Kayaking Tetons July 2019

Back in spring Scott Emery and I decided to do an REI kayak trip (with a little hiking) on Jackson Lake, foot of Mt. Moran and Mt. Bivouac. We flew via Salt Lake City, arrived in Jackson Hole Friday afternoon, July 26, walked around town for a while, had dinner and went to bed early. We met the other 11 people in the group and two of the three guides Saturday morning, put our luggage into the (huge) dry bags they provided, signed the release forms, and loaded onto the bus, which took us, by way of the Teton National Park visitor center, to the boat landing, where we had a safety talk and loaded into the kayaks. Kayak experience varied among the 12 members of the group; two had never been in one before, and at least 3 others had as much experience as Scott. Consequently, the 7 ½ mile trip across the lake to Grassy Island, our home for the next two nights, took 4 hours (plus a 45 minute stop on Elk Island, about halfway, for lunch. The lake was calm for most of the trip – a little wind for about an hour but not too much chop. The mountains in front of us were spectacular – and remained a focus for 4 days. Left-right: Michael & Marissa, Scott, Kate & Dorothy, Roy, Michael, me, Sarah and Sally Jo, Myles with the V sign; kneeling, Joe & Colin, lying down, Kelby and Molly. We reached camp about 4:30, were given a tour, including pointing out the flat level spaces for tents and the sheltered spot where “groovy,” the field toilet, was set up, with a lovely view of Mt. Moran across the lake. Scott and I selected a spot at the periphery of the main group, set up our tent, returned to the kitchen / group area for snacks at 5 (corn chips and a raw onion / tomato dip I avoided), followed by dinner (chili with elk sausage and a nice salad, followed by watermelon for dessert). Everyone was tenuously getting to know each other, a process that continued for the full four days. Our fellow campers included Sarah and Sally Jo (both traveling alone), Kate and Dorothy (Dorothy is an artist who does work inspired by native American petroglyphs), father and son pairs Roy and Michael, Joe and Colin, and a married couople, Michael (retired nuclear engineer) and Marisa (still employed project manager) – both avid bow hunters (elk) and general outdoors types. Guides Molly, Myles, and tour leader Kelby. Before dinner Scott and I took some spectacular photos of the clouds building up over Mt. Moran and Mt. Bivouac (right), to the west (the direction from which weather usually comes). After dinner I was brushing my teeth out behind our tent when I felt the first drops of rain. I finished, went back to the kitchen area to put my toothpaste back in the “bear football” for safe-keeping. By that time, the few drops had turned into a driving rain storm, yellow light (like pre-tornado in the Midwest), at least 30 mile an hour wind (fortunately mostly absorbed by the trees before it reached the tent area). I scurried back to my tent, already half soaked. Scott and I lay there on our sleeping pads for a while as it slowly grew dark, realized it wasn’t going to quit soon so crawled into our sleeping bags and went to sleep. I awoke the next morning in time for a spectacular sunrise photo from the beach east of our tent. Scott got up just in time to see the last of this view, and joined me on the west-facing beach next to the kitchen area, where we took several photos of the sunrise colors on the mountains, including this photo of Mt. Moran, reflected in the lake: A very promising sight. Coffee was (finally!) ready at 7:30, with some melon slices, granola, and yogurt to hold us until breakfast was ready at 8: a blend of fried potatoes and bacon with fried eggs on top. After breakfast and clean-up, we assembled at the kayaks for a trip to the end of Bearpaw Bay, for a hike to Bearpaw and Trapper Lakes, a total hike of about 5 miles, with a few hundred feet of elevation gain. On the way we paddled through a small bay, protected by a small island just south of Grassy Island. We played on the glassy surface of this little bay for an hour or so before paddling on to the trailhead, while Molly took pictures of us paddling around. Scott and me in front of Mt. Moran The hike up to Bearpaw and Trapper lake was relatively easy – unmaintained trail half of the way, but with a group of 15 hikers every week, it is a pretty decent trail. We had lunch at Bearpaw Lake, then hiked on up to Trapper Lake, which features an active beaver dam just above the lake. On the way back, as we approached the end of the sheltered little bay, a wind came up and rather quickly whipped up some 12-14 inch waves, which unfortunately paralleled the route back to Grassy Island. These are the most dangerous waves, especially for inexperienced paddlers, but everyone, including the two novice paddlers, handled them well, although I took a couple of bucket-sized waves in my lap, totally drenching my hiking pants. Fortunately they are nylon and dry quickly. Scott and I went all-out as soon as we emerged from the bay, since powered motion is the best way to deal with these waves. Everyone agreed (after it was over) that the crossing was fun, in spite of getting wet. We had another great dinner that night and stayed up talking and enjoying the changing moods of the mountains until almost dark – this time not chased off to bed by a storm, although there were some ominous-looking clouds gathering over the mountain, along with some interesting rumbles of thunder, amplified by the canyons. I haven’t mentioned the irony that “Grassy Island,” named after a fire when it truly was grassy, is densely forested with virtually no grass. The following morning furnished some spectacular sunrise photos. I was quite taken with the pattern of colors on the dimpled ripples (above). This pattern weakened but was replaced by a lovely combination of colored clouds, reflected in the rippling water (next page). Since we were scheduled to spend only two nights on Grassy Island, today was a moving day. We packed up our tents and gear right after breakfast, and loaded them onto the big cumbersome blue pontoon boat for the trip to the next camp site. Everyone pitches in to help load and unload the boat – otherwise we don’t do much. The guides have dinner preparation and cleanup organized in a way that we would probably be more in the way than helpful. The changing moods of the two mountains across the bay were endlessly entertaining; everyone took several pictures of each. Here and are pictures in the morning light of Mt. Moran (right) and Mt. Bivouac (next page). After loading up, we climbed into the kayaks for a paddle across Moran Bay to the foot of the saddle that connects Mt. Moran with Mt. Bivouac. There we hiked up a steep trail to a lovely viewpoint with a view of the lake – unfortunately I did not carry my iPhone so don’t have a picture. On the way down, the guides played a trick, planting a bit of soggy Cliff Bar and telling everyone it is an example of bear poop. I was pretty sure it was a gag even before one of them picked up a piece of it and ate it, because it was pale yellowish tan, no berries in it, not at all the right shape, but I kept silence. After each guide took a bite of it, a couple of the other guests took the dare – much to the disgust of the others. I didn’t know it was a Cliff Bar (which has wheat in it) but I was sure it wasn’t a Kind bar, so I refrained. Again, sorry, no camera, so no pictures. On both of these hikes I had some great conversations with Myles, who has taken a couple of Cognitive Science courses and is quite interested in it. He didn’t think he is smart enough to actually major in any of the related fields but Scott and I managed to convince him that anyone who understands it well enough to be interested in it probably has the ability to actually do it. We climbed back into the kayaks for a 6 mile paddle to our next camp site. As we passed Grassy Island, clouds were seriously gathering. We felt a few rain drops on and off – fortunately the wind didn’t come up again. We stopped about halfway for a welcome break; I thought about putting on my rain pants, but unfortunately did not do it. We hadn’t paddled 20 minutes from the rest stop before it started raining, not very hard but constantly. As we reached the stretch of open water (Spaulding Bay), the wind came up – fortunately not too strong, and we were paddling slantwise across the waves, so it wasn’t at all difficult, but by now I was getting quite wet. By the time we reached our camp site, I was actually cold; had to put on both fleece and jacket in order to avoid hypothermia. Grand Teton on left, Mt. Moran on the right. The new camp afforded a lovely panoramic view ranging from Grand Teton to Mt. Bivouac. The clouds kept changing in ways that invited repeated photos; one of the moods is shown at the bottom of the previous page. Below: Grand Teton, morning light Scott and I hustled to put up our tent, but the floor still got wet before we could get the rain fly on. Ironically, the rain stopped just after we got the tent up; the sun came up and I went down to the rocky beach to warm up (and dry out) in the sunlight, while basking in the view as well as the sun, and photographing the changing moods of the mountain. I warmed up enough to take off most of my layers pretty quickly, but it took over an hour for my pants to dry. I had brought four cans of pinot noir, so I shared one with Scott before and during dinner. They grilled excellent pork steaks and served them with rice and salad – fortunately Kelby realized just as he was serving me that he hadn’t checked the ingredients on the flavor packet for the rice. He checked, it did include wheat, so he gave me extra salad (and, later, 1/3 of an extra pork steak). It was his only slipup – and he caught it before damage was done. (That small a trace might not have been a problem – but again, it might have.) That night it started thunder and lightning about the time we were going to sleep, then a real storm came in around midnight, complete with hail drumming on our tent, and another light rain around 2 or 3 am. I was seriously wondering if we would do the final float trip down the Snake River or not – but by the time we got up for the sunrise, the sky had cleared; the entire day was quite beautiful. After breakfast we packed up again, and paddled the short way to South Landing and the end of our paddling. We then took a bus to a put-in spot for a leisurely float down a placid stretch of the Snake River, with spectacular views of the entire Teton Range – and a couple of great sightings of bald eagles. Binoculars were useful; this was the only time I wished I had brought my Canon with its telephoto lens. On the bus ride, Scott and I also spotted a couple of huge sandhill cranes riding the thermals up over a ridge – the only time I have ever seen them. The float down the river was nice; a chance to talk more with Molly, who I really enjoy, and with some of the other guests. The placid calm was a bit of a come-down from all the paddling, but it was a nice, mellow float. At the takeout, everyone was quite sad about the end of the trip. Kelby was kind enough to drop Scott and me, along with Michael and Marisa, off at the airport on the way back to Jackson Hole, saving us the difficulty of the scramble to get something to eat and find an Uber or a cab back to the airport. I washed up and changed into clean and dry clothes in a Men’s Room, and Scott and I found a place to hang out with a good view of the mountains. I thought I’d begin reading a book I brought along, but after one chapter realized I was too wasted to focus on it. All in all it was a great trip, great companionship. I’m really glad I went.

2019 trip": Overall impressions: of South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

The park is lovely, full of a variety of animals. The forest areas are thicker than in Botswana, so following an active animal pursuit requires strategy to guess where it might emerge from the woods. The mixture of animals is somewhat different. The bush camps are mostly very good. I would not come here to stay at Mfuwe Lodge – too big, too many people and vehicles. Driving around the last evening I was there, we were hardly ever out of sight of at least one other vehicle; often in view of 3 or 4. Each camp has its own personality; I liked the first, Chindeni quite a bit, and the second, Bilimungwe, even better. Chindeni overlooks a lagoon with some crocodiles, a lot of hippos, who moan, laugh, and chatter most of the night; Bilimungwe is situated next to a waterhole, that often has its resident hippo; all sorts of animals approach the opposite side to drink – antelope, elephants, the occasional predator. About half of the walking safaris brought me very close to animals including zebras, elephants, giraffes, and baboons – a very nice compliment to the game drive experience. I found the British 5 meal schedule annoying – if they hadn’t insisted on ending the morning game drive at 10:30, in time for a very early 11:00 “brunch” I wouldn’t have minded. I liked the typical Okavanga Delta schedule – ending the game drive around 12:30 – much better (it also started earlier, about 5:30 instead of 7). The short game viewing day and loooong midday break is really the only thing about the bush camp company I didn’t like. On the last day I got a strong refresher course on why the extra money I paid for a private guide was worth it. The area was jammed with vehicles, many with 9 guests (3 abreast – pity the person in the center!). One guide with three African-Americans and one white guest parleyed with Shad for a while, and it was clear Shad had been giving him instructions – he later laughed and told me the guy was a new guide and knew nothing about the park. A hundred meters down the road we saw the snoozing leopard, in plain sight, the guide had failed to see and point out to his guests. I don’t know the back story but I felt very sorry for them. I’m sure they saw animals – hard not to in this park – but I’m also sure they saw nowhere near as many as I. Vegetation Many of the trees and shrubs are edible and nutritious to several species, who engage in what Shad called “layered browsing,” each eating what it can comfortably reach – giraffes and elephants at the top, kudu, smaller antelopes, etc. Shad pointed out several bushes and trees whose leaves retain nutrient value even after turning brown and drying up. Several species of trees have fruits eaten by many different animals (in Uganda and Rwanda, the great apes climb to get them, just as baboons do in Zambia). Several species particularly in Zambia have bean-like seed pods (including the acacia); most of these are edible, even when totally dried up, and many of these species are nitrogen-fixing; they look like legumes but I’m not sure whether they are. A number of the tree species rely on browsing animals to eat them and pass the seed out somewhere else – conveniently wrapped in fertilizer. Droppings I was disappointed not to find a T-shirt featuring animal pawprints; it would also be interesting if someone would make one featuring the unique shapes of droppings, each of which, as Shad explained, tells a story about the animal’s diet and general habits. Very interesting is the tendency of several species including impalas to poop in one spot. Shad explained that this provides information to the dominant male about the females, both identifying them and identifying when they are fertile. Open meadows may contain several of these concentrations of pellets, often representing several species. Grooming Observing primate grooming was one of the motivations for my visit, and I obtained several videos of grooming and related behavior. Grooming is fundamentally important to social species, especially species that live in large complex social organizations (most primates); British ethologist Robin Dunbar believes one of the motivating factors for the evolution of language was the need to extend grooming. At base, grooming consists of removing parasites such as ticks and fleas, as well as burred weed seeds and other annoyances, from the groomed animal. Being groomed releases opiods that produce an almost euphoric state; in turn, this strengthens social bonds. In most primate species grooming provides a means for developing and strengthening friendships or coalitions – others who “has your back.” A fight over social status often ends with the victor grooming the defeated, thereby patching the frayed social fabric. Baboons and chimpanzees have been observed to spend most of the time that they are not sleeping or eating either grooming or being groomed. Humans. My visit this time reinforced impressions I built during my first trip three years ago. Every species I saw seems to be almost a different species in the wild. I think this has several reasons, but two in particular stand out. Humans have been an integral part of ecology from the outset, but until recently we were mainly just another species, sometimes preying on certain animals (in competition with other predators), sometimes altering their environments through our own activities, and quite rarely domesticating certain species. Inevitably the domesticating process involves inducing changes in the animal’s genetic and social characteristics, changing its characteristic behavior as well as its physiology. Even in the wild, it is likely that human interactions with the animals they don’t domesticate has a strongly social element in it, and this is richly represented in the folklore and mythology of many native cultures. Industrial development and large scale farming have both had a huge impact on many species, but recent developments have a subtler and deeper effect. This is immediately apparent in the contrast between zoo animals and wild animals which I’ve noted before. Zoo animals do not need to, in fact are not allowed to forage or prey on their natural prey. They do not roam and rarely actually run. They cannot help forming complex social relations with their keepers, relationships of both dependency for the necessities of life and of dominance and control. Their relationships with conspecifics is radically distorted by the lack of food or predator pressure, regular medical care, and above all the confinement to a very small range and daily exposure to thousands of humans. This kind of social interaction and socialization is present (at a much lower level) in game preserves and other national parks as well, and minimizing it is one reason why the park wardens in Zambia will not interfere with the weak and probably dying lioness, even to save her pathetic little cub. They do interfere to minimize the risk of contagion, but that is justified by the fact that our presence is what increases that risk in the first place. But the effect of injuries on predators (and on males competing for control over females) is part of the evolutionary process, the cruel but highly effective process that weeds out defective genes and propagates genes related to strength and good health. Eco-tourism, important as it is, also has an inevitable effect. Animals become habituated, either deliberately (as with the great apes) or inadvertently (as a result of dozens of tourist-laden vehicles driving around every day. This habituation almost has to be thought of as social in a profound sense. Even ignoring humans as irrelevant factors in the ecology is a social response of sorts. So… I’ve not seen many of these animals actually “in the wild”; the comparison between animals in their (more or less) natural habitat and animals in the zoo is stark and telling, but the comparison to animals in a truly natural habitat (where humans are no more and no less than one other species going about its business alongside the animals) is equally important. I’ve had the good luck to observe some species in the wildernesses of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon (even these animals are somewhat habituated to us by the hundreds of back-packers that roam their territories), but it would be quite difficult to observe truly wild lions or elephants (or moose or cougars).

Sunday, June 14 2019 Chimpanzee habituation, drive into Rwanda

This is written as I sit on the deck of my cabin watching several black & white colobus monkeys in the tree across from me. Up at 4:30, breakfast at 5, left with Male, my driver, at 5:40. (Horrible road most of the way.) Reached the national park about 6:30, signed in, met the guide and one other tourist, Chrsty (we later met 3 or 4 of the “Chimpanzee Trek”) groups. Set out hiking in the dawn light, lovely bird song, no sign of chimps for a couple of hours. Then while we were taking arrest and listen break I walked up the road a ways to pee, and heard noises from a tree a ways farther on. Called to the guide, who confirmed it; we walked on up, circled the tree, finally spotted 3 adults and a juvenile way up near the top. (I’m so proud of myself – usually I’m the last to see or hear an animal.) We watched for a half hour, took several photos (which I’m sure I will delete now). I thought, “well if all we see is chimps high in the trees, that will be a pretty successful day.” Then they started down to the ground. They lay down near us to rest; we watched them for a total of close to 2 hours, then the guide suggested we look for other groups so we set off. We ended up seeing several groups, I was able to record two segments of chimp cries, we watched one other group for close to an hour, about 10 meters distance. Probably walked 8 or 9 miles during the day. We encountered 4 or 5 groups of the other type, the “Chimp Trek,” which starts later, does less walking (the drive to where the animals were last spotted) and all have at least 6 people; one had 8. Chrysty remarked to me that she was really glad we were on this group and I heartily agreed. Same effect as seeing the animals in Botswana: I don’t know if I can watch chimps in a zoo again. When they are in their natural habitat, free to do anything, go anywhere, they are vastly more interesting. Our job was supposedly to help the animals get used to humans so they are less likely either to flee or fight – but most of the ones we encountered were pretty tame. Only a handful kept moving away from us when we would try to get an interesting picture (but even they didn’t exactly run away. Amble away is more like it.) I had traditional local cooking last night – mashed up boiled green banana, a kind of pasty concoction of , a peanut sauce that made the other dishes a bit less bland, and goat stew (tasty but very chewy). I can see why cuisine from this region has never made the big time. Right now I’m eating a jack fruit Male got for me at a roadside stand yesterday – it is also on the bland side (a squirt of lemon juice would work wonders for it. It is subtle, very slightly citrusy; one could learn to like it I think. June 18 first gorilla trek Background: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park was established about 30 years ago. It was plagued by poaching for some time but that seems to have been brought under control. It is now home to over 400 mountain gorillas, in families of 8-16 usually (but one is smaller for reasons I will explain.) The terrain is very steep and densely forested; the occasional clearing is dense with shrubbery and cane 4-6 feet high, including nettles and at least a couple of thorn-bearing shrubs (why they recommend leather gloves). The park also host forest elephants, who tromp wide “trails” through the forest and clearings – the reason for armed guards (to frighten, not kill). Gorillas are vegetarian with the exception of occasional termites; they eat leaves, branches, and fruits, sometimes climbing clear to the top of fig trees for the ripening figs. When I was there the forest was lush with nettles and a kind of cane the animals love; they spent most of the time we were watching them stuffing food into their mouths as fast as possible, then napping or (the juveniles) playing. They are rarely aggressive toward humans or indeed to anything other than other gorillas: The males fight over status and over control over groups of females. Once a male becomes the dominant member of the group, its fur turns grey, which is why they are called silverbacks. They are usually considerably larger than the females. The second status male in a group is called a “blackback.” Gorillas are susceptible to human diseases: We were cautioned not to cough or sneeze in their direction, to urinate on the ground not on vegetation, and if we needed to defecate to allow the guide to dig a deep hole first. A tourist with even a serious cold would not be allowed to go on a trek at all. Other warnings: We were not to eat, drink, or smoke in the presence of the animals. Generally we were to maintain about 7 meters distance although, in practice, when the gorillas were completely engrossed in eating or napping we were allows as close as 3 meters. If a gorilla approached we were to back slowly away but definitely not run; if very close, we were simply to freeze and stand perfectly still. On my second trek one passed very close to me, ignoring me as if I were a stump or rock. It was both bizarre and thrilling. A permit to spend an hour with these marvelous beasts is quite expensive - $600 in Uganda, $1000 in Rwanda. 20% of this goes to the local community; this, plus the fees and tips for guides, porters, and other park staff helps maintain community support for the park and for preserving the animals. The rest goes to park maintenance and to general infrastructure. In my view the park was in quite good shape. We met at the park headquarters, where we watched some traditional dances from various tribes in Uganda, then Gad, one of the guides, talked to us about the history of the park and about the dos and don’ts of gorilla watching (mainly, don’t get too close, don’t come at all if you’re sick, don’t eat in front of them). I was assigned to his group, along with seven other pretty fit people (because this group was going to visit a gorilla family last spotted high up the mountain, probably requiring several hours of hiking). I was worried about the 8 person group size (but as it turned out it really wasn’t a problem.) Tourist groups are allowed just one hour with the gorilla family, in order to minimize stress on the animals. Gad talked us all into hiring porters, because it provides employment – hence support in the community for preservation. I didn’t really need one; my pack isn’t heavy, and when I’m carrying it I scarcely notice it. However, I was glad I hired him, because I was able to hand my trekking poles to him and not worry about them while I took pictures. So we drove for 40 minutes over the pretty ugly roads (think secondary forest service roads) up the mountain, climbing the side of a beautiful valley. Uganda is generally very beautiful – very green, lots of tea plantations as well as banana and other fruit. As we neared the turnoff, the trackers stopped Gad’s vehicle and talked a few minutes; we ended up going to a different trail than planned, because during the night the family assigned us had started moving down the mountain. We got out, milled around a bit, met our porters and handed them our packs, and started single file into the woods. In addition to the guide, 8 tourists and 7 porters there were two guards armed with rifles – the park has a large population of forest elephants, which are often aggressive; the guards carry rifles to fire into the air to frighten dangerous animals off. “Fit group” indeed: we encountered the first two members of the family less than 20 minutes out; I doubt we hiked even 2 miles total. The viewing itself is… almost literally breath-taking. We watched the first two grazing on leaves and stems for a while, then went farther down the hill toward where two females, the silverback, and two immature males were – along with two 2 year olds, equivalent to a human 4 or 5 year old. The location was far from ideal – a mixture of several bushes and very small trees, some black-berry like vines, etc. But some of the bushes are what the animals love to eat, so that’s where you’ll often find them. The guide and the two guards whacked and stomped paths in the direction of the gorillas, and as they grazed their way through the shrubbery they wallowed down paths. We were allowed to approach much closer to the animals than I thought: At times I was within 6 or 8 feet of one or two. They seemed to totally ignore us. At first they each picked a bush, sat down in front of it and ripped off leaves and canes, stuffing them in as fast as they could. That was interesting enough, but then one lay down on his back and started “eating in bed.” The babies ate for a while then started playing. One climbed a tree, ate for a while at the top, then began a slow fall to the ground: I was lucky and caught most of that on video. Unfortunately the file seems to be too big to e-mail, since it’s been rejected twice. Maybe when I’m back in the U.S. I also got a video of the two babies fighting, rolling back and forth on the ground like a couple of human first graders. The experience was all I hoped it would be, and the hour went much too quickly – the guide almost had to send the guards to round us up when it was time to go. Part of the reason is that the kids started getting very playful just as the hour was ending. As with the chimps the other day, this experience has probably on both nature shows and movies and seeing primates in a zoo. Nature shows and movies tend to pick up on idealized and exaggerated activities and behaviors, and the behavior I observed in the wild is so different from anything I’ve ever seen in a zoo that you could almost believe they are different species. Fortunately I have one more hour tomorrow morning. Second Gorilla Trek This trek started out with a more satisfying hike, probably a couple of miles. 1.5 hours, but we went pretty slow both ways. This time there were only four adults – three females and the silverback, plus 3 month old infant. Because there was only one group of animals, and because they had nestled down in a thick brambly area next to a large fallen log, there were only a couple of spots from which you could get a decent line of sight (and take pictures) at any one time; it changed a little as the animals moved, but they didn’t move much. As a result, the large group (8 tourists) was much more of a problem – for this small a gorilla family they really should have kept the group size down, maybe 4 people. Otherwise is pretty interesting; unlike yesterday, it was easy to get a really good view of the silverback, who was badly injured in a fight recently – lost some fingers, huge gash on neck and shoulder. He survived, but lost half his harem, and is so badly weakened that it would be easy for an aggressive younger male to finish him next time. He didn’t move much while we watched, and indeed acted weak and sick. The group size was mainly a problem for seeing the infant, who was down between mother and silverback from soon after we arrived until only a few minutes before our hour was up – at any one time there was only a very narrow line of sight to him. I did manage to get a few photos. Also interestingly, near the end a couple of the females came up right next to where 3 of us were standing, and crawled off into a cave-like gap in the undergrowth where they embraced each other and made crooning noises; guide said it was a kind of yearning for the silverback to recuperate and copulate with them again. Later both of them ended walking back through the three of us; had I cared (and dared) to I could easily have petted one as it walked by – totally ignoring us, as if we were stumps or something. I was really glad I went twice, since the two experiences were quite different. This whole part of the trip has been very satisfying. I feel that I understand what I’ve read about both chimps and gorillas much better than I did before. June 21 The drive over into Rwanda yesterday was lovely, although the haze in the air limited the view. Crossing the border into Rwanda is particularly interesting. I think they’re freaked out both by the ebola epidemic in the Congo and by the attendant refugee crisis. So Male stopped the truck 50 feet short of the double gates at the border, and instructed me to visit the immigration office on the Uganda side. There I had to submit my passport to 2 individuals, each of whom separately questioned me then stamped my visa. After that I walked the 50 feet to the gate, passed through, went to a UN health agency tent on the left, where a young woman dressed in scrubs sprayed my hands with disinfectant soap, directed me to rinse them, while a computer readout announced my temperature, then sprayed a Clorox-smelling substance on my hands, then directed me to the police unit next to her. The police woman asked me some questions, scrutinized my passport, and directed me across the street to their immigration office. More questions, more stamps on my passport, and wait for Male, who is busy filling out his own paperwork. Finally the gate opened, he drove through and parked next to the police station, where I was directed to put my luggage on a table and open it. The policewoman rifled through it a bit, then sent us (finally) along our way. This whole time one other tourist vehicle, 4 locals on bicycles, and one pedestrian passed through. Heavy traffic indeed. For the golden monkeys, we started at the national park HQ, where over 30 people met a guide… my heart sank. Fortunately another guide came up and they split the group – but there were still 17 in the group I was assigned to. As I feared, that was way too many, especially in the dense brush, some up to 10 feet high; we kept getting in each other’s way, much worse than the second gorilla trek, although after a half hour the guide and trackers managed to find enough smaller monkey clusters to divide us up into almost reasonable-size subgroups. Before that happened, though, I almost got into it with a couple from New Zealand. It also helped when some of the monkeys came down out of the dense foliage in the tree-tops closer to the ground. From the negative to the positive: The monkeys are beautiful, active, with interesting behaviors. A high point for me with my interest in grooming: I caught 2 or 3 videos of two females grooming each other on a branch 12 feet from me, maybe 8 feet above the ground. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the golden monkeys but I’m not sure I’d recommend going to quite such lengths to see them – a full day driving there, a full day for one hour with the monkeys and the drive to Kigale, and then a full day’s flight tomorrow to Zambia. To be fair, getting to Zambia from Uganda might have taken most of a day as well. However, aside from the huge tour group size, I’d recommend it to anyone who is planning to be in that part of Rwanda for other tours.   A few words about this area. It’s almost all mountains, most (aside from the national parks) covered with fields nearly to the top – incredibly steep fields of tea, beans, corn, sorghum, bananas, yams, and closer to the national park itself, potatoes. Small villages string out along the roads – the main roads well paved but most of the roads dirt / gravel, badly eroded and very rough. Buildings are mostly dilapidated; half the population is dirt poor. I saw several women employed sweeping eucalyptus leaves off the graveled road shoulder – I shudder to think what they are probably paid. Everywhere you see people pushing bicycles, piled precariously high with stacks of potatoes or onions, bunches of bananas, sawn planks (they saw the logs into planks where they are cut) and other loads. The bicycle freight people work all day long, load after load, for the brokers who buy from producers and sell to consumers. We saw many women with infants strapped to their backs working in the 20 degree slope fields or carrying what looked to be nearly 100 pound loads on their heads. Horridly hard work – but it’s (barely) a living. About 2/3 of the kids up to age 8 or 9 wave and call hello enthusiastically as we pass. I’ve seen only one beggar (an old drunk who hit Male up for drink money) but the slightest show of interest opens the door to being hustled to buy this, that, or the other. A positive note; several NGOs (I was particularly impressed with one named, I think, Rescue The Women – I will check it out when I get home and contribute something) are working on training women and children in money-earning skills, including weaving baskets and carving the wood statues, bowls, masks, and walking sticks tourists will buy. I have some pictures of one of the craft schools. Saturday, June 22 Beginning of a long day. Security at the Kigali airport is really tight – they check both cars and people driving in, then do a regular security check on the way to the gate. The security guy looked askance at my Kind bars (maybe he thought they were laced with drugs or something…) Anyway, this is a chance to catch up with sorting and deleting photos, and cutting a few really good ones down for e-mailing. The hotel did a poor job with my GF breakfast; in spite of a long discussion last night, it had pancakes, a muffin, coffee cake, and granola (which often has wheat in it, alas). There was a banana and very small container of yogurt; I gave the rest to Male, who hadn’t had breakfast yet. Glad I brought all those Kind bars! End of a long day – ended better than it began, with a night game drive: male lion, several hippos grazing, a mongoose, followed by an excellent dinner. A hippo is snorting right outside my door right now – we saw it grazing on the lawn as I was being escorted to my room (no walking outdoors alone at night!) They have internet here at Mfume Lodge, the main lodge, but I won’t have access again for a week. I’ll send this before breakfast tomorrow and that will be it until I’m on the way home.   Weaver birds There are several species of these birds in Africa, not all as beautiful as these. All of them have pretty songs, however. They weave hanging nests of whatever fibers are locally available, usually long grasses, like these. The opening is always at the bottom, to render it less vulnerable to predators. The birds build their nests in colonies, sometimes all hanging from branches of the same tree (in Namibia trees are sparse; I saw one single tree with hundreds of birds clustering around it. In Rwanda trees are more abundant; as you can see in the picture nests hang from branches of several trees as well as from palm fronds.) Statue made of bamboo strips in a park where they celebrate the mountain gorilla. One of the volcanos in the background.   Grooming This behavior is common to virtually all social primates and many other social species. Many primates live in large groups and have complex social relationships, both horizontal and hierarchical. Grooming plays an important part in managing these complex social structures. At a purely functional level, grooming consists of picking parasites off the other animal’s skin as well as removing burrs. But touch itself is very powerful in other animals, as it is in humans. Grooming tends to release endorphins (hormones that reduce tension and create a pleasant, relaxed feeling that is very pleasurable), so grooming helps both create and strengthen bonds of affiliation (friendship and mutual support). But grooming also helps manage hierarchies: When conflict breaks out within a group, the winner often grooms the loser, helping to reduce stress and animosity. Primates in species with complex hierarchical social structures often spend as much as 90% of their waking time when they are not eating grooming and being groomed; that’s how important it is. Note that touch is also a powerful force in human relationships – when nurses touch patients frequently, healing is faster and complications fewer; children who are not touched, held, hugged, etc. frequently by caregivers and others almost always develop psychological disorders. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar claims that human language may have developed at least in part as a way to supplement and extend grooming: In his research 65% of all conversation is about relationships (not about “getting the business done”). Language triples one’s ability to maintain social relationships: you can talk with and “give strokes” to three people at once, but usually only engage in affectionate touch with one at a time. So, according to Dunbar, language allowed humans to triple the size of our primary social contacts, from around 60 to nearly 200. (However, the chimpanzee groups in Bwindi National Park total about 120 each, organized in smaller family groups as small as 4-8 and as large as 20 or so.) I got videos of grooming among chimps (it was hard to get good footage because of the relatively dense foliage) as well as some excellent video of both baboons and golden monkeys grooming.

Africa 2019 South Luanga Zambia continued.

Chindeni Camp, Day 2 Today started out well, with about an hour watching a group of baboons that included several juveniles and one 3 day old infant. The distance was too great for very good video but I got some really nice stills. Here is one of two 3 month olds in a tree; below, the infant and his mother. [I just heard the sound of breaking branches – looked over and saw an elephant grazing on a tree behind the next cabin over.] After a while we started our morning walk – very different from yesterday afternoon, this morning we saw and watched several elephants (at a respectful distance), impala, kudu, and baboons. It is really nice to see them from the level of the ground. After lunch, we drove to a different place where I could try to video a baby; I did get a couple of nice stills. The videos are shaky – hard to video with my Canon, and it was too distant for the iPhone. But here is a still that I think is rather nice. After that we had the usual sundowner – this time with popcorn, far preferable to little sausages. As dark fell we drove back; a leopard crossed the road in front of us; we tried to find him again to follow him but he was hiding. We did see a porcupine, quills all extended and lovely in the headlamps, a spotted hyena, which we followed for a few minutes before it disappeared into the bush, and a civet and its only other family member, a Back in camp, the chef prepared a meal with two salads, a vegetable, and a rice / vegetable dish as well as baked chicken; much more satisfactory. For desert he did an apple crumble which, the hostess assured me, was definitely gluten free. It was actually a bit light on apple but pretty good anyway. Day 3 Today started out very poorly. Apparently the crumble was not gluten free; I spent 3 hours on the toilet, 1 to 4 a.m., finally got another hour’s sleep. As I was awake, I thought about the fact that I had been experiencing low level diarrhea and mild stomach cramps since arriving in Zambia: Because I had come down with a sinus cold, I had thought perhaps I might have one of the viruses that affect stomach as well as sinus. But this experience – 4 hours after a meal – is definitely gluten. I decided that somehow their gluten-free flour must be tainted, and that for the rest of the trip I might need to avoid all baked goods, supposedly gluten free or not. On the other hand it’s possible they prepare the regular cake first, and may even use the same implements for measuring the flour. I clearly need to invest even more energy into communicating about it. For the first time I slept past 5; when the staff member awakened me at 5:30 I felt weak, tired, spent. (In effect, no dinner and very little sleep.) Got up, dressed, staggered over to the eating area; a cup of coffee began the process of reviving me. The elephant was over on the other side of the eating area, providing entertainment. Breakfast – I avoided the toast, did chance the oatmeal with nuts, dried fruit, and some jam as well as a large plate of fruit; it, plus more coffee, revived me even more. We drove out a ways, parked, and walked. Saw several elephants at a respectful distance, these two warthogs posing for a picture, this puku and African duck, a couple of Cape buffalo, and a green-wing bee-eater (picture on the next page.) At our coffee break, I had a couple of Kind bars, which further revived me: actually the walk did as much as anything to restore my energy. We had lunch (again, plenty of salad, a delicious lentil dish, tropical fruit) – so they did listen to my complaint about the meat to greens ratio! We drove over the next camp, and now I am sitting on the deck of my cabin overlooking a water cabbage filled lagoon with its own private rhino. I feel completely recovered and the lack of stomach cramping confirms my suspicion about the contamination problem. After lunch we went for a long walk along the river, didn’t see much new, but had a good walk, which ended at a surprise – a setup for a BBQ “sundowner,” gin and tonic and little spits of beef and veggies, all while seated in 5 inch deep flo,wing water in this tributary to the main river, which is free of parasites and because so shallow also free of crocs. Nice little party, quite lovely sunset. In the rest of the drive, we saw another porcupine, had a really good view of a civet and two genets (the only other member of the civet family.) I also learned that farm-raised civets not only provide a substance used in perfume, they are also fed coffee beans, which pass through their digestive systems and dried to produce one of the world’s most expensive coffees. I don’t know what they call it, probably something like Civet Poop Expresso. Zambia Day 4 Wednesday I talked at length with the manager about the contamination issue, she reassured me, so I decided to give their baked goods a try. Without the GF toast, breakfast would be very skimpy: I don’t trust the oatmeal; there were boiled eggs and some apples and oranges (I can’t believe the scarcity of tropical fruit! Even bananas.) No apparent problems from that or the little cookies they made for the morning coffee break. We drove a while this morning, saw a hyena and her half-grown pups, took some good photos before they walked off into the deep grass. A bit later we started walking; I learned several interesting things, including about another species of termite (harvester) and some additional multi-use plants. We came to some giraffes, which approached us instead of fleeing; seeing them from ground level was interestingly different. I took more videos of them walking, and later when we saw an elephant in a marshy area eating, I took a video of that. It would pull up a hunk of grass, shake it and beat it against the ground to knock off most of the dirt, then eat it. We had a brunch picnic under some trees; they had a pizza oven setup for people to make their own pizzas; they provided two pre-formed gf shells for me (9 inches: I only needed one). There was also a pretty nice salad, lettuce, cucumber, and avocado. Others ate a little, but there was enough left that I had a 2nd plate which pretty well filled me up. Now I am sitting on the deck looking out at the water hole – Harry the Hippo is gone, probably in a different water hole, so my main entertainment is lacking, but I have seen several visits from impala, kudu, and puku. There’s also some nice birdsong. The evening drive was a little disappointing, although we did get a really good view of a couple of honey badgers – beautiful animals with a wide greyish stripe down the back. We also drove through a group of four male elephants who did not seem thrilled to have us so close, but none of them bellowed at us. And we saw a genet just sitting in an open area; I took several photos in the spotlight; I think one or two might be sharp enough (thanks to the brace Shad put on the vehicle) to crop down to be usable. Back in camp, Harry the hippo is back, I gather from the splashing and occasional snort from the pond. I think he’s munching on the water plants again. Day 5 Thursday Today started with a walk along the Kapamba river, after crossing at the ford. Shadrack spotted a couple of male lion tracks so we circled around through the bush to get ahead of them; decided they were between us and the truck so started back after the usual coffee break. However, we didn’t spot them, so Shad followed the tracks out onto the sandbar and discovered they had crossed the river. Driving back toward camp we came across two elephants feeding. One reared up on its hind legs just as we arrived, to reach some high branches, but was back on all fours before I could deploy the camera. I got several pictures of him stretching to reach, but he refused to rear up for me again. We returned to camp for lunch (this seems to be obligatory), after which we drove to the next camp, Zungalila. The situation faces the Kapamba river, separated by a field where some Puku and impalas are grazing. I’ll miss the pond right under my deck at Bilmungwe. After lunch I took a soaking bath in the huge brass tub on a corner of my deck; very luxurious. It gets quite hot for about an hour every afternoon, about two to three, then cools down. They are also fixated on afternoon tea here, British influence I suppose, but it kills a half hour that could be spent observing animals. After tea we drove over to the area where we’d seen the vultures, and found a dead hyena, half eaten by vultures and quite ripe after 28 hours . Shad said he thought the two male lions we tracked had killed something, some hyenas tried to steal it from them and this one got killed. I let him know I was a bit pissed that he didn’t follow the vulture sign yesterday, as I requested, and emphasized again that I don’t care about lunch and tea and all that. He said he was afraid the other guests would have their lunch held up, and I pointed out he could have called the lodge and told them to eat without us! He’s generally a pretty good guide but way too fixated on schedules – at the outset the manager of Mfuwe lodge told me we could do whatever I want, including timing of meals, but it hasn’t worked out that way; this is about the third potentially interesting activity sacrificed for the rigid British meal and afternoon rest schedule. My irritation was largely assuaged on the drive back to camp (after the also obligatory “sundowner,” cocktail hour in the wild) when we spotted a genet sitting on the far bank of the river, and watched it walking along, in plain sight, illuminated by Shad’s spotlight, for a minute or two. Later we briefly spotted a bush baby (a very small primate, nocturnal and hard to see) and then saw another, clinging to a small tree trunk. This one let us see him longer, as he descended the tree, went up another branch, and jumped several times (20 or more times his body length) to nearby trees. He was shaped somewhat like a monkey, but with a head and face more like a cat, with pointed ears and distinctive black markings, very pretty. He moved way too fast to get any pictures. Zambia 6&7, Friday, June 28 Today started out with a bit of a surprise when we rounded a corner and saw a hyena in the road ahead of us, walking toward us. Then we saw some other hyenas in the woods on either side, and a second hyena joined the one on the road. I got some nice pictures before they both went off into the thick brush. After driving around a bit we walked around the vulture / hyena kill area to see if we could see any other signs of that fight. Nice walk; I learned some more interesting stuff about the plants. After our morning tea break, driving back we saw a huge croc just getting into a waterhole – submerged by the time I deployed the camera, but I did get some shots of a couple of other biggies farther away, and one smaller croc facing us with its mouth wide open. I look forward to seeing how those came out. We also watched an elephant crossing the river, wondering how he was going to climb the high, vertical bank in front of him. I got a video of when he realized the problem, turned around, and headed back toward where he started. I also got a couple good shots of a violet-breasted roller, a beautiful bird with bright blue as well. When they fly they’re even prettier, with bright blue underwings. Today was not as rich in animal sightings, although of course we saw lots of elephants, baboons, and impala, as well as other antelope species including bushbuck and waterbuck, and a few kudu (not as plentiful here). Mama and others helping the baby elephant up the steep bank. Note small elephants are totally wet; they had to swim, using trunks as snorkels. The night drive was better: It started out with few sightings, but then we saw a line of elephants looking like it was ready to cross the river, with one very young baby. So Shad decided to have the “sundowner” there, while we watched them. They walked up the bank a couple hundred meters until across from a sandbar, and walked fairly quickly across. The baby and one of the juveniles had to swim part of the way (it was ¾ the way up the big male’s rump), with their trunks up above water like periscopes. In this section one of the elephants trumpeted; Shad said probably a crocodile bit it’s tail – he showed me another elephant earlier with just a stump of a tail, the rest having been bitten entirely off. On the far bank, the baby and two other juveniles struggled for ten minutes or so to get up the steep bank onto the sandbar; the baby had to be boosted by two adults’ trunks. Several of the elephants lay down on the sand to rest before they were willing to go on. Above: the genet in the spotlight. Below: White-tailed mongoose After drinks, after it grew dark we saw another leopard in the road in front of us for several minutes, then a genet who displayed himself for a while as he foraged, two African weasels, and a white-tailed mongoose who foraged in a nearly empty field for some time while I photographed him in the spotlight – probably the highlight of the entire evening. When we got back to camp a huge herd of Cape buffalo had moved in to the large meadow between the lodge and the river; all night you could hear them snuffling and grumbling. Peter and Barbara, a couple from Toronto, were the only other guests at this camp. They were nice enough, but Peter had an annoying way of talking, like texting with multiple exclamation points at the end of every sentence. I wondered if he had taken a class on how to be load everything he says with intense, enthusiastic, positive emotion – he came off almost sanctimoniously cheerful. Barbara seemed to have a kind of dry sense of humor; Peter may have been semi-consciously compensating. Our interaction got a very poor start when I told them, in answer to his question, that I teach Communication and he exclaimed – oh, public relations?!!! I said no, and he came back with effusive praise for Marshall McLuhan (a Toronto-based ‘60s/70s media guru, lots of clever wordplay and absolutely no supporting evidence). I was once taken with McLuhan until I began to realize how empty it all was, just amusing word-play with no evidentiary grounding. Anyway, I just responded “he’s a gasbag,” which did nothing for amiable relations. Of course I regretted being so blunt, but Peter’s effusiveness left no room for a more measured and considered response. I haven’t mentioned the potato plant – in the damper air of morning and evening, it gives off a distinct scent of cooking potatoes. Also, the “go away” bird, with its distinctive “go ‘way” call. Saturday June 29 This was the best day yet. I got up early as usual, and while I was drinking my coffee the server pointed out a lion, which I would never have seen in the dim twilight on my own, maybe ten meters from the buffalo. I watched as the buffalo moved toward the lion and the lion moved toward them: abruptly the closes buffalo charged the lion, who retreated back to a respectful distance, then stood there for some time just eyeing the buffalo before walking around the herd and into the brush. Yesterday I had another talk with Shad about my priorities, and how I did not want the drive back to Mfuwe to be a direct drive there, and did not want to waste an hour and a half having their extended leisurely lunch, or stop the morning drive after lunch. I guess I should have been more forceful about it earlier (I thought I had expressed myself pretty clearly, but evidently not clearly enough!) He asked the camp chef to prepare box lunches for us, and in the actuality we stopped for 20 or 30 minute lunch break, didn’t arrive at Mfuwe Lodge until about 1:30 – then went out again at 3:40, exactly what I had expected every day to be like. African fish eagle – strong resemblance to American bald eagle [At Mfuwe lodge the manager asked my experience and expressed my frustration about it – actually my only point of frustration or disappointment with the experience. She kept saying “99% of people don’t want that” and couldn’t quite get that I wasn’t talking about 99% of people. I frankly doubt her statistics, although I’m sure that more people want to lounge around a good part of the day with a couple of 3 hour game viewings. ] I don’t clearly recall the order of all that we saw – virtually nothing until we had drive some ways from the lodge, because we had to drive through a kapani forest, trees the elephants decimate, with little forage for other species. We found and watched a troup of baboons for a while; one of the babies was white (a recessive gene I think) and very cute; I wouldn’t have minded watching him more but Shad heard alarm calls and wanted to check to see if there was a leopard. There wasn’t, but a bit later we came across a family of four lions; mom, a nearly full-grown male and female, and a smaller, younger male, all resting in the shade while we photographed them. During the day I managed to get a very nice photo of an African hawk eagle in the air, and another photo of an African fish eagle (previous page) also in the air, then a picture of a bee eater hovering above the river while the breeze carried insects to his hungry mouth. (That was while we were eating lunch at a shady spot on a high bank above the river.) There were several hippos in the water, two of whom I took pictures of while climbing out onto the bank. (It was a cool morning and many animals were just soaking up sun, warming themselves.) The picture above shows one of the hippos with a baby crocodile just this side of it. I’ve really enjoyed their almost constant chorus of grunts and chuckles. After lunch we spotted a lioness, nursing a single cub in the shade. While we watched she moved out into the sun, cub following her: She looked in really bad shape, thin, poor coat, decided limp. When I inspected her through binoculars I could see a festering wound on one paw, Shad said probably from hyenas driving her away from a kill. She didn’t look in much shape to kill anything again, and her cub suckled so intently, without playing at all, that it looked like her milk was inadequate. She’ll likely die, and if another lioness doesn’t intervene, the cub as well. Seeing them threw a bit of a pall on an otherwise wonderful day. Thinking about the elephant who had so tenuously started across the river, I asked Shad about quicksand. They don’t have it in the rivers, but Shad drove up onto a plateau, stopped the car, and led me to some quicksand pools in the center of a somewhat arid plane. There were several, each 6-8 feet in diameter. They are apparently the top of volcanic pipes, with springs rising up and evaporating, leaving a dry crust of 3 to 8 inches. We stood on the edge of one of the thicker ones and bounced; you could feel it bounce under you – a very queasy feeling. Another one had a large stick lying on it; Shad picked it up and, with very little effort, drove it through the thin crust into the soupy mud below, which quickly swallowed it up. There were animal tracks all around; very likely many many dead animals sinking gradually down most of the pipes. When we reached Mfuwe lodge a huge busload of tourists were unloading – what a zoo, then and at afternoon tea. This is the end of shoulder season, beginning of high season; people from China and all over Europe as well as the U.S. and Canada. Tea was a zoo. They had made a nice lemon poppyseed cake, and a smaller GF version, already cut (with what knife I can only guess.) One of the staff served a piece of the regular cake, while I went around to get a plate and fork; when she started to serve a piece of GF with the same serving implement (covered with sticky crumbs from the non-GF cake) I cried “don’t touch that!” I explained about contamination and served myself with the fork. There was such a horde of people around the table by then I just grabbed a couple pieces of fruit and headed off to a remote table. I had mild gluten symptoms later that evening and when I awoke; I think probably she had already cut the non-GF cake first then cut the GF cake with the same knife. The GF cake, however, was quite good. After tea, Shadrack quickly drove off away from the lodge, which was a very good decision. Among other interesting sights we spotted a lone hyena with a limp; through binoculars we could see it had injuries on two paws – and what appeared to be mange all up it’s throat and lower face. Like the lioness yesterday, the hyena looked to be in very poor condition, unfit for hunting and very likely hungry. We saw a couple of other (healthy) hyenas later, and another genet, which sat still for a long inspection and photo session. Sunday, June 30 – departure day I awoke with mild diarrhea – worrisome at the beginning of a 40 hour plane trip – but it cleared up before time to get on the first plane. At breakfast I noticed the server turning over regular toast then using the same tongs to serve GF French toast to me, more evidence of the casualness that probably caused my digestive issues. If I ever do return here I will avoid large resorts like Mfuwe Lodge – it is much easier to train up a smaller staff with fewer guests. I bought a small bag in the gift shop to carry computer, book, and earphones so I can put the other carry-on in the luggage bin and leave it there. Shad and I set out for a short (not even 2 hour) ride, which was nonetheless very satisfactory. Right out of the gate we saw two wild dogs, just beginning a hunt. Shad says they’re rarely sighted; he’s had guests who’ve come to Africa 20 times and never seen one, so apparently I’ve been very lucky. Then we saw a leopard who sat for photographs for a while before getting up and disappearing into the bush. We also saw a purple-crested turaco, then a second joined it. (above) Lovely green breasts, orange markings on the eyes; they did not turn their backs so I could not see the colorful back, but they did sit in plain view, which Shad says is unusual; he hears their call a lot but rarely even gets a glimpse of one, since they like dense foliage (and blend in well). So the day started out very well indeed. No sightings on the way to the airport, but we stopped at a native handcraft store where I picked up a couple of thing. But on the flight back to Lusaka we stopped at a little dirt airstrip (Zeki); while landing crossed the Zambezi River, and I saw several pods of hippos in the water and on land next to the river, as well as some elephants. Shadrack. Shadrack and me at the river picnic. We mostly got along very well. Shadrack has a skewed sense of humor similar to mine; we joked about all the elephants that bellowed at us, about my forgetting one thing and his forgetting another, many small funny things. He is very knowledgeable, imparts knowledge in suitably small bites so I never felt overwhelmed; has a good sense of the animals, so I ended up (partly because of his tracking skill, partly through luck) seeing everything I wanted to see and being able to watch several animals for several minutes or in some cases an hour or more. My main frustration was his insistence on adhering to the breakfast / morning tea / 11 am brunch / 4 hour rest / afternoon tea schedule. The managers all told me I didn’t have to stick to schedule; could set my own schedule, but until the last day he simply refused to do it – more concerned about the kitchen staff, I felt, than about me. A second minor annoyance was failure to explain some decisions, like abandoning the chase for the wild dogs the last day; when he pointed out they had gone into dense brush plus all the vehicles chasing them, I fully agreed. But mostly, I fairly quickly learned to trust and rely on his judgment, and enjoyed the time with him. Shadrack’s brother Mishack manages the last camp where I stayed; they look much alike, although vocal intonation and expressions differ quite a bit. I don’t know if there’s a third brother, Abednigo, or not. Coda: getting home The Kenya Air flight to Nairobi was delayed an hour and a half – enough that they closed the gate on the KLM flight just as we were landing, at 12:05. There ensued a comedy of waiting lines: one to get approval for a voucher for a hotel stay, one to get through passport control, another waiting for the actual voucher, and finally (at 2 am), one for an actual room key. I finally got to bed at 2:20, with the bus back to the airport expected at 5. 2 hours of very solid sleep and a hot shower later, I was sitting on the bus waiting for other stranded passengers (at least 30, some for my flight, some for a flight to Paris). Then the bus stopped at three other hotels, eating up more time. A mile or two short of the airport, there was a police check; we all had to get off the bus and go through a security screen, then find our bus again in the melee of busses and cars. I write this sitting in the waiting room for my rebooked flight to Amsterdam, on Kenya Airlines (a “partner” of KLM and Delta – a system that works rather poorly at best). Kenya Airlines does not have comfort plus seating, so I’ll have to hassle KLM to get that money refunded – and I’ll have to spend 7 hours in a cramped coach seat. I finally talked the cabin crew into allowing me to occupy a bulkhead seat with wonderful legroom – they said I’d have to pay for it in Amsterdam, but no-one met me at the gate. My hunch is that the staff in Amsterdam saw that I had paid for it already – so I won’t have to hassle KLM about it. The flight to Minneapolis was fairly good. I had also paid for a bulkhead seat there; they seated me in a center seat in the no leg-room section; I complained about it, and managed to get moved to an aisle seat, still no leg-room but at least not jammed between two people. I will have to hassle Delta about the $109 I paid for leg-room I didn’t get. [It turned out not to be a hassle; the agent regularly agreed to refund it. Delta is back in my good graces. Not KLM.] My seat-mate was a nice young woman; we chatted the last two hours into Minneapolis. She was a ballet dancer in high school, now applying for medical school. Showed me some videos of her dancing a couple of studio pieces; she was very good, danced the sugar plum fairy in Nutcracker, but already plagued by arthritis in her toes, reluctantly gave it up. The flight to Portland, still no leg-room, aisle seat in a row of 3, fortunately the center seat was empty so I was able to stretch out in that direction a bit. Dead tired, I was actually hallucinating the last hour into Portland (would see some shape out of the corner of my eye, think it was something else; other perceptual oddities). Slept well in spite of severe leg-cramps from sitting for 70 hours straight – very glad to be home. I managed to get a slightly blurred picture of a baboon in mid-jump and a better one of an impala in mid-jump. The exaggerated jump, like the practice of “stotting” (vertical stiff-legged jumps) may be a way to demonstrated to any watching predators that this impala would not be easy to catch.

Zambia: South Luangwa National Park

First day started out well (after a night of good sleep, interrupted intermittently by Hippo snorts and grunts). Pleasant slightly cool morning, chef made good GF muffins and French Toast for me, plus a dish of fruit made a nice breakfast. In a moving car I needed a jacket, but when it stopped I was too warm. We started out watching some of the multitude of hippos in this river, most back in the water as the sun came up; also saw Cape buffalo and a couple of leopards – they’re much more common here than in Botswana. Waterbuck are also plentiful; this is a particularly nice one close enough for a good photo, near a small waterhole with several of these colorful storks and a juvenile crocodile, maybe 6 feet long. A herd of elephants were parading toward a waterhole so we drove there and took a number of nice photos and a couple videos of the elephants drinking. We had a bit of excitement a little later; came across this mama elephant and her half-grown calf, along with another couple of elephants and these impala. Shadrack (my guide / driver) decided that we should take a closer look at the cow and calf, so he drove on to the road behind them, drove up to the point where we had a good view and stopped the vehicle. Mama elephant did not appreciate our presence that close to her baby; she gave a loud trumpet and charged. Leonard (the park service guard with us) raised his gun (to shoot in the air to scare her off, not to shoot the elephant) but she stopped less than 10 feet from the car, swayed, flapped her ears at us, and glowered for a minute or two then turned and ambled on away from us. My heart rate picked up a bit, and I didn’t get a picture (or a recording of her trumpet) – too busy scooting to the far side of the vehicle. We saw one more new animal, a local variety of giraffe, shorter neck and legs than the ones in Botswana, and darker color (Shadrack says that’s a sign of age.) The morning concluded with a brunch picnic in the shade of some trees next to the river. Apparently they get a lot of British clients, since brunch was “Full English Breakfast” – I would have far preferred something lighter focused around fruit and cheese rather than beans and fried mushrooms! Both for lunch and for dinner, they had 3 meats, 3 starches (all with plenty for seconds) and one each of vegetable and salad (with not enough for more than a small serving). Now I am sitting on my deck listening to birds and watching a kingfisher (I think) catch and eat minnows. This is winter in Zambia; nights get cold enough to need a jacket, days only a little hot, for a couple of hours in the afternoon. On my deck, In the evening we went for an informative walk, then drove to an open area by a river with a number of hippos in it and elephants on the far bank for a “sundowner: -- gin and tonic, with some sausages. (I am really getting overdosed on meat – spoke to the hostess about it; she promised to talk to the chef.) After the cocktail hour, we drove through a lovely sunset meadow; I took a few pictures, one of which nicely captures the mood. Golden light, impala and yellow baboons feeding in the meadow. As it was approaching dark, we spotted a leopard, stopped to watch it. It was obviously eying a herd of impala a few hundred meters across the meadow. The light wasn’t good enough for pictures, but with the help of Aubrey’s (the spotter) spotlight, I got these pictures of the leopard stretching and setting off back into the woods. Shadrack was confident the leopard was going to circle around through the woods and try to get one of the impala, so we circled around for a bit, trying to get in front of him; found him again, watched him stalk the impalas, drove out to the herd to be in position to watch the attack if he attempted it (by now it was totally dark). The impala only glanced at us and were all looking intently in the direction of the leopard. After another half hour or so Shadrack decided there was not going to be any action that night, and we went back to camp, where I changed into clean clothes for dinner. Again three meats, all bbq, chicken, think pork chops, and beef steaks, some small thin-walled half squashes (about 1 or 1.5 tablespoon of flesh in each), a cornmeal dish eaten by the natives, and a skimpy bowl of cole slaw, about enough for a large tablespoonful apiece. Instead of taking all the meat up when it was done, they waited to serve it directly from the grill so the pork steak in particular was overcooked and dry. (I only had that and the chicken.) For dessert they served everybody but me what looked like either cheesecake or some kind of custard pie; they set a small green apple on a plate in front of me. It pissed me off and I almost got up and left it there and went back to my room but I didn’t want to spoil the evening for the others, so I cut it up and ate it without comment. I did speak to the hostess this morning; today’s lunch was a vast improvement, cold ham & pineapple, a nice cucumber and avocado dish, oven fry potatoes, rice, and a large salad (at last!) We’ll see what happens at dinner.

Luangwa days

Impalas, nervous, start at slinking leopard scent. What will happen next? A spotted beauty, the genet stops in the light, returns to the dark. Baboons groom and play, an impala strolls by, reflected in morning still pond. Elephant dips her trunk, snorts and splashes, hippos grunt, birds warble and scold. Hyena, two pups. She eyes us warily, then slinks into tall grass. Waterhole drying, wading birds hover, probe, seek: feasting on trapped fish. Prints in sand, two lions. We circle around, no prints: we know where they are. Didn’t find them: track them to the river. We had a very nice walk. Monkey fruit tree, bark strychnine-laced, ripe fruit good. Caution is advised. Fish eagles soar, white head and tail backlit by sun: haiku in the sky. Crickets greet the dawn with bird cries and hippo grunts – how still the morning!

Costa Rica 2017

Comments – CR Trip Turtle project – interesting and educational; one day was sufficient. Delfines was comfortable, except that there is no place to walk or do much of anything (heavy traffic on the paved road; the lane too muddy for walking after about ¼ mile). Managers very nice, food basic but good. I would not stay there again except maybe as a stop on the way to somewhere else. El Remanso – very well run place, friendly competent staff, comfortable room with a good view, excellent tour guides. Two full days was enough, though – not much to do. We had the impression it was right next to the national park, but it isn’t, and after you’ve taken a couple of tours and walked the handful of trails, that’s it. Crystal Ballena – pretentious architecture, badly over-priced restaurant. Chintzy box breakfast – LaJean did not eat the bread; I had to take the flour tortilla back to get something I could eat. Room very comfortable with a lovely view. Otherwise, more glitz than substance. The drive to Sierpe for the two tours, 50 minutes each way, was too much. There is a hotel at Sierpe which would have made much more sense – we could have started the tour 2 hours earlier, reached the national park earlier for better conditions, and probably saved a lot of money on the hotel. The tour of Corcovado was great, but would have been much better with an earlier start. Excellent guide, nice tour of some of the waterways in the wetlands. Cano Island was a disappointment – mainly, I think, because of the recent heavy rain, but also there were about 50 tourists snorkelling in a very small place. It would probably be better in the dry season when the water is clearer. The boat trip back was good because we got to watch some spider monkeys for a half hour. La Cusinga was excellent – comfortable, a more reasonably priced restaurant. However, it was extremely difficult to find in the dark – small sign, impossible to see with headlights from on-coming traffic; I ended up going way past it on the way back from the night walk. Villa Blanca – comfortable but overpriced. Also more glitz than substance. They advertise as a wedding site, and the price / quality ration shows it. Meals good, but both chicken and fish overcooked and dry. Waiter screwed up LaJean’s order the second night – but the manager didn’t charge for it so that was okay. Not much to do. The tour was a disappointment – few birds, no mammals, but some interesting new information about plants. Not much to do, and a horrible road served as a barrier to go elsewhere. I would not go back here, and would not recommend it. Tours: The animal and bird tours at El Remanso were both great. Corcovado National Park great – would have been better if we’d stayed at Sierpe and got a much earlier start. Dave would have enjoyed camping in the park for a late afternoon and early morning tour (some people had done that – tents still up when we arrived), but LaJean would not have wanted to camp out. The Private mangrove hike in Hacienda Baru was good (although the guide seemed unenthusiastic compared to the others, he was very knowledgeable). The twilight part of the “twilight tour” was interesting, but when night fell I wish I’d said “enough” – that was the only time mosquitoes were a problem, and there really wasn’t much to see after it got completely dark – a couple of spiders, a tarantula, one frog. I enjoyed night hikes in the Peruvian Amazon and even more in Madagascar, but I wouldn’t do another one in Costa Rica. Getting around: A nightmare, and the main reason we won’t even consider going back. There are few road signs and the ones there are aren’t very helpful. Google Maps works intermittently, and the instructions were unhelpful. It ended up taking over 6 hours to drive from Uvita to Villa Blanca, because we ended up going all the way to San Jose, then ended up going all the way to San Luis. (We missed the Villa Blanca sign, mainly because the one at the turn is a different color and design than all the others.) Traffic is ghastly. The Costa Ricans we met were all charming and gracious – except when behind the wheel of a car when they become brutally aggressive. We were almost run off the road several times; came within inches of fender-benders a half dozen times. There is no place to pull over to look at the map and figure out where we needed to turn. No route number signs, no signs to San Ramon. Signs are a problem everywhere; small signs for hotels (non-reflective paint), very few road signs; the desk clerk at Villa Blanca did not give adequate instructions – everyone seems to assume that you know where you are going already. Many parts of the trip were wonderful, but the horrible drive to San Ramon, and the almost equally horrible drive back to the airport (no instructions on how to find the rental car return; when we called the agency the instructions we got were still incomplete and we ended up driving halfway downtown because if you miss a turn you’re screwed) – the last 3 days more or less spoiled the entire trip. We were shocked at prices – Crystal Balleno and Villa Blanca restaurant prices were as high as some of the best restaurants in Portland, higher relative to quality – and I know their labor costs are no where near as high. We drove to another restaurant in Uvita that was more reasonably priced – but still about what we’d pay in Portland for a similar priced meal. Golfo Dolce – Turtle project Nice day today, warm & humid, occasional showers. We went on a turtle tagging expedition with LAST (Latin American Sea Turtles) – a marine biologist and two RAs. The Golfo Dulce (named for the fresh water that pours in from rivers all around) is a long narrow inlet, mostly stagnant, but the sea turtles enter the gulf to feed on very short sea grass along the shallow margins. The project was to catch, measure, weigh, and tag sea turtles. The day started with laying out a net (specially built with large mesh to minimize by-catch) about 100 meters off shore. Then we and the two RAs were put ashore; the biologist and boat driver went back out to watch the net and wait. The turtle is pulled aboard and placed on a large plastic mat, padded around the perimeter, with straps to restrain the turtle. We all gather next to the boat and four people grab handles to carry the animal onto the beach where is gently laid down on a couple of old bike tires, to keep it up from the hard sand. Two people measure while one records and two others hold the flippers (to keep the measuring crew from being swatted.) First the top shell is measured, front to back then across the widest part. (Three of every measurement are taken, for accuracy.) Then the turtle is turned over. If it’s not large, it is “pancaked” – two people grab the front flipper at the shoulder, next to the shell and lift it; a third person at the tail end swings the tail under. If it is large, one person sits beside it and it is lifted up to lean against that person’s lap while one person holds the flippers and two measure. The bottom carapace is also measure front to tail and side to side. Then the tail is measured, first from the edge of the carapace to the tip then from the cloaca to the tip. (That helps determine sex.) Then the turtle is turned back onto its belly. If it does not already have a tag (like cattle ear tags) on its front flipper, one is put on – it’s like an ear piercing, and obviously a bit of pain. Finally, if it does not have a radio transmitter chip, one is implanted with a long needle – another bit of pain. Then four people pick it up again and carry it knee deep or more into the surf, and release it. One bit of a bummer – walking up the beach between turtle sessions, I found a dead baby turtle (33 cm. long) lying in a grove of mangroves. It had obviously just died – no smell, and the biologist reported, no rigor mortis, and when she took a tissue sample the blood was still liquid. She measured it on the spot, then bagged it up and took it back to do an autopsy on it. We stayed and watched – very interesting. It was completely healthy; good tissue color and texture, no parasites, no obvious explanation for why it died. At the end of the day we pulled the net up and, halfway through that operation, found our third turtle, a very healthy green turtle, which we took back with us to measure. It was a pretty interesting day; we were both glad we went along for the ride.