1983 3 of 4
SUNDAY, JULY 31: Wake briefly as he shuts door to john in night, and again at 6:15 to shit, making a lot of noise with john door. Remember odd dream of David jerking off and posing with grotesque exaggerated posture of legs and torso and shoulders and arms, and wake quite excited momentarily. Then lay till 7 and write this, thinking about what to leave here, what to leave at Kibo, and about the progress: Sunday to 6000' Kibo Hotel, Monday to 9000' Mandara hut, Tuesday to 12,000' hut, Wednesday to 15,000 Kibo hut, Thursday to 19,000' summit and end of climb. Hope AT LEAST to get to 15,000 feet! Out to plush Mount Meru Game Preserve, not paying 10/, for panther, leopard, lion, buffalo, kudu, chimp, mongoose, all looking rather sad in BEAUTIFUL lodge surroundings. We six (Is, Ian, David, John, Mike, me) pester waiter until we get enough breakfast from 8:30 to 10. Then to more packing and meet at 10:45 for a VERY colorful walk (thank goodness light shower stopped) to village of Usa River, market, buy a jarco-like "finesse" that he cuts and we eat, and John buys sugar cane that we strip and I gnaw at lunch, church, bars, and back to hotel for egg sandwich lunch and tea (Is treats) for 20/, from 12:30-1:15, then put souvenirs in a room here and check with Jordan D'Souza for possible Dar Es Salaam trip for 1700/ from Saturday to Monday flight. Into truck again, luggage in back, at 1:55 to 2-3 hour trip to Hotel Kibo. Arrive 3:55 after ascending and ascending with constant cloud-cover ahead. Last couple miles the road is a snake through upland forests. Lots of waving and one stone thrown along the way. Into room 12, with a balcony, and drape out stuff to dry on the four hangers. Shower and meet at 5 to rent stuff: gloves, balaclava (whole-head hat), sweater, jacket, underpants, sleeping bag, boots for the last day, goggles, and a promise of a waterproof. Pack and repack, then down for a 6/ orange crush that's pretty bad, deciding to swear off alcohol at altitude. Mike's diamoxazole makes me tingle and feel light-headed, rather like poppers, not unpleasant, merely sensual. David, getting more and more pissed at me: "I don't like your attitude." Seek out Ian and Is, who'd gone around the hotel to try to find the mountain, and failed. In to a GREAT dinner at 7:30: pea soup and cheese on toast and chicken and potatoes and carrots and slaw and pears and lots of water. Sit and talk after in overloud recreation room and half-English half. Tanzanian fellow joins us for silly talk until I beg off at 9:15. Mike follows me in almost immediately and we're to sleep instantly.
MONDAY, AUGUST 1: Wake at 2:15 and 6:15 to piss, then up at 6:45 and breakfast at 7, drying "clean" shorts and socks on my body. Omelette and small yellow and large orange bananas and papaya and warm tomato slices and toast and butter and jam and tea. Up to brush teeth and put still-damp shorts and socks into plastic bag into shoulder bag with plastic bag for porter, lug it down at 8, beginning to rain. "Ten minutes for waterproof." Up to fill 1.5 quart water jar Mike found for me on floor of truck and put rest of stuff in bag for storage and other stuff into backpack, and down at 8:15 to get NOT ONLY waterproof top that fits but waterproof PANTS that fit, adding this to my rental bill which is already 510/! They say 20/ list is long gone, and jacket rental WAS 80/ and just was re-marked up to 100/. Quite a racket, but I STILL wouldn't have brought the stuff. Go for a shit and feel "a wad of cotton" at my waist and pull it off and put it into the sink and it's a 4 mm brown disk like a small mole or very large pimple scab that grows six legs as it scurries along the side of its water droplet. Show it to Mike but he doesn't know how big bedbugs get. "As big as the bed," quips Ian. "I'm going upstairs," I say. Downstairs at 8:50. Dress in raingear and pick up stick and lunch and take rainy photos of Kibo Hotel. Leave at 9:15 and take off on road, woods, then road through banana and coffee fields, surprising at 7000 feet. Take off raincoat and fall behind, sweating. Catch up with Is and we catch up with the group. Stop at 9:40 for porters' food, me more tired than I would have liked to be after only 35 minutes up. Off at 10:05 and enter park at 10:45, feeling no worse. 6500 visitors in 1975/6, 5700 in 1976/7, 4200 in 1977/8, 4800 in 1978/9, 7000 in 1979/0, 7200 in 1980/1, 8500 in 1981/2; Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park opened by Nyerere on June 4, 1977. 5.5 miles (3-4 hours) from GATE at 6000 feet to Mandara Hut at 9000 feet. Leave at 11:05 and take off at a KILLING pace over wet slippery rocks and mud between misty trees that only seldom turn into rainforest lushness. Then, almost exhausted, at 12:05, we reach the halfway mark: did 1.5 hour's walk in one hour! Feel better about my energy level! Take some pictures for me and John and find everyone else has left by 12:30! Paths get steeper and wetter and more slippery. I pause more and more to take pictures, but as still grateful to see at lPM, though very tired, that it's one hour to Mandara. It gets worse, more clouded, any my pack is a real PAIN, slipping off my shoulders, and my boots have absolutely no traction at ALL. Up and up, passing and repassing my porter and another, and finally at 2 a sign "Kibo Gate 3 hours." Continue up what I hope is right road and find shadowy hut and Ian waves to me. I flop onto bunk at 2:05. Eventually drink tea, wash boots, dry socks, fix bed, play cards, shit, and sort things out before dinner of steak, liver, kidney, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and gravy by 6:30 and repletion. Sit and talk while continuing drying and by bedtime at 8PM I actually feel pretty good.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 2: Wake maybe 11:30 and 3 to piss in dark outside door, stars at first piss only. Then at 6 and up at 6:25 for THIRD time and have breakfast of corn porridge and eggs and tomato and tea and bread and butter to 7:20, then find rented boots have no LACES. Mine too SHORT. Find string to tie packsides together, brush teeth, load up pack and the porter's bag by 7:50 for a picture---above the clouds already! Everyone feels better, confirming that yesterday WAS rough. Jonathan and Ali, who joined us at the Kibo, left early, and we hung around and talked and shot pictures and I finish this at 8:10, as my porter Elimwokozi Lekule, stops to say he'll be going slow today, to be with me. Seemingly good kid. Leave at 8:15, last. Still wettish, but lovely mossy vistas and in and out of trees and fields. Toward the rest at 9:30 there are actually small patches of DRY on the paths. Some German tourists lope down looking incredibly clean and fit. Stop has all NINE of us, as a surprise. Clouds coming up fast. Boots working OK, backpack center-tie a dream. Tired, but not desperate. Start at 9:45, Chief Guide saying "Halfway in an hour." Not likely! Pleasant low growth, warm sun, up and down, views over Kili and Mawenzi. Tired at end, but going slow, behind Is and Ian and Anton and Wim, before Dick and David and Mike and John. Point of back hurting from pack. Off at 11:20, not MUCH of lunch, down to undershirt and short-sleeved shirt. Stop at 12:10 and again at 12:50, last again. Hope to get to hut by 2:15, plenty early enough. Stop at 1:15 at crest. Arrive at 1:30, lie luxuriantly on grass till 2, getting a bit too much direct sun at 12,345 feet. We get LUNCH of meat and potatoes and bread and tea, then cabin M-18 with David and John, John and I getting door-flanking lowers and Mike reluctantly taking the top, too short for him to stretch out. Put things in order and go WAY down slope for a shit and then wash face and put on lotion and go to bed at 3:30 to relax, letting them take the 4PM tea and stale tarts. Chat and doze while others go in and out and I seem to need to pee every HOUR! David HAD a headache and took an aspirin, and mine seems to intensify after I make the effort to get up and put on my boots for a pee. Dinner 5:40-6:30, LOTS of food and liquid, and into warmer cabin at 6:45 to spend an hour before sleep talking. At 7:25 Anton knocks for us to be quiet and by 7:35 I've taken my first pee and shit of the night down the slope. Not bad getting to sleep.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3: Up three more times, first two BRILLIANT with stars, and the third, at 3AM, one could READ by the intense hour-risen crescent moon. At 6:35 everyone's bustling around and I get out pills in time for 7AM breakfast. 7:35 finds me shitting in hut and brushing teeth and packing and I leave BEHIND others at 8:15! Catch up with ailing Jonathan, to my intense relief that I'm on the right trail, at 8:30, and write this at an EARLY rest stop, fingers and toes tingling from my FIRST Diamox after my break-in three days of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Off again at 8:35, breathing normally. Stop again for first photo of day at 8:45, others JUST rested and gone ahead. Catch up with them and share their half-hourly rest stop 9:10-9:20AM. VERY slowly. John give me his balaclava for sun at 10. Stop for lunch 11:10-11:30. "Last stop" 12:20 in sight of Kibo Hut. Pissing a LOT. In to Hut at 1, flabbergasted that what was scheduled for six hours took ME four hours 45 minutes. Have two cups of tea and two tarts, then share in picture taking and place making-up and preparation for tomorrow, feeling SURPRISINGLY fit. Is it the gradual ascent or the pills or both? Pack a trip pack for tomorrow, layer my sundries bag for tonight and tomorrow, lay out my clothes, take a shit and make a WONDERFUL observation: the SEATS of the CONVENTIONAL johns are WET, taking toilet paper to try; the SLIT johns ALWAYS have clean seats! Back at 3:20 to take a picture of Mawenzi. David commands, "Wait." I stop as he rummages. What does he want? He comes up with a Mars bar. "Here." Stunned, I say "Thanks, thanks a lot. Notice I didn't say 'Oh, I couldn't.'" I'm totally blown away. Tea 3:40-4 and I get into the sack and Mike volunteers to take my picture. Dinner comes at 4:40 and is over at 5:20: soup, porridge, bread and butter, and tea. He said we WAKE at 1, leave at 1:30, climb five hours to 6:30, MAY go back and forth to Uhuru by noon, and down to Kibo for tea and packing and down to Horombo in three hours! Long hard day, but he says we can ALL make Uhuru if we want, "slowly, slowly." Shit AGAIN and, still light outside, wind making noise, I get to bed at 6PM. Can't sleep, but probably drop off because I wake twice having to piss.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4: Knock at 12:53AM! Tea and biscuits at 1, rush to pack and I'm out LAST at 1:33. Guide flurries around me as I dash to the shapeless worm-form ahead, falling behind someone I presume to be Wim with neat creases in the back of his trousers and a torch that he shines down on his boots, enabling me to see where my next steps will be. It's not as cold or as windy as I would have feared, but after awhile my fingers get so cold in the wind-transparent mittens that I curl them into a fist while transferring the stick to the other hand. No one speaks, only the trudging steps ahead, and when I get a brief chance to glance up, I can see only shadows above from various flashlights, a slow snake-dance up the side of an invisible mountain. After a bit I begin feeling complaints about the steepness of the climb: why are we going so steeply when the path from below looked mostly like switchbacks? We're all panting, even though we're barely putting each heel ahead of the toe of the other boot, slipping back slightly on the scree. I begin to admire Wim for hardly ever slipping, though I curse briefly after our stop at 2:30, which he recovers from WITHOUT his flashlight, but the light of the stars is bright enough to cast shadows, and I can see far enough ahead to move with confidence. At the 4:15 stop one of the guides tries to get between me and Wim and I rather breathlessly push past, disgusted that after a dozen paces I'm panting just as much as I had been BEFORE the rest-stop. When I think we back-track across the central path I think to count, but just get to two before the various chains of music coursing through my head makes me forget to count. At another stop, maybe 4:45, the moon is up brilliantly, and I can make out the shape of the mountain ahead, and it seems we're far along, though we can hear people behind us coming up quickly, disgustingly healthy guides hallowing and shouting and singing from below. At one stop there's the bright stab of a shooting star. Halfway up there's a cave that feels warmer than the steep slope, and I don't want to get up after a bit. David said the guide smoked almost constantly. The stops aren't coming often enough, and I pass Ian panting, and John panting, and I don't feel so badly to be at least CONTINUING. But after the 5:15 stop and the 5:45 stop it begins to get light, the top still seems ahead, and I'm determined to take pictures, helping me to rest. Getting to the limits of my endurance at the 6 and 6:15 stop, and though I was determined not to stop before the others, I find myself heading for a rock at a turnoff and resting: I just HAD to. Olindos comes up behind me and volunteers to take my bag, which is quite a relief, though I take out the camera for myself. He begins treating me as an invalid, which I start by resisting, but when he help hip-steer me over a rocky place that I had no one to guide me over, I feel grateful and pleased to have him helping me. About 6:45 I'm almost at the end, but someone offers me icy lemon-water which bolsters my energy, I take another picture, don't want to be passed, and make the penultimate effort. Not really thinking too much as I sit down for the final time, but Olindos is at my side: "Only five minutes to the top!" Well, I guess I can make THAT! Stagger up, helped by him, and count 60 steps, then another 60 steps, looking up in the now-bright sunlight to see that it really IS near, and then about 7:15 I stagger over a small rocky hillock and the expanse of the crater spreads before me, glaciers to the right and left. I've made it to the top! Take an exhausted photo, look around to find everyone clustered on rocks a bit higher up to the left, and scrabble up them to find two small plaques, one for the peak at 18,500 feet, one commemorating Gilman himself. I plop down next to them, but then am vaguely aware people want to take pictures of them, so I scrabble up a few more rocks to be on the VERY top of Gilman Point, where Jon asks me to take a picture of him and he takes one of me. Others are signing the book below, and I take it away from another chatty group that interrupted our group's signing. Is and Dick make it clear they're going down, so at least I won't be going down ALONE. Jon says he's not continuing, but wants to wait on the top for a bit. Wim joins us, and as we start down at 8:10, Mike stands from behind and rock and joins us on the way down! So we're 6 going down, only 5 tried to make Uhuru, some surprising us, like Ian and John, whom we'd all observed to be all in. It seemed normal that Ali and David would go ahead, but it seemed a bit mad for Anton to try too. Olindos is leading us back much too quickly, scree-running down by 9:40: they say we can make it in half an hour, but I'm not used to the downhill tension on my knees and boot-cramped feet, and I don't trust my knees and legs to hold me up properly. Anyway, we DO have TIME! VERY exhausted at the bottom, counting the last 1200 paces, welcomed by VERY nice orange crush, then tea after I've gotten chilledly into bed, everything wet under sweat-sopping waterproofs. Lay for a bit, then talk, then pack by 11:05, and off for a crap. We chat and I demand we stop a lot, and at last water I'm developing a sore on top of my next-great right toe. Boots are TOO short. It's cold at first, then everything dries out and it's warmer, and at 12:20 clouds are rising around Kilimanjaro; I'm VERY tired and get in at 2:45 (and Ali returns at 3:20, saying that the climb to Uhuru only took 1 hour and 20 minutes. But it was probably good that Efata said it would be two and a half hours, determining me to go down---if I'd been tempted to the top, I might have ended up worse than John, crawling the last bit on his hands and knees, and then carried back to Gilman Point and taken down to Kibo Hut on a stretcher!) I sack out, coughing, and get a chill, and fear I may be coming down with something. Ask Mike to fetch Dick, who comes in saying he's only a surgeon (after saying Ali looks fine), has no thermometer, and I'm probably only tired. Doze till sunset, wash my teeth, take some pictures, join the second seating that goes till dark, shit uncomfortably out the ledge near the cabins, and get to bed at 7:30 with a sleeping pill. Have a coughing fit at 8 and finally prop up the mattress with my handbag and manage to fall asleep, waking to piss only once, still keeping one Diamox tablet for the trip down tomorrow.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 5: Up at 6AM, eat tea and biscuits at 6:10, and start down at 6:55. Legs get more and more out of control and my right foot hurts so much I begin to limp. Starting to worry something might be REALLY off. Lunch just as I arrive at 10:30 at Mandara Hut, finish and leave just after 11:05. Halfway point to Gate at lPM, so I estimate gate at 3. At 2:30 Efata says, "No problem from here to gate," and leaves to get the others off, having established I DO want a car to the Kibo Hotel. I get to gate at 2:45, after a LARGE array of beautiful black-bordered, orange/red/yellow butterflies light just in front of me, as if to comfort me in my pain. Would have loved a photo, though I did take some. Efata said, "I take your bag?" I said, "No problem. Take my FEET!" and he loved it. To hotel at 3PM for 400/! But it's absolutely worth it. Shower, get a pail for my feet, and Mike enters about 3;30. Check in rented stuff, mine changed 630/, and chat and put stuff in order and with tipping (I give 50/ extra to Olindos and 40/ extra to Elimwokozi), and dinner at 7:15 is VERY nice, with my vodka added. We chat at 8:45, and we have tea and coffee and talk until all feel tired. It's about the limit of my muscular endurance to climb up and down the stairs. I leave at 9:30 and brush teeth and get into bed to write as Mike comes in, and finish this at 10PM, latest in AGES. I'm SO glad it's over. Hope I don't cough again tonight. Do a lot at first, but raise myself on pillows and it's better. To sleep fairly quickly.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 6: Wake at 2:30 to piss with a dream: I'm sitting on a second-floor balcony in a Mexican hotel, looking out the window, and the view seems to slide like an object on a rough sea, and then comes the dull rumble of an earthquake. I figure if the balcony falls I'll bounce safely on the sofa on which I'm sitting, but then I fear if the balcony TIPS to the EDGE, where I sit, the other sofas and people will slide into me and crush me! Back to sleep after some time and wake again about 6:30, lying until 7 when I get up, flush from our pee, shit, shave, and fill a pot for my morning foot-soak, and catch up with this by 7:30AM. Desk has "one climber 2650/, two climbers each 2500/, 3 or more climbers each 2300/, one extra day each 580/. Kibo Hotel rate sheet: transfer 8/ per km; half board (dinner and breakfast only) 390/ single room. Double per person 290/, lunch 100/ per person. 5% service charge." English paid 235 pounds or LESS, or $368, versus my $600! Down to breakfast from 7-8 with Jonathan and Ali, who graciously give me their address in Dar. Pay 260/ for two dinners, leaving me with three shillings! Still no sign of Carl at 9:15 when we find we must vacate rooms by 10! Wander to village after leaving bag in waiting room and find it costs 10/. Change another $100 by 10AM, also giving manager 400/ for car yesterday. Elimwokozi tries to tell me he did NOT get his special tip (no 10/ for banana beer?), while David assures me he handed them both out. Olindos thanks me for the 50, so I KNOW it was done. Up to gallery, not bad, particularly sculpture by Kiasi, but then down to "gift gallery" and it's 35/ for the merest scrap of wood-burning of man smoking pipe with a word in Swahili translated as "Good News." I see a price list, and banana fiber rhino (questionable as vegetable matter on entry to USA) is marked 20/ and he insists this is a "new lot" and tries to show me RECEIPTS as PROOF. I leave rather dejected. Eli asks for my address, which I give, and a photo of himself, which I wriggle out of by saying I have only slides, not photos. Back to take a look at "the best British climber, tackled the Andes last year up to 24,000 feet by himself," and he a pale, slender-legged, nice pectoraled, slightly potty fellow of 25-30. Four of them go off alone, seemingly carrying everything on their own backs, at llAM, after he does a biceps-flex for their cameras. Everyone's bored and reading, except for the vanished David and John. I finish Blackwood's "Dudley and Gilderoy" by 12:45, when five of us (having peered out the window at the sound of every passing bus) find that the Kibo will serve ONLY the full lunch at 100/, "too busy" for sandwiches. "Kibo" is the Kachaga (or Chaga, local tribe) name for the mountain. Suddenly someone gripes they should have phoned us and someone else suggest WE phone THEM, and I leap to my feet to the manager's office. He says "Usa River 32" when I say "Hotel Tanzanite," and I shout "Usa River 32" 3 or 4 times until a male voice switches me to a female voice, which seems to understand. I pass the information that I'm at the Kibo Hotel (to the man, only) and the manager says they'll ring me back. Manager assures me the first operator will tell the second operator. I mention he's from the Seychelles and he says they are very beautiful and I should visit them, only a 2.5-hour flight for the 1000 km. Then I ask him about the official stamp and he says he must have that; I say I'm a collector and he gives me a MINT official stamp and about a half-dozen others from Kenya, Tanzania, and Seychelles. A gift! Silver was from China and china was from Bavaria in Kibo. Good steak lunch for 100/ and Carl calls to say "I'm waiting for the truck in 20 minutes and will get to you between 2 and 2:30," an obvious impossibility for the 2-hour ride at 1:10. Finish writing this at 2 and begin Nabokov's "Bend Sinister." The recurring irony of paying heaps of money to see Kilimanjaro and now I won't leave the hotel lobby to see it around the corner in actuality, too fatigued to do anything but sit reading Nabokov and feel depressed, feeling I should be DOING something. Finish at 2:10 and lay down till 4, photo Ian and John and David to 4:15; cards then, playing Knockout Whist: deal 7, turn up trumps; if you don't get a trick you're knocked out. Then go to 6&5&4&3&2&1. Cheer at 4:35 as pink truck roars up the hill. Lots of ill will abounds as we roll up the sides, load the luggage, and board with four others at 4:50. Off at 5:03. Stop for Kili view at 5:25 and Carl announces "a small problem." If we hadn't stopped, the engine would have seized up, no oil in the engine. David's birthday is January 23, 1959. Start again 6:25, having taken too many pictures of Kili. Arrive at 8PM and pick up stuff from Mike's suitcase. Wash and go to dinner. EGYPT AIR flies London-Cairo-Dar Es Salaam for about 450 pounds (or Aeroflot flies London- Moscow-Dar for 375 pounds!). Jonathan and Ali left after breakfast, leaving us as a group of 9. Dick was picked up by prompt Abercrombie and Kent at 1:15, leaving 8. Is, John, Ian, David, and Mike wake at 4:30, breakfast at 5, to leave 5:30 for an early departure, leaving Anton, Wim, and me. They have in mind the Sunday market. I'll inquire further. VERY tired after 100/ Dodoma red (poor) and poor 90/ meal at Tanzanite. Brush teeth and bed at 9:35.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 7: Wake at 5:10 and jerk off most copiously (two shots to chin, 9 shots in all) till 5:40, thinking of putting an ad in the Village Voice for Gay Muscleman J/O view/exchange. Up at 7 and soak my still highly-aching-when-I-walk legs (the foot soreness has taken decidedly a back seat) in a nice hot bath, not possible at Kibo, and go to breakfast at 8:15-8:45, Anton and Wim not there. Back to sort out pills and papers for leaving tomorrow, and inquire about a day tour. A half-day tour by Land Cab with four people (one in front, three along back) is 1600/ plus 1050/ park entrance fee per vehicle--so even with FOUR people it's 662/, or $55! Wim and Anton say they've had enough--- their only plan is for the market at 11. David has vanished; the German woman leaves tomorrow. I certainly can't walk. Tell Jordan and Jane to look for people to go with me. Even another single with David at 900/ or $75 is thinkable, but $110 is just TOO much for two. Go down to reserve-edge to write at 10, but the heat of the ostrich-mating chase seems to have abated. Again the irony of sitting reading Nabokov in the midst of animal Africa washes over me. SOUNDS of ostrich-fucking: he swings his head and neck against outspread wings: thup, thup, thup---then in mounted mating he GRUNTED like a PIG for a second or a second and a half! And he had a 5 or 6-inch pink engorged appendage hanging DOWN under his upspread white tail as he moved off her JUST after I took the last picture. I MISSED a MIDDLE step before he mounted: he strutted on TIPTOE with feathers RAISED behind him in a fluttering fan. Leave for market at 11, then leave the three German-speaking "friends." 160/ for a 3x5 foot print strikes me as TOO much. Does HE know what his shirt "Here Comes Trouble" means? Does SHE know what her shirt (Large caps) "YES I DO" (small script) "but not with you." Fellow says the clapping guitaring singing group at the bar is Salvation Army. "Look, she's crying. They sing from one to 4." He takes me around: green powder is ground leaf used as vegetable in stews; finely ground tobacco is used as snuff; everything is VERY expensive: 150/ for a chicken, 3/ per egg, 5/ for small wrapping of salt, which is illegal to sell so people surround the vendors; 5/ for one sugar cane, 20/ for a kilo of coffee, 5/ for a cup of beans. I treat him to a Double Cola for 12/ and talk about how much trip costs: 24,000/ to fly here, 7200/ to climb Kili, but only 21/ for a whole 6-kilo chicken in the states. He walks back with me about 1:30 and finally asks for 100/. I reluctantly look in wallet, have 30/ free, and he thanks me profusely for it. Through Meru again to get a rate sheet from gracious hostess, then hear American from four women from Newport Beach, California, that took THREE Days to get here, going to Kibo Hotel tomorrow for climb, and we talk about it till almost 2. Piss against the gate so I don't have to go to my room, and of course someone black passes me with a look of contempt in her eyes, though it was a black guy who "taught" me to do it. Woman from Meru came through to see the Tanzanite, clearly not following my advice to go as early as possible to the village market. Manager calls "Babu-ji" to get my attention. To them I am OLD! When a male ostrich shits, he seems first to extrude his foot-long recurved penis, let out a gob of thick yellowish liquid, THEN let roll a turd! ASTOUNDING length and wet pinkness. Sit till 5, bored silly, then get obsessed with thought that I don't have the Masai head! Back to room, have it, and jerk off to excess (drinking vodka) to 5:45. Then futz and leave at 6:20. Mope through dinner alone 7:15-8, then Doug Clarke is put next to me and we talk of cinema vans, indexing, foul-ups, "average men," "making your luck," travel, and the "English Bucket Shop," which gets cheap surplus seats. Contact FLAMINGO TOURS of Shaftesbury Avenue (near Piccadilly), Mr. Patel, manager, refer from Doug Clarke of Agrivisual Ltd., Wokingham. His address is Doug Clarke, 2l Robins Grove Crescent, Yateley near Camberley. Phone Yateley 875-945. He treats to beer (with my 10/ change added) and I get back to room at 10. Wash and bed. Sleep easily.
MONDAY, AUGUST 8: Wake about 2 and 5 and 7 to piss, and up at 7:30 to re-check cash and forms. It's DRIZZLING as I get to breakfast at 8AM, and it's COOL. I'll be glad to get PANTS back. Legs still sore, but better than yesterday. Foot and toes about back to normal. Thank God! AND Doug isn't HERE, let's hope he got to Moshi by now! A crested grouse/tinamou peeps about in the dining room. They obviously haven't swept the floor since last night. David joins me and we chat very desultorily. I wander over to Meru at 8:45 and they say they had choice between "charm and hot water" and chose charm and took cold showers, but the food was good and last night the Premier of Burundi dropped in with his eleven white Mercedeses. Back to pick up CLEAN PRESSED laundry for 30/ and verify with dubious clerk that Tracks IS paying for my room 11, and I'm left with 370/ to spend at 9:35. At least I got SOMETHING extra for the extra amount I paid for the Kili climb. Surprise! Off to Arusha with Carl at 9:50. In at 10:22. Get told that the motel Agip OR the New Africa Hotel is best in Dar. Oyster Bay Hotel and Restaurant is good, ask for Mr. Homi. Into bookstore that doesn't have English Serengeti book but HAS a nice 200/ batik, 60/ rhino, and 25/ map of Tanzania, leaving me 85/ for lunch. Wander down streets and enter a mosque guided by Ramadhani, who's disappointed I don't take a picture of the straw-matted microphone-filled mihrabed men's praying area OR the non-mihrabed LADY'S area upstairs. But he takes me on the balcony to look over the park and Mt. Meru and him in a photo, then downstairs, where is so obviously WANTS that I offer my emptying pen, which he takes. Through relatively quiet side streets of guest houses and small shops, and around in a large circle to meet the two OAT fellows buying a crysolite for a watch, who suggest I can pee in the New Arusha. In at noon (no truck) and pee, then out to look uptown and see the Tracks truck across from the KLM office, as before. Up and stand till 12:20, when I see David stroll into the New Safari Grill, so I join him for ordering a fillet steak for 60/ at 12:30, when they open. And there's Ali, looking sexier than ever. He's three generations here, his great grandfather working as a coolie for the British railroads, recommending places to stay in Dar. His family OWNS Daikin in Tanzania and Canada, Toronto, and he's going there to start business, and asks about Atlanta. Lovely to look at. Jonathan joined five Italians for a 20,000/ land-rover for 5 days and 4 nights in Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro. That's 666/, or $55 per person per day, not bad at all. He's going to Dar tomorrow, lives in an apartment in the Panda Hotel, and talks about why I'm not married and about my travels. Oh, David says he SAY Carl, who said he'd be leaving at 1. At 1:30 he goes to New Arusha to search for Carl; Jackson says he'll be going to the Tanzanite between 2:30 and 3; and we JUST sit in the coffee shop garden when Fred and Gilbert board truck: Carl's at the upstairs bar at the New Arusha. We go there at 1:45 and Uli says he'll be leaving with Jackson after he finishes his beer. Carl is to meet someone who hasn't showed up yet, and he has no idea when he'll leave, except that WE have to leave for the airport at 6:30 because 200 people will be there for the flight. Everyone sits in sun and smokes and drinks and talks as I catch up with this with a Parker ballpoint borrowed from Carl. Now 2:10 with little signs of leaving yet. I wander upstairs to take a picture of "erupting" Mt. Meru and come back in five minutes to find bar closed and them gone! In panic I rush downstairs: no sign of them. Look around in direction of Savannah Tours, no one. Up to truck, is that Carl? Then Uli whistles behind me and we're into car---to go to Savannah Tours to offload a BARREL of diesel fuel. Then to two places to try to get an exhaust valve, or something. David getting more and more irked; I study the map. Finally we stop at a GARAGE for some under-hood adjustment. David fumes. I close eyes and try to lighten. At last, at 3:05, we drive off (after attendant rushes out to say hood is still open) in a rush---and start sputtering and backfiring! Coast partway, I BLAZE up fuel-purifying energy and motor works OK. Back at 3:30 and I return to room to regain a pen and take a bath. White pants are beginning to look dirty ALREADY! Check two "new" pens to make sure they work. Lay for a bit, thinking, then brush teeth and pack METICULOUSLY and bag closes NEATLY at 5:30. Sit outside, then move bags to lobby at 6:10. Carl comes at 6:20, drinks a beer, and we leave at 6:35. To airport at 7:10 in dark and wait till signs go up at 7:25. Things go slowly till we get to weight station, then we pay 40/. get boarding pass, get cabin-baggage tag, get seat assignment (I hope 30, at the BACK of non-smoking section, is WAY past wing end), turn in money declarations AND receipts (!), then through security gate that ALWAYS buzzes, and into a room with a guard who opens bag, rifles a bit, asks if I have weapons, checks handbag, does a quick body-frisk, then I'm into lounge at 8PM. Tired! Some VERY muscular attractive arms and chests and legs on some of the men. I look at unfinished restaurant upstairs, unfinished johns downstairs, and Wim gets asked $3 per beer, has only $5, and waiter gives him two. I was told 25 shilling (which we weren't supposed to have). English-German fellow tries to save the $5, but it's long gone. Drink beer and chat and board at 8:40, crowded plane. Heat very great at the start, as it was in Khartoum on the way down. Write this at 9:03---12 hours to go! "Khartoum is a rat-hole; NOTHING there," opines Carl. Off at 9:20 for 2 hour 50 minute flight to Khartoum. Long agony of a thirsty, bumpy, bright, loud flight, seeing lights only ten minutes before landing in (one hour earlier) Khartoum at 11:15 precisely. Same breathless flute music as before, and I'm trying to pass time as flatly as possible. Now 11:50 PM.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9: Leave at 12:25 for 5-hour flight. At 2AM there's a line of lights out the right that must echo the Nile around Cairo. May sleep a bit, sitting up, but look at stars and African enclosures below, then nothing until lights of inland Greece. I'm sneezing and sniffling, angry that I have a cold over hot-and-cold flashes on PLANE that I avoided on safari and up Mount Kilimanjaro. Finding the tack (dismissed by the steward as were the flies he swallowed in his tea) in the chicken didn't help. Then as the sky began to turn its litmus from blue to red, the cabin lights flashed on at 4:05 for hot towels and breakfast! Incredible! Everyone completely asleep; me enjoying watching increasing light outside, all erased at 4:05AM! Breakfast is good but seemingly totally unnecessary, EVEN for passengers debarking at Vienna at 5:20--do they NEED breakfast? THEN juices and beverages stop from FRONT at row 29, ahead of me, and short-handed cart from rear either MISSES us or gets us an hour later. And I fuss about kid's incessant pushing, pulling, and tugging at his tray-table on the chair back under me, the officious German tour-guides who stand in the aisles, obstructing the service, just to "show his customers he's on the job." And the friendly jaspers who block aisles to exchange silly-grin inanities. True, my throat is dry and raw and my nose sore from blowing and rubbing and I'm the tiniest bit headachy from finishing the last of the vodka for dinner, but the COMBINATION is just brutal. Land below dawn in fog-shrouded Vienna airport at 5:30, said to stay only 15 minutes, but it's 5:45 NOW and only continuing passengers are blocking the aisles muttering the time-passing nothings of sheer tired boredom. WINDOW seems as clouded as outside---can barely see wingtip. Two more legs and then the Orly-chase to consider. Baby squalls; thank GOD I'm not in SMOKING section, though "window" is half of one in FRONT when front seat is UPRIGHT and half of one in BACK when MY seat is full back. ANOTHER stupidity of making seats too close. Another case of "real first class" coming in a HUGE expense (Executive Airlines, etc) for what REGULAR service should offer. Must've announced 50 minutes, still unmoving by 6:15. One hour 25 minute flight announced. Off at 6:30, cloudy below. Good snack: Europe at last! Muzzy below, sunny above. Feeling warmer and better and less "having a cold." Land at 7:50, more irrigation ditches, polder-seas, boats on canals, and villages. No Amsterdam. Foggy. Off at 8, get new flight boarding pass, buy cognac for JJ with Visa for about $13, and three rolls of film for $8.50, getting 2.5 G from $9, then buy $10 + 2.5 G - 10 cents worth of stamps at the poor harried PO that seemed to be dealing only in American currency. Get to warm gate B22 at 8:45, prepared to make the Orly trip---only Orly flight was at 3PM! Read some, board at 9, move at 9:25, off at 9:30. A third "little sandwich" breakfast, and even start down at 9:55. Make BIG circle around airport---Paris under fog---and land at 10:15. Get 777F for $100 and at 10:35 wait for 40F bus to Orly. Stand waiting for Orly bus---but that waiting hall across the way seems VERY familiar? Go over and it's CDG where I've checked my luggage. That's the good news. The bad news is that I have to pay 125F! Imagine my going CDG-Orly-CDG!! Onto SNCF bus 10:30. Onto SNCF, angered that you have to pay 20F to get to the Gare du Nord to buy a "pay-all" SNCF ticket! Upstairs, downstairs, upstairs, SHOUT and finally find 44F for 2 days (6F normal lst class, 4F normal 2nd class)(2nd class carnet of 10 for 24F), 66F for 4 days, 110F for 7 days---I get 66F, Tuesday-Friday, since JJ will drive Saturday and Sunday OR I'll be only 20F for RATP to station. Tired onto Italie train at 11:50, but nice to go first class, along with a lot of liars, even with two cops lounging, talking, in car. To JJ's and keys and set out souvenirs and unpack and sniffle and at 2 go to Le Levant for 1/4 rose and chopped steak and French fries, get cold medicine ACTIFED, and go see Ironmaster (La Guerre Du Fer) for 26.5F, and I COULD see Rocky II in French, too, but it looks wordy. Back at 5:30 to take pill and shit and lay down till JJ gets home. I fall asleep about 6 and JJ returns at 8 with Thais, a well-behaved black Labrador. We ready for dinner by 9PM. To La Cremaillaire in busy Montmartre, decent food, and collapse into bed at 12:50AM.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10: Wake before alarm at 7:30, and breakfast with JJ, who checks that I can take film to 9 Delambre. Jerk off after he leaves and leave at 9:30 for dropping off the film at ONE metro stop, go to Vavin for next train, and tour the Gustave Moreau museum from 10:15 to 12:45, GREAT stuff. See most of the 483l drawings, hundreds of pastels, and 544 paintings. Eat at Opera Pizza for 50F for milanese and ils flottant, good taste, and then from 2-3 pay 506F for seven rolls of film developed and SORT them there. Then take two lines to the Beaubourg from 3:30-6:45, lots of STUFF and photos. Photos by Marc Tulane of dance were joyless; Czech photographs were uninteresting; optical color had too much involved French to READ; Boyd Webb's photos were quite minimal; Au temps de l'espace was crowded, computerized, confusing, and not much; Bresil des bresiliens wasn't much either; La foret retrouvee was tiny and skimpy; Macao was composed of fun cutouts from enlarged photos, like a carnival event. I didn't bother to pay for the Polish Presences, and then walked all through their permanent collections on the third and fourth floors, which went on FOREVER with prime Picasso and Picabia and Dufy and Dubuffet and Tanguy and Leger and Kandinsky (GREAT color and humor) and Matisse and endless others, though more and more QUICKLY the art could be gone through more and more QUICKLY. Back to the metro to transfer to Gobelins line at 7PM, LATE, and back at 7:15 and shower and shave and JJ arrives at 8 and we try various restaurants, all on vacation, and get to Derek's and Patrick's about 9:30, small neat place, "picnic" dinner of ham and salami and meats and salad and screwdrivers and wine and cassis. Speak French some and laugh and leave at 12, drunk and tired.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11: Wake at 6:30 to shit, then up at 8:30 for breakfast and diarrhea, and leave at 9:45 to get to RER A at 10:20 and to St. Germain-en-Laye at 10:45 and walk side (constructing) streets to the Prieure for mediocre Maurice Denis and some nice stained glass and glass pieces to 12, then to Le Saint Malo for Choucroute Garni and "moyen biere," rather large, 12:20-1:15, and catch up with this. Wait for Musee des Antiquites Nationale to open at 1:30. Thank God no need to shit again so far. Lots and lots of OBJECTS until 3, then shit waterily. Buy guide and BACK to see Dame of Bassempyre, and out at 3:25 to walk along gardens and terrace (with GREAT brown body tanning itself in white shorts) and into forest to find road, walk along it, turn inland, find another road to Fete des Loges, and in at 4:30 for too many games and junk-food places and too few good rides---though Rainbow is surprisingly high. Bored (except for pretty boys) and out at 5:30 to wait for bus, then visit church in which James II is buried, and get 6PM RER back to Paris, tired. Back at 7:15, JJ still not in. Shower and look for projector and phone for return information and JJ returns about 8:30. Feed dog and chat and out about 9:15 to try 2-3 restaurants, fail, and end up at L'Escargot Montorgueil, GREAT snails in roquefort, goujonette of sole intense in pleurottes and spinach and dark sauce going well with Contraltold (?) Talbot, and out at 11:30 to get to Bertilllon for last scoops: intense cherry, creamy praline pignons, and mild apricot for me, strong guava and mild banana for JJ. Home at 12:05, brush teeth, and sleep quick.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 12: Don't wake till 7:15, and breakfast and set up slides and leave at 8:50 to get to his office at 9:20. Leave 9:40, having decided on REIMS tomorrow, and get GRAND tour THROUGHOUT Marne-La-Vallee, taking lots of pictures of lots of varied buildings and atmospheres. He drops me at Noissy and I go to top of Boffill's building, then through parking lot and arcades (via IBM) to get to RER at 12:15, quite hungry. Train comes at 12:20, onto Line 1 at 12:40. To line 8 at 12:50. To zoo after walk at 1:15, and wait 1/2 hour to order lunch in restaurant, chicken and wine and potatoes and egg mayonnaise and creme caramel for 57F. The Museum of Africa and Oceania was closed for repairs. Zoo from 2:30-5, nice things, but I'm VERY tired. CUTE GUYS! Back to JJ's by 5:30, maid there, so I work on slides. JJ enters at 6, saying he has to meet someone till 7:30, and I continue with slides, numbering them and showing 137 out of the 252. Shower and shave and wait for him at 7:40! He arrives at 8, takes the dog down, and we leave at 8:20 for Laperouse, sitting alone for a time in a low-ceilinged room of gold and mirrors. I have salmon (rather tasteless) with onions, cibolette (chives) and tiny unmarinated fresh capers. He has a gateau of sardines in a cream sauce, somewhat watery. For 160F he orders Bouzy from Champagne, a tangy red wine of no real character for $20. I have a fatty confit (simply a marinade) of duck with a sweet confiture of onions on a pavee of potatoes. His ris de veau are good in the same pleurottes mushrooms I have with my duck. His "three parfums" gateau MIGHT have different chocolates; my melange of oranges is intense and kiwi nice. Eventually 5 of the 7 tables are filled where we are, overlooking Seine, brightened by the passing bateaux mouches, and 2 of 4 in next are filled, as are both in the first room, though the ground floor seems closed. Anxious but somewhat strained service, not really a great expense, but not a disaster, either, for 67lF. Out at 10:30 and to Trocadero for drummers and blankets of the same "African" goods, colorful and FULL of tourists. Home at 11:45 totally exhausted and fall asleep even before JJ gets into bed.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13: Wake at 7:30 to piss and up at 9 to start packing for tomorrow: ONE day left! JJ fusses and feeds and washes and calls his nephew and I search for restaurants for which he makes reservations. Out at 11:30 to main road past Marne La Vallee again and nice clear countryside, into Champagne without seeing vineyards, and off at Dormais exit to ramble through old roads and get lost before finding the sign for Hostelerie du Chateau at Fere-en-Tardenois, arriving after 1 for Thais to not piss and enter ELEGANT dining room, all in pink dahlias and tablecloth and candles to match his pink shirt, and TWELVE pieces of silverware to which two are added after three are taken away. We start with tidbits (over screams of awful child) and my single lapereau he has two of, and his barbue is good, as is my lotte in a pastry, and my noisettes d'agneau are tender and tasty with rough carrots and delicate green beans. Long wait between courses and half-bottle of champagne goes far. Lots of cheese and LOTS of fruit (6: melon, mango, pineapple, orange, grapefruit, and overripe kiwi) and three chocolate desserts (white with coconut, bitter and sweet chocolate. Bill for 500+ and out at 4! Tour ruins of castle and drive side roads to Reims for unified symmetrical cathedral, delayed until start of "Walkeure" from Bayreuth at 5. Photo and like the window and inner facade statues, and walk to Place Royale and past closed museum of St. Denis, then drive to closed chapel for more Wagner and leave about 7:45 for La-Ferte-sous-Joarre, easy going for 8:30 arrival in more casual place, but I still have tasting menu with two filling terrines and barbue a l'oiselle that I can barely finish while he has sole (their specialty) and shrimp salad. VERY full before cheese: Rablouchon could be creamier; brie de Meaux (pronounced Mow) is WEAKER than Brie de Melun; Saint Hectaire has middle strong taste, pont l'eveque is softer and nicer. "Tulip" of sugar-dough with strawberries on ice cream is as good as his HUGE scoops of dynamite strawberry and acid grapefruit. Out at 10:15, staring at armless man being fed by wife and daughter, and give lots of my cheese to Thais, and home by 11:15. JJ feeds and walks her, when I set up for slides from 11:30 to 12:05, but we're both exhausted. To bed and sleep quickly.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 14: Wake at 6:15 to shit and drink a lot of water, and then as a surprise up at 7:30 to shit AGAIN. Lay till 8:20 and up to take a shower before eating breakfast at 9. Pack strongly into only two bags and JJ phones and fusses again, then we leave just before 10 to get gas and he drives quickly to Orly South, Zone 3, for four LONG check-in lines at 10:20, not even halfway there by 10:40, when I'm up to date. Check in by 11:08, buy Grand Marnier for 102F and perfume for Mom for 257F, and onto plane at 11:30, just as they announce departure. A LEFT window given me, JAMMED plane and HOT! Jets start at 11:45. Seven hours 25 minutes flying time at 31,000 feet. Ron Silver sexy Larry in "Best Friends." Off at 12, clear views down over France and coast. Good lunch, then "Best Friends" passes time. Straining for look at Nova Scotia at 11:45, GLAD to be getting back, NOT liking the bumps along the way AT ALL. Snack, good view of Long Island, and land at 1:40. VERY clear Manhattan skyline. Long wait in plane for "plane mate" to hook up at 1:55, but then WHIZ through customs and out to curb by 2:13, for train-bus to city. Bus comes 2:16! To station by 2:31. Express FINALLY comes at 2:55! To Jay at 3:25, but A doesn't come until 3:50! Home about 4. Talk to John, phone Dennis, unpack for him and talk, and he takes alligator. Look through mail till 6:30 dizziness sets in and get bread from Dennis and have eggs, and bed at 7:15 after jerk-off.
MONDAY, AUGUST 15: Wake at 2:30, only 7 1/4 hours, but up to read two Times from 7th and 14th of August, puzzles too, and get to bank 10:50-11:40 and get cash and groceries and send off three films. Lunch of fish and do more magazines and phone lots of people and get two indexes and talk to seven people and look at more magazines and have steak at 6:30 and read Africa Game Parks book and jerk off TWICE nicely during day, and stay up till 11 to watch TV 10-11, and Dennis calls at 11:30, after which I go directly to sleep.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16: Wake at 2:30 to piss and at 6 to do quick lightwork session, and up at 6:30 to start DO list and begin fixing up apartment. Mail 11 pieces of mail and 6 films, go to class, and do NSH on Barbara afterwards. Type 2 pages of this on Wednesday, 6 pages on Saturday, two pages yesterday (Wednesday), and SIXTEEN pages today (Thursday, August 25), to finish before 6PM, ready to start on the NEXT stage of enjoying New York and traveling!
TRAVEL SUMMARY OF AFRICA (AND FRANCE), JULY 12 - AUGUST 14, 1983
TUE,JUL.12: Rushed last shopping for zoom camera-lens AND zoom binoculars up to 22-power, ideal for animal-watching: merely $310.00. Leave JFK at 9:30PM.
WED,JUL.13: My first sight of the aurora borealis at 4AM! Cloudy Europe when we land at 10:45AM. Metro to Jean-Jacques, have pizza (ha!) for lunch, and nap before dinner at very good Au Quai des Ormes. At llPM it's still twilight and Paris dances on the Ile St. Louis on the Eve of Bastille Day. I'm exhausted!
THU,JUL.14: JJ drives to Beauvais where we look at the highest choir-nave in the world, have pleasant lunch with slightly alcoholic apple cider, and see the Tapestry Gallery with ancient and contemporary works. Back to Paris for a good sidewalk dinner before spectacular Bastille Day fireworks under the Tour Eiffel. Sherbet from Bertilllon at lAM to climax a very exciting day.
FRI,JUL.15: Since I only knew on MONDAY that I was going on the Tanzanian Safari (rather than the Kenya Safari that turned out to be full, or the Kenya Lodge Tour that never sent confirmation of my reservation), I was only on standby for a 2:45 Air France flight to Dar Es Salaam (though I was confirmed from Dar to Arusha). They told me to get there early: was there at 12:15, already ten people waiting ahead of me, and when the plane left NONE of the standby passengers had gotten on. It took me till 5 to get Air France to confirm a reservation for me tomorrow to Arusha on KLM via Amsterdam, but for the same $1200+ that I'd already paid Air France for the unused ticket today. AND since the KLM flight went to Arusha, I saved several hundred dollars by not having to buy a Dar-Arusha-Dar roundtrip. All this on top of the $600 I saved by buying my Paris-Africa tickets in PARIS rather than in New York---this all sounds complicated only because it WAS complicated. Phone Jean-Jacques, but the cleaning woman answered: he'd left for the weekend! But she phoned him and left keys for me to use the apartment another night. Decide to see the Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet at the Theater of the Champs Elysee, which I reach despite a wrong address printed in the guidebook. When things go wrong, they really go WRONG! American sells me a decent seat for the sold-out performance, which isn't terribly exciting. Afterward, the metro attendant lets me ride the last metro free; I get dinner at the nearby shopping center. Bed at 2:20AM.
SAT,JUL.16: Phone Arusha to say I'll be late for the tour. JJ (Jean-Jacques) calls to see how things are; I have lunch in a bistro and ride a bus through Paris, sightseeing, on the way to the station to get a train to the airport. Off at 7 for Amsterdam, Air France serving caviar, Boursin, and pork terrine with 1/4 bottle of red wine---some style for a 40-minute flight---great view over canals and boats and city as I land. Buy a quart of Smirnoff for $4 to "touch up" dinners on safari. Flight leaves at 10PM, sadly hazy below, and we land past the lights of Vienna at 11:15 for the first of two stops on flight.
SUN,JUL.17: Off at 12:15, over large lighted cities for another hour, but then darkness below and I sleep some. Land at 5:20 in military-ugly Khartoum, not allowed to leave the plane, so I watch handlers maul, drop, and up-end cartons marked Fragile, Do not drop, and This end up. Off at 6:30, have breakfast over invisible, cloud-covered Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and land at 10:20 to find it's 65S! This is the middle of WINTER! Save a few plastic drinking glasses from the plane, a boon later. Expectantly out of airport: no one's waiting for me. Ask for Tracks Safari; woman says "Peter's inside." Ask inside; no one answers. Out to Tracks truck; no one there. Shout "Tracks!": nothing. Start worrying. Finally someone takes pity on me: "Ask for Carl." Carl is with Jaap and Wilhelmina, who turn out to be part of a KLM group of 17 Dutch on my tour! By "happening" to "connect" with them, I got all ground transport free and a few extra free nights at the end at the hotel---so it turned out that my "missing the plane" in Paris was a bit of LUCK! Carl said, "No problem" for the first of 87 times on the trip, saying my message from Paris had been interpreted as being from "16 Frenchmen." I never DID find out what happened to the 16 Frenchmen. "No problem." At last we're driven to the Hotel Tanzanite, quite nice, for lunch at lPM. I chat pleasantly with Jaap and Wilhelmina: of the 29 on the tour, it seems only we three were disquieted by the---uh---"rusticity" of the trucks: we didn't expect them to be 23 years old and springless. Bouncy late-30's woman says, "Call me Izzy," and Isobel, or Is, introduced me to the ten-person British contingent and the only other American, David, who'd been living in London for the past two years. Leaving is delayed because of a flat tire on one truck. Then we have to push it to get it started. Carl drives the first truck, filled with 15 Dutch; Peter drives the second truck with 2 overflow-Dutch and the rest of us. Both Carl and Peter are from Australia and speak--uh--"colorfully." Everyone's so cheery; I feel VERY depressed. We enter Arusha National Park about 4PM. What an extra-ordinary thrill it is to see my first wild giraffes peering at us over the tops of nearby trees! I don't find out until the next morning that Momela Lake Campsite USUALLY has lights and running water; but the generator's broken, other tourists who had Lodge reservations were transferred elsewhere, and we have to put up with one truck-light for dinner and no running water in the johns. Worse, nowhere in Arusha had I found anyplace to buy a hat for the sun, a sweater for the cold (which I hadn't really thought I'd need), a canteen for water, a towel, and a flashlight---all of which I'd assumed I could buy, rather than lugging them along with me through Paris; AND there was no place to rent a sleeping bag---AND everyone had paired up so that I was the "odd man" ALONE in a tent. I didn't mind the privacy and extra room so much, but on that first night pitching the tent I was thrown out of the space I'd "reserved" for myself when I got the tent, one of the Dutch took a tent pole I needed (and he needed) when I was working on the other side of my tent, and then another Dutchman "borrowed" a mallet I was using to pound in the stakes when I had to scrounge some other pilfered pieces. Not to mention that I had twice the work (and twice the inexperience with tents), so I finished last and when I missed out on the last cup I made SURE I got there BEFORE the last fork and plate vanished. NOT THE BEST START, WHAT? We wash dishes in greasy water and rinse in worse. I remind myself that I'd intended to buy anti-diarrhea medicine, too. It's growing even colder, but then the first GOOD thing happened: Carl had a spare sleeping bag, warm enough albeit somewhat ratty and smelly, which he let me use. Wander off in the dark for water (in my pilfered plastic glass) to brush my teeth. Just get into the tent when the lights go off at 9PM. When it rains at night and it gets too cold to leave the tent to urinate---well, the story just gets worse and worse! I'm just about as miserable as I can be.
MON,JUL.18: Wake what seems to be HOURS before it gets light enough outside to urinate AGAIN. Breakfast at 7:30 with two eggs, even though they're said to cost $1, sturdy Swiss-type grain cereal, and lots of tea. Pack tents. We have to be towed to start engine. I write notes morosely. In Ngurdoto Crater I get out my binoculars to find that I've spotted a herd of rocks. Black clouds are piling up: this is supposed to be the dry season and I have no raingear! But the animals are astounding: 12-13 elephants, 6-8 giraffes, 10-12 buffalo, large herds of waterbuck, and a treeful of bushy-tailed Colubus monkeys. Lunch is fairly typical of "safari" fare eaten beside the trucks on the trail: salad, bread and cheese and margarine, onions, cold red beans, and toffee. Hippos and zebras in afternoon before reaching the Dutuli Sports Club (a field on a lake) at 4:30 to set up tents. Decide to put about a double-shot of vodka in my coffee and everything becomes rosy: get to know the Gilleys with 14-year-old son Rob, David's British tent-mate John, and older Britisher Mike. The last three are going running tomorrow to practice for Kilimanjaro. Bed tired at 10.
TUE,JUL.19: Poop out running, but I have lots of room for improvement. Pack tent quicker than most. Breakfast of cereal, then push truck to start. To Arusha to exchange money, but there's absolutely nothing to shop for; long lines of cars, busses, trucks for gas; Tanzania, economically, is internationally worthless. Buy postcards 20 for $10. Carl returns at 1: NO GAS YET! We go BACK to Dutuli, re-pitch tents, "No problem" getting gas tomorrow. Four of us go for a walk around the volcano our crater-lake has filled. Return to lake and I take a spigot-shower in my bathing suit; lake unsafe to swim in. Walk a mile to a bar for 2 beers for $5; back at 6:30 to find there's STILL no gas, but "no problem" for morning. Carl and I have vodka, and we chat till bedtime.
WED, JUL.20: Run farther, breakfast, pack tents, chat, watch birds, take photos, look at lake (can't leave since we expect trucks any minute), read, write all my postcards, go to bar to find they're out of beer: only orange crush. Repitch tents. Depressed dinner at 7; Ian tries to cheer us up with his harmonica, but finally at 8:20 they're back with gas. Cheers. Bed.
THU,JUL.21: Run, breakfast, leave at 8:30, AT LAST. To top of Rift Valley, huge views, lots of secretary birds, gerenuk, ostriches, dust dervishes, and eight-foot anthills. Flock of vultures around an oryx skeleton. Hot and dry country with volcanos that erupted at Christmas. Clouds mercifully appear at 5 as we reach the Ngare Sare River (a middle-sized stream) in the middle of the black volcanic sand-desert populated by Masai and their herds. Carl finally gives me a water jug, but not yet a canteen. Brilliant moon after dinner, which helps when we have to take a shovel into the desert to dig our private latrine.
FRI,JUL.22: Wake in panic: SURELY someone is at my tent? Only the wind. Walk to falls in hills after breakfast. Extremely hot and bright, but water's cooling and safe to swim in. Packed lunch with a refreshing orange. Start back about 2, silly in the heat of the day. My wet bathing trunks make a perfect cooler-hat. Masai boy who speaks English joins us playing cards. We take his picture and he grabs my camera and takes three quick shots. I pay a girl about $1 for a photo of her tribal beads under her rather sullen grimace. The Masai take cups and stools, so we have to "reserve" ours each subsequent stop or we eat without cups and with nothing to sit on. I make "reserving" a cup and a stool while putting up my solitary tent into a fine art. More and more the Dutch (except for Jaap) seem to help with luggage only until they get theirs aboard or get theirs off. The two groups never really mingle, each speaking their own language and sharing their own jokes and looking after their own interests. Most of the Dutch DO speak English, but "of course" the English don't speak Dutch. We feel most of Dutch jokes are about us. Sad situation.
SAT,JUL.23: Up early (no running in desert sands) to leave at 7:45 past soda- lined Lake Natron and a distant smudge of hundreds of thousands of flamingos. Up the Rift Escarpment past flowering cactus and flowering agave, then flocks of grouse and storks, herds of impala, giraffes, topi, and kongoni (two types of antelope). Though the trip is hard, it's magical when the animals appear. My binoculars are invaluable, my camera ever-ready. Incredible country, even amid the heat, dust, thirst, thorns, discomfort, and work. Ostriches, hyenas, exotic birds, thousands of Grant's and Thompson's gazelles, fantastically beautiful animals. Into the Serengeti where grasslands are afire in controlled burning (we don't know it's controlled until afterwards, which certainly added to the drama of the fires at dusk and through the night). Pitch tents in dark.
SUN,JUL.24: Off at 6:45 for pre-breakfast game run, animals VERY close to road: gazelles, zebras, giraffes, grouse, vultures, vervet monkeys, then two lions! Then two, three, four, FIVE cheetahs posing on an anthill: again the trip is sheer magic. Back at 10:15 for pancakes with honey. Drive to hippo pool in early afternoon, eating lunch watching the dozens of "river horses," which indeed is what they look like. Toward Lobo (all this in Serengeti) for spectacular posing trio of male lions on rocks. Clouds gathering and by 5:30 it's RAINING, animals remaining unconcerned, but I crawl into my tent and sulk, missing dinner and the trip to the Lodge for one rationed beer each. Wake with a start when a lion growls VERY close, a group of hyenas sets up its uncanny laughter, and later a herd of zebra comes through camp. Great Adventures!
MON,JUL.25: Morning game-run, followed by breakfast, leave Serengeti, through animal-less desolation to Ndutu tented camp for a LOVELY shower and a meal in a DINING ROOM. With local Dodoma rose wine, too! A good sunset and contentment.
TUE,JUL.26: Long dusty ride to Olduvai Gorge at noon for talk of Zinjanthropus discoveries by the Leakeys at the museum they established. Down into gorge, then back to take more Masai pictures. Then drive to rim of Ngorongoro Crater, let off most passengers, and drive to pick up a guide, transporting a small group of Masai "royalty" to their village in exchange for photos by the three tourists lucky enough to have ridden along. Down steep one-way road to crater-floor to camp. No hotels on crater-floor; best reason for tenting yet.
WED,JUL.27: Morning game-run at 7 for ostriches, elephants, zebras, buffalos, monkeys, but "pulley comes off generator" and we return for an "early" breakfast at 9:30. Waste time, they do some sort of fix, we lunch and leave again at 3 for a highlight of the trip: a hyena killing and devouring a wildebeest, complete with smell of blood in the hot sun, surrounding jackals and vultures, and finally a scavenging male lion that took what was left of the carcass away. Two extraordinary hours of the wonders of nature in the RAW. Then the truck breaks down again. Back to camp at 5, narrowly escaping an elephant that charged our disabled truck as it was being towed! Passing time.
THU,JUL.28: Carl and Peter drove all night to Arusha and back to get a replacement truck! I had distant view of three leopards through the Gilleys' 50-power telescope. Leave by 11, being replaced in campsite by 20 people on 1 Encounter Overland truck taking 4-5 months going from Johannesburg to LONDON! Definitely NOT for ME! SPECTACULAR road out of Ngorongoro and along the rim until we get to lush Gibbs Farm for a splendid buffet lunch with BEER, and I meet a woman who lives ONE BLOCK from me in Brooklyn Heights. We have to compare notes when we both get back. Pass baboon troops on the way down to Lake Manyara and a pleasant tree-shaded campground with drinkable water!
FRI,JUL.29: Breakfast and morning tour of Manyara: newer truck is just FINE! Incredible numbers of hippos, impala, zebra, baboons, and birds: storks, geese, and pelicans---and what must be MILLIONS of flamingos. To a village to trade jeans and a digital ($5) watch and a tee-shirt and even my SOCKS for carvings, Masai beads, and batik-like fabrics. Back for lovely golden-green light under Manyara forests dotted with elephants, waterbuck, and baboons. Dinner and BEER!
SAT,JUL.30: Tents down for LAST time and leave 7:30 for Arusha and the Hotel Tanzanite by 1, and just to sit in a CHAIR in a ROOM with a BED is incredible luxury. Lunch, a long shower, and a two-hour stroll before barbecue dinner.
SUN,JUL.31: Mike is my roommate now, and we take turns waking each other when we urinate, because we're both taking Diamox (medicine he got in Britain to improve oxygen usage by the blood at high altitudes; he had some spare that he gave me), and one of the side effects is that you urinate a lot. But it's still better than a solitary tent! Walk next door to Mount Meru Game Preserve, rather like a zoo, and then to a nearby village for the Sunday market. Colorful but still very poor. Ride to Kibo Hotel at foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is covered in clouds. I haven't even SEEN the top of it! Good dinner.
MON,AUG.1: Rent climbing gear, too-small boots, and cold-weather clothing for about $50. Leave at 9 and climb into a rainy cloud through slippery rain- forest trails and mossy limbs. Everyone seems in a hurry, and we climb from 6,000-foot Kibo Hotel to 9,000-foot Mandara Hut by 2PM: tired---not exhausted.
TUE,AUG.2: Must wear boots I'd rented, but NOW find they have no LACES. John has a spare set, thank goodness. We leave at 8AM, chatting with Elimwokozi Lekule, the Chaga porter carrying Mike's and my spare gear. At 10AM I get my FIRST view of the top of Kilimanjaro: snow-capped! Sun is burning-hot, but wind at this altitude, going up to 12,000-foot Horombo Hut. Arrive at 1:30, tired, and get a hefty lunch, and I nap until dinner at 5:30, bed by 7:30PM!
WED,AUG.3: BRILLIANT stars at urine-breaks during night. 7AM breakfast and when I leave last at 8:15 I begin passing others dropping out because of the altitude as we walk slowly up to the 15,500-foot Kibo Hut. Walking is VERY slow and we're all gasping for breath. Intense sun, cold wind, face burning. Arrive at hut at 1PM; it's full to capacity with 40 of us in four dormitory rooms. Dinner 4:40-5:20, and guide arrives to say we WAKE AT 1AM! Bed at 6PM!
THU,AUG.4: Knock on door at 12:53AM. I'm flabbergasted that I managed to sleep at ALL, gasping for breath. Tea and biscuits at 1AM, out last at 1:33AM. Follow legs in front of me (I don't have flashlight). We stop every half hour, lay down to gasp for breath and stare at INTENSE stars, so bright they light up steep slope (first and only real CLIMB on mountain) enough to see without a flashlight. About 6:45 I'm completely out of energy. Guide takes my pack, leaving me only with camera, gives me a swig of lemon-water, frozen from the cold. My hands are numb from cold wind through two layers of rented gloves. I go as far as I can and collapse again. "Only five minutes to the top." Well, I can do THAT. He almost pushes me to the top about 7:15, surrounded by glaciers, gasping for air, signing a book at the top, listening to everyone cheering. This is Gilman Point at 18,640 feet, over 2,000 feet higher than I'd ever been before; over 4,000 feet higher than the top of Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental United States; higher than Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe; higher than any mountain on the continents of Australia and Antarctica, on the highest mountain in Africa. Of our group of 11, five continued for three more hours up to Uhuru Point at 19,340 feet, but six of us slid down the slope to rest at the Kibo Hut for two hours, totally exhausted. My feet are painful in my too-short boots. Then continue down to Horombo Hut by 3PM, sleep, dinner at 7PM, cough a lot, bed at 8:30, weary.
FRI,AUG.5: Up at 6AM, breakfast, limping down at 7AM. I walk slower and slower, getting sorer and sorer. To Mandara Hut at 10:30 for lunch, and even slower to park gate at 2:45, where I'd ordered a car to take me back to the hotel. That cost $30 for 6 miles but it saved my life. Good dinner; soak feet.
SAT,AUG.6: Breakfast, visit native craft shop, expect Carl at 10AM. At 4:30 he arrives and we're down to take photos of the mountain at 5PM. Truck breaks down again and is fixed by 6:30, dark already. Dinner and bed at 9:30, sore.
SUN,AUG.7: Day-tours too expensive, so I'm back to market in Usa River. Mope around during day; dinner and chat with Doug Clarke, British businessman.
MON,AUG.8: Back to sight-see in Arusha with Carl, more delays in travel, then back to hotel for dinner and to airport at 7PM for 9PM northward departure.
TUE,AUG.9: Leave Khartoum at 12:25, sniffling in over-conditioned air. Smoggy air blocks any views of ground below. Leave Vienna at 6:30AM, Amsterdam at 9:30, land in Paris at 10:15. Lunch, nap, see a movie, JJ arrives home at 8PM and we go to Montmartre for good food at La Cremailliere, collapse in bed at 1.
WED,AUG.10: Drop off films to be developed, visit the Gustave Moreau museum, then Beaubourg, and have dinner with some friends of JJ's. Speak decent French.
THU,AUG.11: To Saint-Germain-en-Laye for the National Antiquities Museum, very well displayed, walk through parks, visit a temporary amusement park, see the tomb of James II, and great dinner at L'Escargot Montorgueil with JJ.
FRI,AUG.12: JJ shows me his 200,000-inhabitant building complex in Marne-la- Vallee, and I visit the zoo in the afternoon. Dinner at famous old Laperouse.
SAT,AUG.13: Drive east for lunch at Hostelerie du Chateau at Fere-en-Tardenois before touring cathedral at Reims, and another two-star repast at La-Ferte-sous-Joarre providing gastronomic overkill. Home to look at great African slides.
SUN,AUG.14: Fly out of Paris at noon, clear views over France, and land at JFK at 1:40 New York time, very pleased to be home from an exhausting trip!
Never have I had a trip in which so much went WRONG: delays, breakdowns, great inconveniences, physical discomfort and pain. Not that the trip wasn't WORTH it, I must hasten to add. The extraordinary animals, the other-world scenery, the actual EXPERIENCE of the trip was unforgettable, in part BECAUSE of the discomforts. But I will NEVER take another camping trip again, and I will NEVER walk up to 18,000 feet again. I certainly want to return to Africa, but I want to stay in the game lodges DESPITE the fact that everyone says there are too many tourists. I'll have to experience THAT before I say I won't return to Africa for the animals again. How glad I am that I didn't succumb to earlier temptations for trans-Sahara truck rides! Well---those huge trucks where you ride in the front then sleep in the back, in BEDS, look interesting, so I might be trying one of THOSE for a limited trip, just to see what THEY might be like. Do you suppose it might have ANYTHING to do with increasing age, at ALL???
9/23/83: 11AM: and on that day I DID read (Wolfe), orgasm (with porno), stamp (lots), TV (Rheingold), shop (stamp storage stuff), meet Dennis (who said I was cute when I was happy, on a DELIGHTFUL phone message when I'd just met him at the subway tunnel), did a session, and the NEXT DAY I got tired of stamps and "went on." FABULOUS!
9/28/83: 2AM: Having started packing for the trip to Hemlock Hall, having come after drinking, smoking, rubber-banding, and porno-ing, I look at the new white center to the birthmark-like mark on my inner right thigh, scratch at the new hardness, and lay back in the dark to think that this, in fact, may be the start of AIDS, and that the beginning of the end has come. I think back over the writing which I'd done over the years--including the writing that assumes that, some time in the distant future, after my death, my writings will all be published and admired and commented upon, with critics saying : "How well he knew precisely what would happen,"--and I think that it might ACTUALLY become true: that I die and my writings become famous, justifying my LIVING as though I WILL be famous (though not during my life, to change the nature of the writing by the nature of fame itself), mainly by RELAXING into LIVING, rather than by TRYING so hard to GET something which I AM already! So I AM (in the future) famous; so I don't have to TRY to BECOME famous. What a feeling of relief that should bring--except for the doubts, the denials, and the "so what?"s. So I rise to put some more writing out. I'd thought of my confirmation of my dying: recording words to be transcribed; finshing novels, putting the last "riveruns" into place, and then had to get to the typewriter. Knowing that I can store forever onto disks: not only are my notebooks available for indefinite study and publishing, but the diskettes are too. And what good does it do me now? It lets me get to the next step. Rather than TRYING to be famous, I can assume I WILL be famous and see what comes NEXT. If I HAD BECOME famous, I'd have to pass that by, so why not pass it by now ANYWAY? And it all comes down to the momentary happiness. Why, contemplating going to Hemlock Hall, do I feel PRESSURE rather than PLEASURE? Which two words differ only by PLESSURE or PREASURE, which leads to TREASURE (with the Mexican TLEISURE lurking somewhere within). More words; more playing--which is why I don't want to be dead, because it implies a lack of playing. I LIKE TO PLAY. I LIKE having fun, and no where is it guaranteed that any afterlife partakes of fun or games. Where is this going? I'd wanted to come to some conclusion, and the writing just goes on an on--just as the life should go on and on (without ending), but I suppose that's how the AFTERLIFE should be--just going on and on. How I wish I could experience, believe, accept that. But I can only do that when I get there. How about THAT as a rationalization to make the idea of AIDS seem acceptable? "This is the doorway to new experiences, new lacks of control, new gateways to the unknown." Yeah, but I'd rather fool around here some more. But only if I ENJOYED it more. So much of day-to-day, today, is irritability, impatience, and disgust: with people, subways, ignorance, threats of war, wastes of resources in news, newspapers, paperwork, scheduling, and nonproductivity in the name of progress. I want to free myself from that, have largely done so, but still resent the lingering presences: schedules and "oughts" and "shoulds" and guilts and duties. Hemlock Hall (as a duty, rather than as a pleasure), Mom (ditto), indexes, travel, computer gaming, buying books, spending money, planning trips, trying to meet the next lover, debating whether it might be John again. Debating rather than living. Typing rather than sleeping to ready myself for departure in less than 8 hours. OK, so that's enough, so I can stop and go to bed now. And it's only 2:l3AM!, and I learn NOT to put power ON TOO quickly, or I get a boot error! And it's just like being stoned: get back to bed and think of a WHOLE NEW level of writing: before I wrote, then I typed, now I go to the computer; in the future I thought I might speak into a recorder which would then be automatically transcribed, but then I leapt WAY ahead to a GREAT idea: in the far future I could be PERMANTENTLY wired to a computer, which among other things would keep track of my brain-pattern MODES, so that when I THOUGHT something, associated WITH the thought would be the MODE (science-fiction throw-away, deepest philosophy, "in tune with the Divine Mind," plotzing, etc.) of the thought, so that SCATTERED bits at EACH LEVEL could be COMBINED in a linearity that would actually REVEAL (yes, REVEL, as the original typo had it---that IS one disadvantage of the word-processor: on TYPING paper (and even better in written documents) the "meaningful typo" can be lightly lined through so that the "wisdom" of the typo remains, but in a word processor the typo can be ERASED so that it VANISHES, along with its future insights) connectivity at a higher level, as the same STRATA on different mesas in the Grand Canyon have the SAME continuity as STRATA (being laid down at the SAME time) but DIFFERENT continuity with OTHER strata as part of the same MESA. So my "science-fiction" frequency would tell a LINEAR STORY over time, while my "DIVINE MIND" frequency would dribble out, over months, possibly a DIVINE POEM, invisible as the combined beauty of the solitary pines at the same strata which might be revealed by somehow "getting them together" by virtue of their "strata-nearness" rather than their "mesa-nearness." Again it seems to be a matter of frequency and connectedness, as I'd previously thought of a "cum-level" of being, accumulating "cum-intensities" into ONE GRAND LIFE, as the solitary pines would form a forest if cumulated. Now, at 2:30, I weary again. Another session later?