voluntarily my perception of it). I lay in wonder, and through my mind began to fall crystal-drops of music, seemingly random, then slowly taking the pattern of the limpid notes of Pachabel's "Canon." La....La....La....La... ..and again, as in class last night, a feeling of intense personal joy began to fill and amaze me: a sense of work accomplished and financial benefits reaped; a sense of pleasures to come: movies, museums, plays, friends, travel, writing, reading. The pleasures of Actualism and its teachers (Anne having read all of Nabokov), my friends (a possible trip to the Caribbean with Paul, "Chuck Magistro" exhibiting his paintings in a 57th Street gallery, even Susan with her constantly nagged-at problems and Dennis with his dog-like desire to be petted for merely existing), work (more computer work, more indexes, more learning, more adventure, expansion into color and music and games), and enjoyment (reading more Nabokov, writing this, sorting stamps, organizing my life in yet another way, communicating yet another changed point of view to Jon thanks to attending his classes). I lay and almost FLOATED with the solitary notes of the Canon, thinking of the statement that "our strengths become the crux of our greatest problems, yet they have to be faced---the repressed and suppressed has to be brought to the surface---or the turmoil of the inner may be reflected in physical upheavals in the surface of the earth itself: the process is accelerating, events are coming to a head, and I recall the absolute feeling of POWER when Barbara, with awe, mentioned that WE were members of hierarchy, WE had the power to control Logoic events---and I saw ENORMOUSLY POWERFUL individuals arranged casually about the room looking on with a mixture of amusement and love at one of them touching on their puissant presence.
Then, of course, there's the delight with words, and the formulating and expressing of them. Then, sadly, again there's the thought of the FORM of the words. I can write them, but what form do I keep them in; how do I preserve them so that they're accessible to modification and indexation and publication. When I had only a typewriter it was obvious that I type on pages and arrange those somehow in notebooks. Now that I have a computer, so far all I've done is continue the typewriter format: print into pages and file into notebooks. But somewhere is the needed formatting and encoding of writing so that there are indexable terms, categorizable paragraphs, diskette storage, so that my writing becomes more a string of words (even without line endings, as here) that I can manipulate as needed later. But I have to come up with the format!
To return for a moment to PEOPLE: in my pleasure I thought of sharing this sensed bliss with others: tell Jon about it, try to share it with David.
At that point I PHONE David, and he's rather closed to it: have to learn to harmonize with people before trying to get close to them. Then Arnie phoned for a long talk, and I did the New York puzzle, and I got into other things, so I decided to shut this off and DO other things.
6/13/83: 1AM: Beyond "Soylent Green" for the impression of a New York of the future:
Beyond anyone's fears of alienation and depression: my ride home from David's
after his 40thBirthday party, which much have ended only minutes ago, since his birthday was actually on 6/l3, but his party started at 5PM 6/l2. The subway was filled mainly with Blacks, with a smattering of the lowest-class Whites, but the impression was one of WANT, NEED, and the force of it was to make my mere piddly need for someone to caress look negligible: this was naked raw WANT: with no hope of satisfaction, no real prospect of fulfillment, just WANT without satiation. My drunk from the champagne and wine and good men and good women threw into contrast their essentially SOLITARY lives without ANYONE, and at this point I'm entirely too drunk to finish this statement, but at least I had the presence of mind to turn on the computer and start to write. I can't decide yet whether it's more or less convenient than the typewriter---it has to be more because I can see the mistakes that I make and correct them as I go along and not be saddled with them afterward: what a group of DESIRABLE people he had there: any of the women, not many willing to say, as Barbara Ellmaker did, that most of them wanted other men: and then them men: Bob from downstairs, tied in with the faggot in the pink trousers; Jeffrey, who doesn't desire me, who is desired by me; David, wanting everything and getting nothing, including me, and others who were too beautiful for me even to talk with. What an exercise in frustration, as this is, and I MUST get to bed.
7/6/83: 5PM: I feel so incredibly NEGATIVE toward plot of "La Traviata." Hinging on her ACCEPTING Germont's plea that his DAUGHTER'S LOVER would break off THEIR engagement if Alfredo doesn't return to the family. THEN, at the END, they are reunited with NO WORD of the daughter or marriage. Was it a lie? Or inconsequential? And then the LUXURY: with gaming, costumes, surroundings, capped by "Let's go to dinner" of food and drink. How FEW people in the world LIVE like this, while BILLIONS starve and millions more struggle in poverty. Is one of the results of Actualism the fact that these "pleasures" seem so hollow on screen? Yes, SOME of the melody is lovely, but couldn't it be directed more POSITIVELY? And then the attention to the decor and THINGS---just to make us envy the TRAPPINGS of such a life without having to WORK for them? Yet, reason says, even the LUXURY is false---She has her illness, the unairconditioned heat and unwarmed cold would be AWFUL. The clothes would smell from lack of sanitation and the life expectancy was about 30. Things are obviously better NOW, that we can even savor THSE fruits (opera, style, movies) of the past and pile experience on experience endlessly---EXCEPT that it DOES end, as it did for Violetta, by dying too young. All the lights go out, all the fine fabrics fade, all the lovely skin sallows over old bones. And for what? If not to leave children, at least to enjoy each passing moment. That IS all there is, yet I think of fear of death while planning a trip, working for money while enjoying Hawaii, and resist indexing or working on pages until the last moments. AND I SO WANT someone, looking at beauties on street and in movies and in fast-food shops and in subways---LOVELY people even living in my building, and going to my gym, and participating in Actualism (the lovely Brian Lamb getting Leslie Moed's phone number and Kevin Blackburn remembering MY name while giving his love to Barbara Ellmaker, married twice). Then quibble---OH, ll2 minutes ISN'T 2 hours and twelve minutes, so a 3PM movie CAN end at 5PM fairly! The joys are SO evanescent: evenings at rest in Hawaii, the pleasures of Disney's "Silly Symphonies" and Mickey Mouse films, "Wargames," it goes so fast and I'm left wanting MORE and MORE. It's the SAME story another cycle HIGHER on the spiral: I've HAD more and want more STILL: before I go I want l) the Holbein at the Morgan, 2) "Nabucco" tonight, 3) the double of "Absence of Malice" and "Blue Thunder" at the St. Marks tomorrow AFTER 4) taking my passport from Tanzania to Ethiopia and BEFORE 5) having dinner with Sherryl and giving her the birthday gift of "The Mind's I" so that I can discuss philosophy with her. And speaking of philosophy I have to 6) call Rolf and somehow get AUTO registration form to him IF he's inspected the auto. And 7) figure what to do for the trip, AND 8) buy the camera lens, and 9) more pants. AND l0) deposit money and withdraw cash and ll) get AAA traveler's checks and OTHER things, too, like l2) cleaning the apartment and l3) writing Mom and Rita and others, sending out PAST travel sheets, l4) emptying out the refrigerator, l5) putting up the alarm system, l6) giving keys to John, l7) finishing the corrections for the HBJ work, l8) delivering Dennis's index to Churchill Livingston, l9) and lunch with Susan on Friday. 20) Phone Joe and David and Paul---not to mention 2l) getting plans for tomorrow morning from Arnie! More now, more later, and worry about AIDS and dying and flying and dying and getting old and dying. Still not troubled with "having nothing to do" and dying. And I'm still IRRITATED at people around me: eaters in Thalia and paper-rustlers here, and worry about cold in Central Park tonight, but still THRILL to see Citicorp and Chrysler and ESB rising over the East River as the BMT from the Brooklyn Board of Health on Flatbush Avenue Extension after I got the stamp of NYC on the Cholera revaccination I just got---and I gotta 22) get Aralen prescription filled and start TAKING it---and music starts at 5:20. l2:45AM 7/8: Well, of the 22 in the list I've done 6: 2,3,4,5, and l9 and 2l have been cancelled. AND went to Marigold for dinner LAST night, interesting, and Metali tonight, interesting, and "Blue Thunder" was just a SUPER movie, and I'm still so enthusiastic at the bottom of THIS page that I'll continue with the corrections to HBJ Chapter 8.
And when I look at this on 9/23, I've DONE EVERYTHING I'D WANTED TO DO!!
Again the ultimate (?) PLEASURE is to do WHAT I want to do WHEN I want to do it, and AS I TYPE (which may be part of the reason I WANTED to type) it occurs to me that if I could get MORE of doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, I would feel less "pressed" by the idea of a death in the future which might prevent me PERMANENTLY doing what I've been wanting to do. I KNOW from experience that reading is fun, but too much reading palls
that orgasms are fun, but too much cuming palls
that stamps are fun, but too much stamping palls
that movies and plays and TV are fun, but too much palls
that shopping, when desired, is fun, but it's not fun undesired
that friends are fun, but not when I fervently wish to be alone
that even the current "expansion," Actualism, can get "too much"
that EVEN sorting and organizing CAN weary me and lead to "going on"
so that finally even "going on" may become more attractive that mere "staying."
Oh, how much to be desired. And it WAS connected with the ULTIMATE, wasn't it?
AFRICA TRIP, July 12 - August 14, 1983
TUESDAY, JULY 12: Try getting to bed at 12:25 AM and toss and turn. THOUGHT I was TIRED, but I FRET. Finally up at 1:25 and read Nabokov's "Quartet" till 3:30, STILL not bleary. Try to sleep, counting backward from 99, but at 70 I keep being distracted. Awake till 4:30 and maybe sleep till 5:30, light out. Damn, damn, damn! Toss miserably till 6:15, and then up to scrub kitchen floor, apportion pills, and start getting things out for packing. Breakfast about 10, and don't get out to bank till 11:15. Get $3000 for AAA, but NO slide films and NO cotton pants! Lots left to DO. Michael's in at 11:45, and stuff's THERE. Out at 12:15 after hearing from David, and get NY State book and free Amex checks at AAA. Over for about 20 minutes in the Morgan for $1 for the Holbein, mostly portrait sketches but SOME lovely paintings, and to Michael's to find Air France is STILL not confirmed. Leave with $329 cash and $2800 TC = $3129 and I already SPENT $499 + $60 + $1450 = $2009, for a total of $5138, and get back with $1302, so I spent $3836 for 34 days, or $113/day! Michael prepares to type and I get to Modell's in Grand Hyatt Hotel (!) and buy $13 white cotton painter's pants and $10 all-cotton loose jeans for the trip. Back in 95E HEAT. Over to Ethiopia at 3:15 to find I HAVE the visa! Slog (TIRED!) to 47th Street Photo at 4 and it's a CIRCUS. Wait to 4:20 to find I could have bought the Mamiya system from THEM for $140 for body and lens and flash, and they don't MAKE the zoom-lens anymore! Ask Bob Hoebermann when I see Iroquois, and he recommends Olden, but THEY don't have it. To Camera Barn and at Willoughby's I don't hear "I'll look" and debate paying $200 for a BODY and zoom lens. He HAS it, AND a wide-angle lens and TAKE them and another tray for $360! Onto subway at 5:25 and ask for 7PM car at 5:55 and get laundry. Shower and eat and rush and delay cab till 7:15 and get to airport at 7:50 for $23. THEN spend $180 for for 10-22x50 zoom binoculars! Tabulate money, as I FORGOT to do for Hawaii. So far the WORST time was 6:30AM. At 8:45 we start boarding our 747: I get seat 21-1, Michael's reservation for 42-1 did NOT go through, but seat IS empty, but over the WING. I take smoking. Drat! But I get WINDOW! Write this till 9:46, starting to get antsy and nervous and TIRED. Neat "games" article on computer Designer in "Ambassador." We start moving at 9:25, announced flying time of 6 hours and 55 minutes to Paris before going on to Tel Aviv. Empty seat in middle. Talk to "artist" during dinner at 11:30. Brilliant crescent moon and Venus until 10:30. Lightning storm to north.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13: "My Favorite Year" I don't need again. AURORA BOREALIS at 4AM! Sleep ONLY 15-30 minutes. Cloudy Europe AGAIN. Down with steep turns and land at radially symmetric Charles de Gaulle airport at 10:45 AM. To bus to SNCF at 11:30. To train to Gare du Nord for 20.70F after changing $25 for 185.5F (7.42F/$1)(7.45F/TC), leave at 11:45. QUITE tired and bags HEAVY and I forget to bring SWEATER! Into Gare du Nord at 12:15 and "correspond" to Place d'Italie. Out for Pizza Reine and two bottles of Kantorbrau for 48F. Keys easy and I SLEEP 3-7, when JJ arrives. To Au Quai des Ormes for my terrine de Lapereau with carrots and beans and small lettuce, NICE and meaty and sour, Poilu (put in pan) of sweetbreads PERFECTLY clean, textured, and tasty, in lovely sauce, and side vegetables of zucchini, carrots, beans, tomatoes and fried country mushrooms, dessert of tangy BITTER citron vert souffle. JJ had Mouselline of turbot, smooth and white and sauce of CRUNCHY carrot dice, rable (body) of lapereau (WHITE and tender) and spinach and (dried?) morilles in LOVELY sauce, charlotte of orange and frambois. START with champagne with cassis and frambois. Out about 11 into still-blue Paris evening, and he drives me to Hotel de Ville and we park to look at the dancing on the Ile St. Louis, very cheerful and pleasant. Over Seine and back, back to car about 1 and to bed about 1:30, exhausted and VERY pleased with JJ's evening for me.
THURSDAY, JULY 14. I'm up at 4:30 to shit and have trouble getting to sleep before and after. Up at 8:30 and JJ's up and we have toast and yogurt and he makes me orange juice. We chat until 10, then out for Beauvais and Amiens, stopping for gas that he refuses to let me pay for. Around city on Peripherique and get briefly lost around St. Denis. Very hazy morning clears to BRIGHT hot pleasant day as we drive through rolling country to see Beauvais ADS on road for highest CHOIR. Skyscrapers flank it in enlarged town and we drive up to it to find it closed at 12:45. A la Cotelette is closed, so we're walking by 1 to La Cremaillaire, an ornate Bavarian-type place with "ficelles" of rich cream and ham and cheese in a crepe, but the "faux-filet" is greasy and untender and potatoes medium. He has a salad and his trout is better and my maxime gateau for dessert is good. Cider turns out to be FERMENTED and I reel through the day. To cathedral at 3 and it's so WIDE it doesn't look HIGH, and top vault has LIGHTS studding its elegant wooden lines. Look at story of cathedral and snap pictures and leave about 3:45 for Tapestry Gallery, where I'm charged 2F for taking ONE picture. Interesting that Beauvais AND Gobelins AND Bressanone are still doing tapestries. Good colors from 30s and 40s, but 70s and 80s too new and the old ones are too faded. Interesting agglomeration of ancient ruins, and old courtyard "where none would have been" too. To Amiens at 5:45, much more traditional cathedral, and it LOOKS as high, "only" five meters shorter. Altar is under saran wrap, sadly opaque. Wander around and out to gape at nice buildings (one modern, one Tudor-boarded) around, and drive around the canal-marsh area before starting back to Paris at 7 via autostrada. Into outskirts at 8 and to northern sector at 8:30 and stop at La Belliore (or whatever the street was) for CUTE sexy neighbor and I have seafood plate that introduces me to the tender pink "stomach" AROUND a mussel! Good fish and crayfish, and JJ likes his lotte. Had a RED Sancerre, good, at Quai des Ormes, and a PINK one, not so good, here. Pay in a flurry at 10:15 and go to bridge and then along Seine as darkness falls and fireworks start from Trocadero at 10:40. SO much is SO brightly lit that I end up taking 20-25 slides! So much for economizing! Look nicely till 11:20, and slow walk back to car at 11:40 and into stopped traffic until about 12:40, just awful. THEN he resuggests Bertilllon and we drive BACK into town and get told it's closed! I say I'm leaving, she says "No." I say, "Vous etes dur," and she says "No, YOU are hard." "Me?" I stand as JJ beseeches me to leave, but I still stand around and say I'll pay extra for MELON. "No more melon." "Then strawberry," and she says OK, and gets one for JJ too, who of COURSE orders the SAME. He said he was REALLY surprised I got it. I preen. Back at 2:20 and exhausted enough to fall asleep fairly easily.
FRIDAY, JULY 15: Wake at 6:35, miserable, and shit at 7. Am I getting sick? Up about 8 and we breakfast and I pack and phone and STILL not confirmed and she says "Get there as early as possible." It's 11:30, so we leave THEN. Drive fast to airport at 12:15, and out of Air France office at 1:30 with my ticket. Get locker A079 by 1:45. Epaule seems to be ham, have a ham (with LITTLE ham) sandwich and orangina (poor) for 2lF at 2PM. To desk at 2:15 and they say it's full, COMPLET, TERMINI, and it seems to be. Linger long till 3, SURE it's full, and back to ticket office to LONG wait for same girl, getting an OAG and finding a DAY in Nairobi, and then to Kigali and Kilimanjaro? IF there's room! Still waiting for guy to finish at 3:23. Finally finish at 4:30, going via AMSTERDAM! Phone and JJ's GONE for weekend! Think about it and phone back at 4:45 and the maid says she'll CHECK with the gardien. I call her back at 5PM, and she says she called his MOTHER and he'll call HER back for an OK (or the keys), and I'll call HER back at 5:15. ALL clear; board bus at 5:20. Depressed going back, and the train is HOT. To metro and get in at 6:30, finding towel but not sheets or subway map. Phone Theater du Champs Elysee but no answer. Out and ask token taker and he spits through pursed lips that he knows nothing. Take line 6 around to Etoile, pleased it's above ground, but VERY hot. Walk LONG way around underground to Champs Elysee and of COURSE it's 150 at Etoile. Walk this grandest avenue, enjoying people, and get to Rond Pont at 8. WHERE is 15? Ask two gendarmes and get told "there," and finally, THIRD one pull out guide and it's on 15 MONTAIGNE. Up long street by 8:15 and an American sells me a fifteenth-row, semi-center seat for 250F. Get a VERY thin ham sandwich and two beers and a program for 20F and in for NOTHING "Homage to Ulanova" graced only by HER at end, then half-hearted divertissement except for Don Q by Semintnov and Bartyon, bloody at knee and is that a PLOY, as in Spartacus? But there's also an ELBOW town and DIRTY tutu-waists. She's got great balance and line, and he has push and FLAIR. Young Fadeyachev is not bad and Liepa is pretty but VERY young. HOT in theater, but binoculars work well. Last one is a modernistic disaster, Timofeyeva looking VERY uncomfortable as hoyden and Maximova just OLD. Out at 11:45 and decide to ride HOME before subways STOP. Into Etoile walk and up at the end having MISSED the STATION! VERY depressed, still VERY hot and will I have to take a cab? Pass Avenue Kleber and think to get NEXT stop, at which they wave me in and one comes around 12:10, LAST one leaves terminals at 12:55, thank GOD. It gets crowded, then clears out, and I'm out at Place d'Italie to find places closed or only serving drinks. Around to shopping center in the south and find Les Rozes still going for assiette charcuterie with good cold cuts and THREE beers, closing as I leave around 2AM. Back and fall into bed about 2:20, EXHAUSTED.
SATURDAY, JULY 16: Wake at 4:30 to shit and again at 6:30, but lay until 9:30, then up and drink juice and water and finally PHONE Arusha at 10:30, getting Mr. Atkins who says he'll tell them I'm arriving late. JJ calls and I tell HIM the story. More juice, mope, look at books, back to bed, then out to lunch at 2, to Le Casino de Gobelins for mushroom omelette and cider for 28F with tip. No place to buy orange juice, but I see bus #47 going from Place d'Italie to Gare du Nord and it's one of the "scenic routes." Fix up his apartment after showering and packing and get out at 4:20 to meet guardien and lug bag to a 47 SIGN that's not a STOP. Have to make every mistake there is. On bus about 4:35 and to Gare du Nord at 5:10 and find platform but have to wait for ONE train to pass before one says CDG. On with JUST enough seats, but everyone gets off at local stops. To Charles de Gaulle airport 2, terminal A and check in at 6:10 the FIRST one! Read a bit and get on nice right window seat between two KIDS fore and aft. Off at 7:02-7:42, flat farmland, and I clutched for takeoff but feel GREAT for the landing over boat-strewn canals off the center of Amsterdam, flying RIGHT OVER it, not seeing Antwerp at all. We get caviar, boursin, pork terrine "appetizer" with 1/4 bottle red wine! VERY hazy over Holland, and 82E THERE is less heat than in Paris. Into terminal and PASS correspondence counter, but get right window again! Buy a bottle of vodka for spicing up dinners on trip, for $4.40, and get to gate, among first, at 8:30, finding that we stop for an hour in Vienna at midnight and an hour in Khartoum at 5AM! So it's a ten-hour flight in THREE legs, not one long nonstop. Smallish plane named "The Flying Dutchman" and a crowd of white and black people gather, making place hotter, complete with LOUDLY crying babies (and the kid BEHIND me on way up was a really naggy PAIN, though so CUTE). Catch up with this to 9:12, and they haven't started their 8:50 boarding YET. Tired of writing this and of LOUD door to plane-passage slamming shut, and conversations in MANY languages. Just TIRED, but I should BE there in 12 hours! At 9:18 they announce boarding in 10 minutes. Sun actually SETS after 9:30, in haze. BOARD at 9:22 and find 19F is DIRECTLY, SQUARELY, EXACTLY over mid-wing. Bitch and get moved back to 37F "until Vienna." Flight-time to Vienna 1 hour and 25 minutes. Loaded quickly and start moving at 9:40, off at 9:53. VERY hazy and LITTLE to see in darkness, DRAT, though Frankfort passes below my window about 10:15. Cold roast beef and cold cuts "dinner" with two 70 cent Heinekin's, and an apple tart for NOT too much. Announce showers over Vienna and we start bouncing as we start down at 10:45, NO time change. SOME lights, but NOT MUCH to make my having moved worthwhile, though of course if I HADN'T moved I'd have tortured myself with the imagined landscapes slipping by unseen. Two beers linger to make me pleasantly muzzy. With THREE stops here I'll have TEN flights in all, this ONLY number 3! Land at 11:13, 1 hour and 20 minutes. Half-hour on ground, they say. FAR from city. At 11:58: "passengers coming." And NO one challenges my PLACE. 5 hours 5 minutes to Khartoum, NO time change.
SUNDAY, JULY 17: Off at 12:15, a SMOKER taking my OUTSIDE seat. LARGE cities flow past for an hour. Try rather unsuccessfully to sleep. Land at 5:20 after seeing a strip of "almost sunrise" as early as 4:40. Lower over desert, then huge squares of irrigated farmland, then masses of mud-walled housing enclosures, some with bright lights of what MIGHT be fires. Then to a low geometrical CITY of enclosures arranged in blocks, sometimes at odd angles, sometimes coming to an edge of a canal or, at one iron-spanned point, one of the Niles. The city, enormous in area, continues at one-story height for miles, not interspersed with V-shaped neon street-lights clustered in warehouse areas, and then huge cargo-handling areas of almost fortified enclosures with lines of cars and trucks, and then maybe a military area with armed vehicles and military encampments (we're told AFTER we land that we're not to take photos of this airport, nor can we get out, NOR will they tell us how long we stay). Four-story airport lined with blacks, and some of the baggage-handlers have the gangly grace of Watusi. SOME high-foreheaded, eye-glassed, white-shirted BOSSES look like people, while workers look like NATIVES, and not New York Colored, either, but just black total Africans. There's a small "black inhabitant" versus "white boss" hassle when steward tells a guy he took stewardess's seat and harangues on SAFETY by denying her access to the emergency exit in case of an accident. The black is obviously ruffled and demanding to come out on top, while of course the steward is correct in theory and wrong in application. Sweet classical flute music plays as people chat about Khartoum and Arusha and Nairobi knowingly. Into black Africa for the first time! 29EC = 84EF by 5AM and LOTS of red dust. Baggage off-loads under me. There's Sudan Airways and the handling vehicles are all MAKS-labeled. Crew changes too, and second refueling. Some not-bad-looking guys on board and mostly WHITES left. I batted back and forth lying on ONE side 1:15-2:15, the OTHER side 2:15-3:15, and OTHER side 3:15-4, when I started looking at featureless multi-layered clouds. Some blacks walk with a real loping BOUNCE. MEN pull over huge wheeled "dolly" (6x10 feet) for Allis-Chalmers crates. Cargo for Cosmetics Industries Laboratory, Khartoum. Crate with red poster of a wineglass is manhandled, dropped, turned every which way, and slammed into place. Two more wrestle 48l pound up-arrowed crate, add a third man, and they dump it onto its TOP and then third guy waves to them to right it. General 20" color TV gets rumpling turnover treatment. Lighter, HANDLABLE up-arrowed crate just PUT onto side. STILL unloading at 6AM. What COULD be a coffin rolls out, on side, at 6:05. Seven very dusty suitcases loaded. Two hours 55 minutes to Arusha announced at 6:10, serving "breakfast in bed." Gratefully I keep right window, looking toward left for Mt. Kenya and Kilimanjaro. Off at 6:30. GOOD breakfast (omelette surrounded by mushrooms, two cups of coffee and six sugars and four creamers, roll and butter and marmalade, cheese, roll, two glasses of orange juice, grapefruit sections) to 7:15. First clear, then hazy, then cloudy both above and below. Hope this changes in Southern hemisphere! One hour added in Arusha, arrive at 10:20. Temperature between 59E and 68EF!! Winter! Get bag and take pills, lens, and two rolls of film OUT and put four little drinking cups IN. I make optimistic note to myself to buy hat and Lomotil and hooded sweater for myself in airport! Clearing at 8:20, one hour before landing, soon to cross EQUATOR. CRATERS in Kenya. CROSS equator at 9:39, no sight of Mt. Kenya about 300 kilometers away. 9:40 Mt. Kenya rumples cloud cover upward. Kilimanjaro at 10AM, invisible. Land at 10:30, with pictures. Off at 10:50, through health, passport, customs, and money ($40) for 480/ by 11:03. Ask for Tracks, woman says "Peter's inside." I ask for Peter inside and no one answers. Look at various names on cards, not mine. Out to Tracks trucks, no one there, "He's inside." Ask aloud for "Tracks." Nothing. Inside and out: Kuoni and others. Finally a WHITE fellow says "Look for Abdullah or Carl," and FINALLY Carl give me the high sign from INSIDE and says he'll be out. I'm still WRITING at 11:25. Finally go in to find Carl with Jaap and Wilhelmina and Frances (ONLY two women of Dutch group of 17, and by COINCIDENCE the truck has COMFORTABLE room for 18, though we're to go to Momela Lakes tonight where there will be TWO trucks for us. He had "Zelnerzak will make his own way" and he talks of "scribbled not from Paris that he thought was from 16 Frenchmen." But the message seems to be "It'll all work out." Get luggage on trucks and chat with four until I do this by 11:50. Feel awkward being ONLY non-Dutch, but tomorrow will be on OTHER (French?) truck. One fellow did 17 years of one-week trips, now FIRST time on TWO weeks. Most have been here before. Tip devolves (as should be) to Carl for "luggage handling," though I HAVE mine and JAAP loads. At 12:05 Carl counts noses. 28 on safari. Lunch in hotel, 25 miles to Momela. Change trucks for 14/truck. Off at 12:12! Arrive at 12:45 to NICE Hotel Tanzanite. Introduced to lots of people: Dave and David (from Chicago, only other American) and Ian and Paul and John. There's bougainvillea, cannas, hibiscus, jasmine, flamboyan, and poinsettia all in bloom, plus those multicolored beauties: impatiens? Roses, too. Good lunch of nice soup, beef curry and "dull" (dahl) and rice, mixed salad (cukes, tomatoes, cabbage) and GOOD fruit and SWEET jello for dessert, but beer is 30/ or $2.50. Down at 1:25 and SAY to leave at 2:30 after trucks get gas. I look at animals, talk to Izzy, see swimming pool and wander cottage area. Trucks back at 3, Dutch still together, one poor fellow vomited on plane, on truck, and left his suitcase at the airport! Tire going flat takes till 3:20 to fix--maybe. Get to Momela about 4:40 after 2l kilometers of bumping and branch-swatting. I spot the first giraffe with a pointing shout, and some older men on the other side spy a group of 5-6 in the distance, graceful necks. Large white birds flap in trees, and another single giraffe is seen by me. We reach a lodge but they lay out tents and say "Set 'em up!" I search for partner and find there's NONE for me, and Carl pushes a heap at me. Check another like it, forget piece, get lots of help, and take about 90 minutes to get it up so that it flaps mightily in the night winds. Over by about 6:15 for a quick snap of camp, and write a "Want list." Dinner of avocado with onion-tomato stuffing, soup, and spaghetti and good meaty sauce. Over in dark under the spotlight, and we wash dishes in greasy water and rinse in worse. I corner Carl and he says he HAS a spare bag; it's illegal to sell CLOTHES in Tanzania, and a towel "will be OK." Wander off to get water for teeth, piss off road, and get into bed JUST as lights go off at 9. Warm gradually and not able to sleep until past 11, trying to see by damn not-working digital watch. May sleep SOME but it doesn't feel like it at ALL. AWFUL piss-in-cup and on mattress twice. Just as miserable as I can possibly be, and this is the START!
MONDAY, JULY 18: Seem to be up for hours before it gets light enough at 6:15 to piss again. Breakfast at 7:30, after packing bedroll in tent, of GOOD Meusli-type cereal, two eggs and bread and margarine and tea and milk and pills. At 8:15 everyone flurries around packing as I write this and rain-filled clouds pile up over sky and I have NO protection. We're all aboard at 8:40, me in English truck and we're 14 with three Dutch, being TOWED to start engine since battery clip jostled off (or on) last night and the battery was completely flat. Thankfully, it started immediately, and there's the note that the diesel failed at the lodge last night, canceling those who were to stay there and cutting off the ORDINARY supply of light and water. So the johns DO work and ARE lit at times! Swimming pool empty now; we sit waiting as I write. Off at 8:45. Get to Ngurdoto Crater (Momela Lakes entrance at 9AM is LOCKED). Check back at the "herd of black things" with binoculars and it turns into "a herd of rocks." "Clouds" seem to be advancing. Lunch 12-1:20: salad, bread and cheese, onions, red beans, toffee. A fertile field of 12-13 elephants, 6-8 giraffe, and 10-12 buffalo. Then a TREE of black and white bushy-tailed Colubus monkeys leap from one tree IN sight to a tree out of sight. First we're too FAR, then too FAST to photograph. Then ANOTHER sits, and face is very clear. Stop in Arusha Museum, park made in 1960. See first ZEBRA. Past lots of Arusha and get to "Sports Club" at 4:30, and I get pissed when I put down bag to reserve a space, help with bags (and each tends to help until he gets HIS, then leaves), and go back to find I've been USURPED. Move to side under tree and put up tent ALONE faster than some DOUBLES do it. Sit on dock feeling morose, but a wagtail comes past and the reeds have nests, and I get my camera, then decide to put vodka in coffee to "relax." Rob comes out and chats about his trip to Kenya five years ago when he was 9, and camera hints. Talk to some of the Ditch about language and cicadas. GREAT dinner of BEAUTIFULLY done beef (others have TOUGH pieces, they say) and carrots and cauliflower to GOOD done texture, potatoes perfect for sopping up tomato-onion garni. Angel Whirl, whipped sugar and jello, for dessert. Have lovely talks with lots of people, should have drunk BEFORE! Think of my CRITICAL, DEMANDING, MENTAL ego; my FREE, ACCEPTING, loving id, released by booze, and my mystical, Actualist, SOUL, and feel VERY happy with me and trip. My tent is positioned so light from the dock, lighting fisherman sitting at large-mesh (big fish) nylon net at dusk, so I can SEE, but borrow light from Mike for the john, and I'm grateful for a nice SOLID bowel movement. Lie on dock to look at moon and sexy Franz comes out to ask if I'm all right. Does he KNOW he so exudes sex? It's his first trip out of Europe; he likes it. David (SEXY and built nicely in a "PT by Physical" shirt he bought from his health club "for dancers; I just met a great girl there," so he's sending out straight SIGNALS, anyway), John (his tent-mate, quiet and rather pleasant--I'd thought he was Dutch), and Mike (the sharp-featured Sergio-like Britisher) are going to run tomorrow at 6:30 to get into condition for Kilimanjaro and I join them. Bed at 9,having washed hair earlier in spigot and using tee-shirt to dry; Carl says I'll have a bag for my bedroll, a bag for my tent, and a water container tomorrow; he's drinking Scotch now but he may want to follow it up with a shot of vodka later. The Dutch jabber till late at night, but I drift off to sleep at perhaps 10.
TUESDAY, JULY 19. Wake at 12:15 to piss, moon bright, Usa River perfectly still, only a few coughs and snores for sound. Wake about 4, then again at 6:20. Dress and piss and we all take off running. I run three minutes and poop out, then walk, then run four times for 30 seconds each; five minutes in all. Will work UP. Pack tent quicker than most. Breakfast of Meusli, lots of it, coffee and bread, butter and jam. Board trucks 8:15, helping wash; truck needs push. To Arusha 8:30-8:45, big place, lots of daggers and "change" people. Forgot plane ticket for confirmation. Told to be back to bus at 12:30, to leave at 1. Need to cash money, have to ask tourist information for bank! Into bank at 9:25, out at 9:40, with 1205.75/ for$100. Buy 10 cards for 6/, then find stationers for 5/ better selection. Pass our group all over. Dutch find New Arusha Hotel sells then 11 cards AND stamps for 70/, so I pay more for 1.8/ US stamps, buying a book for 20/, for 190/ for 25 sets. Will keep singles and send cards through next days. Sit moodily after shopping: NO pullover sweaters, only LEATHER hat for 489/,and meerschaum is a MINED SEA-CHALK, very light, and pipes are 300/ and a colored EGG, red or green onyx-like fruit is 240/, a BIT MUCH. Sit and write to 10:45, then decide to buy one of EACH STAMP at PO. In at 10:47 and people in front of me on "official stamp" window take a LONG time, so at 11 I ask "If I want one of each stamp, would I wait HERE or THERE (at individual letter window)? "Anywhere." Oh. I wait as he fills out six more forms in triplicate and stamps eight more times for ONE business transaction. At 11:10 it turns out he has precisely THREE stamps, two of which I already have! Back to New Arusha and get 20.20/ worth of SOME different ones, an OLD book for 5/ that's ruined but I sort of buy it as a tip for him: Indian who's never been to Gujurat, his homeland 100 years ago. Also buy three cards of palm-leaf handwork design for 15/ each. Out to sit in front of bank at 11:30 to watch world go by. David says he'll be sacking out at the Hotel until the trucks return. Two Masai warriors stroll by, great costumes. Get up the nerve to accost the fellow with the VERY hooded sweater I was looking for, and HE got it from a friend from GERMANY. AND the beautiful STRAW hat (everyone in town passes where I sit---TWICE) came from Madagascar! Somehow he seemed to say if I could meet him at this car around the corner at 10AM tomorrow he'd GIVE me one. At 12:15 a group goes to hotel bar: trucks at 1 on OPPOSITE side of town from square. Great! Into bus, after pushing, at 12:45. Bad news: they REQUISITIONED the diesel, HAVE it, but haven't signed all the PAPERS, so we're going BACK to last night's place; they'll come BACK for gas, and we'll start TOMORROW "not missing anything important." At lPM we stop for an INSPECTION roadblock, but pass through immediately. Everyone unpacks for themselves and by 2 we're eating heartily (I among the last to start): hard-boiled eggs, macaroni in red sauce, sausage with a sourish taste, cabbage and carrot salad, and bread and jam. Very satisfying and I'm washing last. On the way back I suggest a walk down the road, thinking to go to the bar area. John agrees with alacrity, sweet. Then we gather at the gate and Ian and Izzy seem to have invited themselves along. We walk down road to left, taking photographs, and Ian and Izzy get left behind. I change lenses and get left behind too, and I follow double-track up hill until it poops out and bushwack for awhile till I see the three below skirting the cornfield. Scoot down, jeans getting covered with burrs, and take two or three choices and not-so-obvious turns and just about despair (pass villages and two fellows begin following me and I think with astonishment of myself walking alone in Africa with huge camera, lens, binoculars, and money. Then there's Dave, waiting for Mike and John to return from pictures. We continue around the side of the volcano in whole crates our lake lies, and get lost in mango, coffee, and banana plantation before climbing hill (after meeting David walking BAREFOOT from other side, feeling better after his chills and earache after running this morning) for GRAND view over lake and camp and HUGE red-flowering cactus. I get a LONG bloody scratch on the back of my right hand and feel sorry for shorted John and Mike. Grand view off other side, too, and butterfly and irrigation pumps. Back to camp at 4:35 and take whole-body shower from spigot in swim trunks---now they know MY body. Read Dudley and Gilderoy while I dry to 5:30, then dress in WHITE and walk to bar to meet Dutch leaving, and have two beers to wash down lunch pills---no one put on fire for coffee when trucks left. 60/ is pretty high. Walk back at 6:30 and trucks STILL not back. Chat, read, shit, and Carl arrives to say they'll get 15 barrels of 200 liters for their 3000 liters, then take it to cache tomorrow and we'll leave 10:30 and drive till 6PM to get where we were to get BY tonight. He takes his vodka with gratitude and during dinner (good spaghetti and whip for dessert) he talks of bureaucracy, papers to be signed, the fact that Tanzania has no money and no CREDIT and can't import ANYTHING; the next step will be a coup, "The old man" has been in power 18 years. He tells of 7-week trip that REALLY camps: they burn the itinerary the first night out---may be 6 weeks late at times! His contract runs out in a year, worked five years already. Groups growing, lots of repeat business. He's only seen lions twice, rhinos very scarce, cheetah-kill VERY lucky. Of our money, London gets 1/2 and Tanzania gets 1/2. Only repair-work done when President is about to visit. I have vodka and get nice glow on, feeling sorry for Mike who vomited terribly at 6, then Rene at 7, blaming the sausage. This morning Jaap says "My wife was sick by the too-strong tea, be careful." I'm grateful for my health. I like on dock and SATELLITE goes over smoothly and I use binox on great-cratered moon, with Jupiter just to the left, a pinhead disk. Feeling good and bed at 10.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20: Wake in middle of night buy sleep through pretty well. Wake early and lie till 6:30, and John and I run 7:10-7:30; I did maybe 400 running paces yesterday and COUNTED 1250 today, greatly improved. John's very patient with me, stopping to walk when I do. Back for coffee for liquid, and scrambled eggs taste GOOD, followed by grapefruit quarters he said I couldn't help cut. Watch Tavita's Golden Weavers on nest and watch wagtails, and long slow morning begins. Chat, look at food stocks: oranges, RED-shelled and green avocados, green peppers, leeks, sweet and regular (better, he says) potatoes, mangoes, lemons, "special African flour," onions, cukes, green bananas for cooking, cabbage, lettuce(!), rhubarb, tomatoes, carrots, meusli, and a meat cooler with hamburg and meats, okra, and something Fred (black cook with AWFUL teeth) calls a grapefruit, pomegranate-like seeds inside an orange-gray pearl that had a citrus-y character. Dutch play Yahtzee; David and I talk about computers, many read, others photograph flowers. Lunch is "rabbit-food" salad stuff and flour pancakes. Tea and lettuce and green peppers and cabbage and carrots and cukes (all with outside skins on). I wonder about health, but eat it. Lay and nap before, stare at lake often, then decide to sort out, then actually write and address and stamp 26 postcards. People getting depressed, and when I shit at 3PM it ends in something like diarrhea, and an old Dutch who follows me in seems very liquid, too. Are we heading for a REAL disaster? Sadly it's too late to go anywhere today and the thought of repitching the tents is VERY depressing. Write this, then read D&G. Then out to the dock to lie in the warming sun as Izzy and Rob come and throw stones over my head trying to hit the float in the lake. At last, around 5:45, David asks me to go with him for a beer. I'm flattered. We walk over and find only orange crush-- the beer hasn't been brought up by car yet. We talk, he somewhat of girls, and about 6:30 we go back. Fred is getting dinner of pancakes (no bread flour) and vegetables and beef together that we eat rather silently, and then Ian gets out his harmonica and begins playing, starting with Beethoven's 9th. We're about to go off to bed at 8:20 when the trucks arrive, they waited ALL day for gas, very disgusted. I wander around, wash teeth, feeling VERY lazy, but surprisingly I go off to sleep almost immediately and have even stopped waking up in the middle of the night for long periods of time. Tension of waiting for what's next? On July 19 I ran 300 double paces, on the 20th 600 double paces.
THURSDAY, JULY 21: Run with John, at least 900 double paces. Leave camp at 8:35, photo at 9:15. 10AM secretary birds toward Monduli, past Dodoma turnoff. llAM to top of Rift Valley for picture atop an anthill. Lunch of baked beans, cheese, and salad, and Masai who want 1000/ for photos! At 2:15 gerenuk and secretary birds and 5+l ostriches. Pleasant to feel warm earth, but dust is so thick I leave my jacket on, much to the amusement of the others. Truck stalls once in a ravine, but we 14 in back and one from the from push it out easily. The second is on a sand-flat below the volcano, and the first comes and tows it almost instantly. Dust dervishes, anthills reaching 8 feet into crenellated tops, endless rivers eroded so that we must dip up and down into them, so that I shout "a bridge" in glee when we actually pass OVER one. Sacred mountain Lengai erupted around Christmas and natives hold it sacred. Clouds mercifully appear around 5 and it's not THAT hot when we pull along river onto black sand under trees, greeted by Masais. We all set up tents in dust and make a dash for the river, where we wash hair and faces and I put on wind-burn salve. Back in time for dinner of mashed potatoes (I help peel) and sauce and LOTS of tea. Pour water over my fingers; thank god it wasn't boiling! Ask Carl AGAIN for a water jug and he GIVES me one and shows me where I fill it from the truck. About TIME! Moon is bright; I confiscate a chair; they say we STAY here tomorrow, going to falls. Two Dutch make big fuss of my sleeping alone: one stops to talk VERY closely with me: he must be gay, and he borrows my dust brush for pounding in stakes and then (perversely?) the PARTNER comes over and INSISTS I take a MALLET. I take it, resisting being snide---maybe he DOES mean well. Moonlight brilliant (and gets BRIGHTER) as I shit a bit of fairly solid matter, to be great relief. Back to bed about 9:30, rather content.
FRIDAY, JULY 22: Wake in middle of night SURE that someone or something is padding about my tent. Tree? Sounds MUCH too animal or human and determined. Masai? Maybe, and I get to such a state I MUST look out. VERY bright, but only the wind. Wake at 6:30 and lie thinking, then put on shorts and fill AM pill jars and get set for day. Breakfast of one fried egg and bread and butter and lots of tea. Leave 8:30 for our walk, hot going and very tedious on yielding black sand. Franz lovely in his tan and his green trunks. Hour's walk to canyons and find we have to wade across many times. Nice and wet. Shoes holding up well enough. To first six-foot falls and basin, lovely, and continue through rocky cleft to picture spot of ravine with side falls, palm trees, rocky buttresses, boiling pools, and a series of shower-falls WARM in white bubbles but COLD in shower itself. Leaf off side rock, then out to dry and watch people eat. Eat lunch about 11:15, orange good, tomato and cheese and spam sandwich dry, and boiled egg. Then back into water with Gilbert and Jaap and Wilhelmina and Rob and Paul, and get onto CENTER rock and jump off, and lie in waters and have Jaap take my picture next to Wilhelmina. Lovely. Write this by 1:15, then go back to the former pool, to find everyone's gone. I seem to be fatiguing easily, and figure I need salt. Rest under a rock and the tail-end party shows up about 2:15 and Gilbert motions me to follow. Easier out than in, gratefully, but still feel pretty ploddy. Masai sitting around but no communication going. I suggest cards, we play, and I remark that it's SOMETHING to play cards with Masai in camp. Then VERY pretty neck and headpieces are their tribal symbols, which they're not selling, only offering two rather spindly earrings for 100/. Take girl's photo for 10/, and try to get a BUCK's photo but he refuses. Back to cards and one YOUNGER one, having some English, joins for cards and cigarettes and candies from Ian, and the guy WINS a few games! Ian takes his photo and I do too, then the kid TAKES the camera and takes 3 pictures (not very good!). Will be curious to see them. Then time for dinner, rather solitary, and chat after, then go for a small crap and go to bed, falling instantly asleep. Hardly need earplugs at all.
SATURDAY, JULY 23: Up at 6:10 and have breakfast and brush teeth and begin packing up, one of the last to finish, and load into truck and leave about 7:45. Long turning road goes up the Rift Escarpment after taking views over Lake Natron---photo-page has times. Surprised to see a PLAIN, so the Rift really is a RIFT. Pass lovely cactus-candelabra trees and flowering fields of agave---just after seeing two zebras after I was thinking the place was barren. Stop for lunch l-2:15 in a NOWHERE place on hilltop, no rocks to crack (but I collect a "seed-agate" piece). In for a dusty drive, some animals---so hard to keep track of ALL the animals: the hundreds of grouse-like birds in the underbrush that no one saw but me, very distant herds of impala, a small antelope standing quietly under a tree, shadowed giraffe mother and child under another, a wheeling flash of storks, countless flamingos on Lake Natron, a lone oryx trotting away, bees and beetles, scorpion under tent pad, baboon on rock. Very hungry at lunch stop at 12:45, and I really get pissed when someone and Franz try to squeeze into line, but I adhere to Jaap; back and Franz settles in behind me. Beans and cheese and vegetables and fresh cashews and tomatoes that are almost ripe. I have a bigger shit before lunch than I had before bed, trying NOT to think that it's too yellowish. Almost had a back-facing seat but someone moved Gilbert's sleeping bag and I sit front-facing with Mike. We have to make one stop for Gilbert to go over the hill, probably connected to his three brimming glasses of water from his "buddy" on the way back from the falls. More loners at lunch: John out in sun, Morris under a tree, Milly not eating until Paul brings her cheese. At 3:45 we veer off the road so Carl can climb atop the cab and survey the distance with binoculars. He said he was "lost for half an hour" last time trying to find the track into the Serengeti. Kongoni (or hartebeest) dark in front, light in back; topi light in front, dark in back. See ostriches and giraffes and hyenas and birds and LOTS of Grant's and Thompson's gazelles. At LEAST 16 unique species. Back to road of SORTS at 6:15: 2.5 hours! Pass a truck at 6:45 and verify direction, and at 6:50 one truck goes off for water, Peter says, and we load up on firewood. Out at 6:55, later realizing that it's illegal to travel on the roads after 7PM. Pitch tent and eat and don't even have an idea what time we finally go to bed in the dark.
SUNDAY, JULY 24: Wake at 5:50 and lay till 6:20. Two cups of tea, push the truck that must at last be towed, and off at 6:45 for pre-buffet game run. Get left rear seat (oh, forgot I UNWOUND my camera-turner again last night, thankfully nothing much left to photograph---AND forgot to mention that the fires are SET to burn off the grass to keep the animals returning) and at 6:45 my film keeps registering too dark until at 7:15 discover I'd had the lens all the way CLOSED. Herds and herds of the MOST beautiful Thompson's gazelles, but we KNOW them already and keep looking PAST and AROUND them for something NEW. Animals QUITE close to road in AM, and some VERY close buffalo and gazelles. Then zebras and giraffe more distant, and grouse watering and vultures in trees and vervet monkeys. I feel PISSED to be in the 23-year-old NOISY truck driven by the ASSISTANT, so that Carl always LEADS and we see herds running away, already spooked, or trees from which the monkeys have already fled. Seronera Lodge is large and sunny among rocks, and there's lots of old abandoned structures, but Carl says there's only one place for tourists to stay: 315/ for single and 420/ for double, bed and breakfast included. Will surely NEVER again take a camping tour, and shudder to think I'd been even a BIT tempted by a 14-28 day trans-Sahara trip. As I determined BEFORE, better to fly between exotic places and be comfortable rather than suffer. Only in Europe is driving consistently beautiful enough to be worth the effort. THEN we see two lions crossing in front: female smaller in lead and heavy-maned male behind. GREAT! Then more herds of topi and Grant's gazelles and impalas, and then there are two, three, and then FOUR cheetahs posing on a hillock! We sit and stare about half an hour---me sad my CAMERA is not as strong as my BINOCULARS. Fantasize l) getting 500mm or even stronger multi-prism lens that's not so BULKY, and 2) constructing tri-glassed helmet for viewing: one regular lens, one 400mm for bouncing over roads and scanning for finds, and strongest telescope, say 50x, for SEEING. Driver irks me: he goes SLOW rather than starts and stops; he JERKS; he seldom shuts off the engine because (as with cheetahs) he must be TOWED to a start. AND then we're always last. Back at 10:15 and have pancakes and honey for good filling meal. Lots of tea, then photo the camp, driven crazy by David's "in fun" flexing for my camera---oh, if only I could TELL of wanting to FEEL his body. They say we're leaving at 10:30, then 11. Girl from next camp comes over and chats with Carl and Peter. David says she's pretty. She's not. I say he's jungle crazy. He says he'd go for anything in skirts. I say she's not wearing a shirt, she just has the proper protuberances. He likes that. I try to get closer to a baboon at the neighboring trash can, HAVE a good shot, but chase him away unshot. Then Ian and John creep up behind me and chase him off for good. I climb into truck and write, but then it's 11:45 and I'm getting BORED. They've packed a take-out lunch, but we may as well eat IN. Dutch jabber endlessly away. Still want to see an elephant, rhino, hippo, and any other cats: presume there's no chance of tiger. Read Serengeti book and FINALLY leave at 12:15! Then, EVERYONE loaded and waiting, Carl strolls over to the next camp for directions. He IS getting on my nerves! LOVELY hippo pool 2:15 to 3:10: not TERRIBLY smelly from all the grass-shit. They eat mostly at night. Down road toward Lobo to get pictures of buffalo, cheetah, and hyenas, but things get scarce (except for GREAT giraffe on a hill, at LEAST 15 feet tall) and as we leave road at 4:35 we say "Let's go back." But Carl insists we go ahead and we get INCREDIBLE posing trio of male lions from 4:50 to 5:15, using LOTS of film to GREAT effect; faces fabulous through 22x magnification, my 200mm lens magnifying only FOUR times! Morris says ROUGHLY it's mm-measurement/50 for magnification. So even 1000mm lens is "only 20x." He said there's a "pancake" 350mm that Dave has DOUBLED, and it can be TRIPLED for 2lx! We finally turn back into the BLACK-clouded west, and I say to Morris "Should we put the side-blinds down now or later." "I prefer them up," he says curtly, and he didn't smile at all. The dust and wind get worse and finally I follow Mike in moving up to the front to ride backward. Then it actually starts raining about 5:30 and then we stop for putting the side-screens down. I envy David, sitting up front with Peter (and the other hunk, Franz, sits up with Carl, both cooks left at home), but he later says it's very hot since they're sitting right over the engine. Rain really PELTS down, and when Dave and Izzy begin peeking through the side vents (the plastic windows are all but opaque), I move to the back to look out the slits between sides and back. The zebras and tommies and Grant's roam perfectly unaffected, and even the giraffes I see carry on as usual. Only the buffalo looks even MORE morose, their necks even lower between their shoulders in the very picture of hang-dog depression. I watch gullies fill and dust allayed, and we're back to camp about 6:30. I dash to tent to find only a few wet streaks down one side, so I move bed and flop in, dusty clothes and all. I hear cheery Dutch voices outside and feel so OUT of it I get VERY depressed until I decide that I'm feeling WORTHLESS and that's not ME, just an IMAGE, so I process like crazy. I hope that someone comes to tell me what's going on, and then after about an hour I decide to take my clothes off in case anyone DOES come in, like David or John to seduce me. Lay and lay, hearing the sounds of dinner, and I wonder how wet they are and what they're having (rice and beans and mince meat and salad) and how they're staying dry (they don't, or they hover under a tiny kitchen-table tent flap rolled at the side of the truck). Then I hear a truck drive off and fantasize they're going off to Seronera Lodge for dinner and REALLY settle into a funk. But I decide that I've MADE my choice, HAVE no rainstuff, DON'T want to get wet, and DON'T even want to get dressed to find what's going on. Some voice-sounds later. Fall asleep but wake to hyena-laugh, then a baboon-like chittering, then the unmistakable guttural growl of a lion NOT far away. Later I hear that Carl was sitting at the fire and looked around to find a LION there, and a troop of ZEBRAS came through as well as a crowd of HYENAS. Great Adventure!
MONDAY, JULY 25: Wake early, animal sounds, up at 6:30 for a full moon and a rising sun, off on game run at 7:15 after draining water off truck-top. Nice animals, road wet and slidy from rain, usual route, lion briefly, lots of birds, lots of photos. Back at 9:45 for pancakes and honey and tea and a fruit compote, then pack quickly, keeping out clean pants and wash stuff and load up and leave at 11:10. Serengeti Park: area 14814 square meters. Altitude 910-1820 meters, Seronera at 1525 meters. 1978 animal populations: zebra 2,000,000, wildebeest 1,500,000, Grant's and Thompson's gazelles 1,000,000, impala 75,000, buffalo 74,000, topi 65,000, eland 18,000, kongoni 9,250, giraffes 9,000, elephants 4,600, hyenas 4,000, waterbuck 2,250, lions 2,000, rhinos 1,000, cheetahs 500. This from Naabi Gate of Serengeti at 2:05; no brochures in English, only German. Drive down road for lunch from 2:10 to 3:10: noodles, baked beans, cabbage and carrot salad, onions, and mangoes. Carl had to pay for exit from Serengeti and ENTRY to Ndutu, which is only 30 miles from here, over what looks to be a desolate plain. Looks like Monday Ndutu, Tuesday Ngorongoro rim, Wednesday Ngorongoro floor, Thursday Manyara and Friday what? and back Saturday for him to pick up another group. Everyone looking forward to showers. We seem to be cheetah-rich: 11 cheetah and 10 lions so far! Great poses by mother on anthill top with four little ones playing around below. Dusty road; couldn't have rained here before. Mike isn't eating lunch; most seem to have been down in American camp, though the guttural-talking Dutch seem to be indestructible. Thank God it's not been blazing hot ALL day! Drive through desolation with only a few animals before reaching Ndutu, rather rambling, about 5PM. We're all told to pile into one truck and MY truck WALKS and I ride, commenting to Wili how much BETTER theirs is, and she quickly protests they didn't PICK it, it was just THEIRS. To campsite and set up in a rather prickly dead grass, and then we're trucked over to be told there are FOUR showers, two apiece in. Eight start off and the others go for a 30/ beer and I try a 20/ Afrikoko that's coconut and chocolate and quite good. "Read" a Japanese book with LOVELY photos, and look at photos and talk to Americans on Wilderness Explorers tour for $1600 land-cost; they stay HERE tonight, but otherwise it's the SAME, except for their EXPERT guide who knows ALL the names. Find at 6:15 that EVERYONE'S finished. Go to the showers after nice sunset and only one's in use, second has no light and no mirror; third has no light; fourth has light and mirror. And I find SOAP, too! Lather hair twice in room-temperature water, shave, shower, and feel GREAT, but it's 7:30 and time for dinner. Catch Carl to tell him of three fares to Kibo Hotel and he's GOT them already! Husband separated from Frances, and he's just CUTE. Peter's interesting when he's talking of New Guinea and not booze and boobs. We buy 120/ bottle of Dodoma rose that's not bad at ALL. I get most and poor Mike gets dregs. Nice food, and Choya interesting turnip-y "fruit" (per Peter). They walk and I truck back with few Dutch for GREAT full moon with binoculars, but I'm tired enough to get right to bed after going off to the bushes to piss, more and more openly as time goes on. Really counting the days and nights and setups left, quite determined never to do such a trip again. LUXURY is for me!
TUESDAY, JULY 26: Up at 6:40, breakfast at 7:40, off at 8:40. I feel behinder and behinder, one of the last getting my tent down after walking to the toilet for a fairly liquid shit. I feel more and more annoyed with people like Wili who tend only to their OWN stuff---it's true that Jaap does the work for two, however. But the two old Dutch farts never seem to help with ANYTHING and I get annoyed with the constant shirtless preening of Franz, and I sour-grapishly figure that his skin must be SO desensitized by the elements that he would feel NOTHING from gentle sensual touches. I bang my knee on the wheel hub getting some bags up to the over-cab carriage (that Morris seems always to get) and get a black smudge on my only-dust-brown jeans and maybe a bruise to heal. The scratch on the back of my right hand is almost gone, as is the pimple on my right narine. Seven people load into the front eight seats, an impossible tangle of feet, with Rene's tripod and Jerry's satchel on the OTHER person's side. Milly then moves to the back "to give more room." We drive to the cabins and I get another feeling of annoyance when the yellow truck leaves at 8:53---just ANOTHER truck's dust and noise and animal-chasing to contend with. With so FEW vehicles, can't they be a BIT spaced out? WE leave at 9, Peter driving again, FOLLOWING of course. Cross VERY forbidding thorny areas, followed by desert, then small steps (15") gradually lead down into grassy, then scrubbed, though one large green tree is conspicuous before GRASS starts. Lone giraffe at a dip, then into a gorge with outlandish dead trees, and a mystery stop at 10:40, Carl saying "We're almost there anyway." Very dusty; I'm eager for trip to be over. Start off again at 10:45. Stop at 11:30. Olduvai Gorge is 12 miles long, 300 feet deep. Volcanic level ABOVE whitish level is numbered. Bed 1 is 1.75 million years ago, 1.6 million for bed 2, 700,000 for bed 3, all of which filled basic, later eroded. Five faults IN gorge. Kotzwinkle, German, got three-toed horse bones in 1910 for Berlin Museum. 17,000 years (before present, BP) level found in 1917. 69-year-old Mrs. Leakey living there; Leakey died in 1972. In 1959 Mrs. Leakey found FIRST skull in 100 fragments: Australopithecus boysei zinjanthropus. In 1960 SON of Leakey finds Homo habilis skull of a child. Third skull is homo erectus in bed 2, same as Peking Man. Nothing in bed 3. Latoli footprints found 25 miles from here, 1.5 million years old, not possible to see now, MAY open to public next year. No work going on here now. Museum till 12:30, taking pictures from butte, and back to lunch till 1:30, when we leave for bottom of Gorge. Back at 2:05, VERY hot and bright down there. And this is WINTER. Everyone scurries out to fill water bottles as drivers and cooks load lunch remnants aboard. I'm counting days and meals and tent erections left, almost WILD to finish with this phase of it. Imagine Tour d'Argent in just 2.5 weeks! Leave at 2:10, almost NO animals and a HILL climb to 3PM. There is now the odd bit of paper, plastic, or metal to show HUMAN presence. At 3:45 they say they're taking OUR truck around rim to get guide. All get off except Franz and partner and me. Leave at 4:30, five Masai adults aboard! Back at 5:15, telling everyone about my adventure. Guide says he's 38, a chief AND a lanay (witch doctor), with THOUSANDS of cattle, taking his NINTH wife of 15, eighth wife there with baby. Get great shots of them and of flowering trees along high crater rim. Then down to meet group and down STEEP road in lowest gear for very slow descent to flat floor dotted with herds. Around to one camping area with a group there from the yellow truck and to another occupied by a French group and a single Swedish tent that we so surround that we get dirty looks from them as they pull up and leave. Grand dinner of a sweetish chicken stew, dried, and green beans and whipped dessert. We look at stars and I borrow torch to shit (not realizing you flush with a bucket of water) and get to bed at 9:30. Can't sleep for awhile and wake to piss at 2:30 AM in shorts. Decide to give intro to John tomorrow and David on Kilimanjaro, and root rainbow bridge in all colors. Drop off to sleep but wake fitfully between times.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27: Up at 6, out at 6:15 for two cups of tea, off on truck at 6:55. Three ostrich and two elephants right away, by 7. Stop at 7:30 to annoy the poor Swedes at their solo campsite. See zebras CLOSE to road, and buffalo, and monkeys in tree. At 9:10AM "pulley comes off generator." Towed back to camp by 9:35. Wait for hot water and eat lots, then LOTS of time to kill. I give intro to John and write till we leave at 2:50 for second game run. INCREDIBLE shot of hyena-killed wildebeest, see list. At 4:20 stopped by land rover for PERMIT. Belt breaks at 3:30 and again at 4:25. Peter curses. Towed back. Day passed slowly so I watch Peter braiding rope and Carl shortening a leather strap to replace a broken belt. Take photos of them and continue with Rene and Gilleys and Mike and Izzy as she sews, and she sews my bag in a MARVELOUS way. Franz comes off the morning run with MY camera case, saying someone lost it. Bless him. He rides atop the first trick with his green shorts so low you can see the darker cleft in the paler skin of his lower body. Sexy as hell. Sad being toward back, but the gritty gore of the hyena ;kill makes the day, and the solitary elephant "attack" is a marvelous capper. Carl has to drive the truck to the Lodge to get a landrover to drive to Arusha in four hours to pick up the pieces and be back by morning with ANOTHER truck from a tour already finished. I sit around fire after peeling lots of (last!) potatoes and catch up with this after sundown, at 6:45, talking with David about his dinner at Lassere paid by his father and my date at the Tour d'Argent. Dinner of chicken stew and mashed potatoes and green beans, softer than last night as ordered, and then we try to look at the stars, but there are either clouds or the moonglow arising. Mike and John and I play rummy, making up rules as we play, and John wins. To bed about 8:45, not TOO long in getting to sleep.
THURSDAY, JULY 28: Wake needing to piss, putting on jacket against cold wind, and get biting ants on ankles. Crater cloudy. Hear noises at 6:30 and get out to be told by Milly that Dave and Ian went back UP with Carl and Peter, trying to rent a landrover for the three Gilleys and Morris and Bob and Dave and Ian to tour the lake with. "If they can find one," says Milly resignedly. "That's why we've packed up their tents for them." They eat and others have cereal and chicken and creamed mangos at 8:15; since there's no coffee left part of the water has been made directly into tea. I push close to the exclusively Dutch circle warming themselves around the fire. There is comment by the group in Dutch, but I eat, read "Arusha" and "Manyara", and catch this up to date by 9:40. People are reading, packing up (though NOT taking down tents) and spotting three leopards on the OTHER side of the lake (about five miles away) with the 50-power telescope. I lay in bed debating when to getup, thinking "Thank GOD only two more days of this." Kibo Hotel, WHATEVER it is, MUST seem like luxury compared with this. David and I talk of hyena hunt, him talking of his sorrow for the wildebeest that I remarked to be totally ABSENT from my thoughts. At 10:10 the dust behind the second pink truck attracts everyone's attention. At 10:15 Carl says, "We're leaving in 20 minutes." All mostly aboard by 10:50. NEW generator, SIX spare fan belts; we're SET for awhile. Ian and Dave stayed at Ngorongoro Lodge: no beer, but Dodoma wine for 120/. At 11 a truck from Encounter Overland, up from Johannesburg, shows up with TWENTY on the truck, including driver. They COOK their own food, expecting 4-5 months to LONDON, five days late NOW after five weeks, going Uganda, Zaire, Cameroons, Niger, Gabon, Morocco, Spain, London. Nice chat. Towed truck doesn't start at 11:10. Leave 11:20. Truck has TWENTY gears! Leg-stretch at lPM. EXTRAORDINARILY lushly beautiful road out of Ngorongoro till 1:40. Into Gibbs Farm 2:30-4, FABULOUS buffet lunch and washing and 10/ elephant. AND Florence Miller, 161 Henry, 855-8288! Down to look at coffee shelling and drying and get picked up by truck at 4:30. Up a hill and over a plain and down the escarpment without seeing a single animal except a baboon troop. Great view over lake, then down into huge grove of trees with DRINKING water and a reasonable john. Set up the tent very happy that this IS the LAST TIME I'll be doing it. (HALFWAY TRANSCRIBED!) Chat with Franz and his roommate about trip, order two beers, and drink one of David's as we chat about climbing Kilimanjaro and I reserve Mike as my "mate." Dinner at 8 and chat and wash and brush teeth and bed at 9:15, brilliant stars already clouded. Some trouble getting to sleep.
FRIDAY, JULY 29: (See DREAMS, page 103, for dream.) Up at 5:25 to piss, then at 7:10 to baboon packs and backward-looking spiders; breakfast 7:40 of hot oats and mango. Leave at 8:30 and enter park at 8:40. Doing well, GREAT new truck with ladder, newer, more room. INCREDIBLE numbers of hippos, impala, zebra, baboon, wildebeest, and BIRDS: storks, geese, pelicans, incredible long strings of horizon-filling flying storks. Stop at 11:30 for stretch; about 30S of horizon FILLED THICK with massed flamingos on the lake, too distant to hope of any kind of photo. Sky had been building up dark clouds, but sun burned through in many spots. Abdul (new driver) said it would take about thee hours driving nonstop to get to the southern end of the park. Sad. And we "must" go for trading and selling and buying in village this PM, to which end I got Dave (after Rob failed) to fix the WATCH, I put on shorts under dirty jeans, and wore blue-towel tee-shirt, all for trading. Look at how to operate watch. Leave at 11:40 for elephants. Start back 11:45. Back at 12:30, seeing only impala and a Ground Hornbill (as in "minced," I said). Have a decent shit and open my second beer. Good filling lunch: macaroni and rice under beef stew, salad, beets, and beer. Take camp photo with David in it and try to take baboons but they don't line up, even though they fuck a bit. Lie down and dream that this is the last day: tomorrow I'll be CLEAN. Board truck at 2:30 and leave at 2:35 and arrive at 2:40 "for an hour." End: sock and pants for beadwork and frog; watch (and instructions) and tee-shirt for batik, alligator, bowl, and Masai head. Leave 3:55. Back to compare purchases (I got GOOD deals), then load at 4:30 for last look around. MAKONDA carvings. LOTS of baboons, and waterbuck, and five elephants. But lack of animals make up by WONDERFUL green-gold light under dark trees. Gate's locked at 6:30 (yellow truck has permit to CAMP inside), and I wander through VERY fine deep dust to look at non-existent sunset. Pour vodka into first tea and feel very cheery for the rest of the evening, and Carl announces barbecue for tomorrow night. Two beers and dinner and exchanging addresses with Gilleys and Isobel takes till 9:15, and I go to sleep at once.
SATURDAY, JULY 30: Wake at 2:10 to piss and again at 4:15. Dream fragments of trapezoidal elevator that only stops at 1 and 6 and I want to go to 5, and the elevator descends so fast you have to squat on the floor to withstand the deceleration at the stop. Then wake at 6, still dark, and hear people moving about, so pack and out at 6:40 for breakfast of cereal and tomatoes and papaya (!) till 7, then take the tent down for the LAST time and board the trucks at 7:30 on the dot to leave at 7:35. At 8:40 we reach tarmac 80 km from Arusha. At 9:30 we pass 50 km to Arusha. At 9:40 the side-shades come down for rain. Cold reached height before that, but by the time we reach Arusha at 10:30 it's stopped raining, the streets are aswarm with people and petrol queues, and I dash to be first at the bank AGAIN for $40. Mail cards at 11 and confirm KLM flight, and back to truck at 11:30 to find everyone waiting. We gather by 11:45 and get to Tanzanite after a covered ride by 12:15. Share room 14 with Mike, get stuff unpacked, but though he's requested water tank lit at 1, it isn't when we go to lunch at 1:30. Not as good mutton stew and rice and salad and soup for 90/. Back to tell another guy to light fire, and finally at 2:20 I storm to desk and demand light NOW. Water heats as it's used, and Mike bathes and I shower and feel better. Sort things out and just enjoy sitting on a CHAIR. Leave at 3:45 to lobby for Ian's book on Kilimanjaro and altitude SICKNESS, and off at 4 for a walk till 5 though pleasant countryside, but as we got back at 5:30 I develop blisters on bottom on both feet, and Mike HAD suggested I wear boots. Have a rather small pot of tea with Mike and Ian and Iz, and David and John return from their walk for a beer. Chat and sit and at 6:30 I say light looks very good and stroll to edge of porch and THERE is Kilimanjaro, twin scoops of ice cream under a thick white marshmallow sauce, slightly pinkish in the rays of the setting sun. Rush for binoculars and Franje and husband enjoy view, but next tourist misses it at 7. Wash clothes quickly when I realize there's no TIME at Kibo Hotel, and to barbecue at 7:40 for loud Dutch and pleasant chats. Two servings of meat and fruit good, then after two beers I sit and watch striking birds wheeling white in the sky under-lit from Tanzanite Preserve, and flamingos post for the arc lights. Someone sits behind me and I fantasize an encounter, but after a while he or she leaves. I get key from Mike at 9:15 and get ready for bed and he comes in at 9:30 JUST as I get into bed. Fall asleep almost instantly.