Mountains of the Moon

In the Tarzan books the location is in the "Mountains of the Moon" or as they are also called the Rwendori Mountains. We arrived in Fort Portal from Kampala after a very nice all day cruise through Uganda. Uganda is a beautiful green tropical country with rolling hills, farms, grassy valleys, jungles and glacier capped mountains along the western border with Zaire. As we neared Fort Portal the farms got smaller and further apart and the rolling hills were quickly turning into foothills and then real mountains.

We spent the first day negotiating for porters and guides to carry our gear and supplies and to show us the way to the top. We obtained the permits needed and ended up with almost thiry porters and two guides. We needed to carry enough supplies for a month and our climbing equipment. It sounds like a lot of porters but each man carried between 60 and a hundred pounds of weight so we could have used even more. The porters walked barefoot and were very strong and reliable. The guides helped us communicate with the porters and took care of any problems we had with them. There were very few problems. They were incredibly helpful and friendly with us. We carried about 75 pounds each, but we used backpacks whereas the porters just balanced the loads on their heads or used a sling hanging from their foreheads to carry their loads.

We took off after a big hearty breakfast and started to hike up the hills. At first the trail was wide and well traveled. The locals living up in this direction used this path to get back and forth to Fort Portal. As we walked on over the next several days the path got more and more trail like and less road like. The scenery was mind blowing. The mountains were visible now poking through the clouds. The white glaciers up on the summits looked impressive with the lush green tropical jungle background. We saw lots of lizards. They were brightly colored and just cracked me up because they would run rapidly for about ten feet then stop and do a bunch of pushups then flare out their throat and freeze for a few minutes before doing it again and again. I wanted to see more wildlife but we saw very little. Some monkeys that stayed away from us, a small snake here and there, and birds were about it on the climb to base camp. The guides and porters killed anything they saw move, usually before we could see it. That annoyed me a bit.

The vegetation changed about every thousand feet of elevation. The farms disappeared and the jungle changed as we climbed. The trees got further apart and the grasses changed. Then we hit a line where there was steamy fog and multi-colored moss and vines covering all the trees. The trees thinned out even more and we came to a muddy swampy area where we had to step or sometimes jump from clump of grass to clump of grass to walk. If you missed or slipped off of the clumps of grass the mud would suck your foot down to mid calf or so and you would have to slowly pull your foot back out or risk losing your boot. Quite a few times people went flying down to the muddy ground while trying to balance on one leg on the slippery clumps while pulling their feet out of the muck. We laughed a lot when people fell into it, until it happened to you personally, then it wasn't so funny getting covered in the sticky gooey muck.

We had our first problems here with our workers. The guides up front saw large footprints from a big cat and the workers all got frightened. We stopped and talked with the guides about it and then the guides talked with the porters and we continued on. For the next couple of days a big cat, probably a leopard stalked us and walked circles around our group. We would see the footprints still filling up with water in front of us behind us and on either side. None of us ever saw the big cat even though it spent two days sometimes within ten feet of us. It was unnerving to say the least. I tried really hard to spot it but it seemed to be invisible. Whenever the porters would see a fresh footprint they would scream out and scare the rest of them. Our guides kept them working and we continued on.

The jungles and trees eventually were gone and they were replaced by an alien looking area with ten to twenty foot high plants like lobelias and other flowers and plants that don't normally grow so tall. There were hummingbirds sucking on the flowers and bees and butterflies. It was very unusual to see weeds that are normally a foot tall everywhere else towering over your head.

We finally made it to our basecamp at about ten thousand feet in a gorgeous valley full of flowers streams, ponds, grass and lots of birds flying around. The porters and our guides made their own camp and we stayed in some cabins that were there just for climbers. They were very nice cabins with stoves and cots. We ate and went to sleep excited about exploring the trails up to the peaks the next day.

That night almost as soon as we fell asleep we were awakened by loud piercing blood curdling screams. We jumped out of our cots and ran outside expecting to see some sort of mayhem going on. The sound was like what you would expect to hear from a woman getting brutally raped. As we looked around and ran over to the porters camp they laughed at us. One of them took us for a short walk and showed us the source of the screams. A small mammal about the size of a woodchuck was just sitting by a rock letting loose with these terror inspiring screams. The porter just walked up to it without it running away and he kicked it to death. We were a bit appalled by his behavior but then he told us they were good eating and that they were a major portion of the porter's diet when they were up here in the high valley. I found out later that they are called hyrax. We went back inside and adjusted to sleeping through the constant screaming all night every night from then on. I was excited, if the weather held up then tomorrow the peaks!

Wiki link to Rwenzori Mountains:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwenzori_Mountains