The Artsaypunk

After a restless night in a tree house and a morning tracking chimps, Anna and I were pretty beat. Still, we figured that since we were there, we might as well try to take in a hike at a nearby wetland reserve. We struck off down the road, confident that soon enough someone would come driving along and give us a lift.

6 Km and a blistering hot hour later, a truck pulled up beside us. Anna told the driver where we were headed and he replied that that was exactly where he was going. We asked how far away it was and he replied, “56 Kilometers.” I started to curse. Anna declined the ride since it couldn’t possibly be where we were headed. We walked around the next corner, only to see the sign for the wetlands we were searching for maybe 500 feet away. Our friends in the truck had pulled up beside it, honking and pointing, apparently now in full awareness of where we were talking about. When we finally strolled into the centre, sweat coursing down my back, who should pull in behind us, from our own campsite, but the damned Dutch Dyke Trio. I could barely look at them I was so irritated.

Anyway, we set out with our guide Josea, who was a kind of timid little guy, with a less than perfect command of the English language. I started to wonder whether he was related to Wilson, master of [...]

Despite our fatigue, my sister and I were understandably excited to go tracking chimps in the rainforest, especially since we had travelled a helluva long way in a stinking mini-bus and paid a lot of money to do so. As we ate breakfast, I looked at the other tourists that had signed up, We seemed destined to be saddled with a group of surly Dutch women with harsh expressions and short greasy hair. I couldn’t help thinking of the little dutch boy and what he could do with his thumb in this situation. They seemed to be complaining about everything, and I turned to my sister, rolled my eyes and said, “White people.” ” Are they Dutch or German?” she asked me. ” I dunno,” I replied, “They all look the same to me.”

Luckily for us, our friend J.B. decided to guide us. We were leaving the Dowdy Dutch Dykes behind, so it was going to be just the two of us (we can make it if we try). I liked J.B., even though he was still ribbing us about the Black Mamba. He reminded me of Forrest Whittaker, except with no lazy eye, in fact he was fully binocular (with binoculars). I must say he was an amazing guide. He could identify birds by their calls and could often whistle out to them and get replies. I was so intent on the hike and all the birds and monkeys [...]

I have to admit that after the Great Black Mamba Scare of 2005 I was slightly skeptical about spending the night in a tree. Especially a tree in the middle of a rainforest, ten minute’s walk from the main camp, guarded by a slithering, black poison repository. Now, if we had almost stepped on some sort of sleeping carnivore, then sure, I would have been happy to sleep in a tree. I would have said, to hell with all of you, there’s no way I’m not sleeping in a tree. But the fact of the matter is that I had just almost stepped on a snake, and now I was looking at the tree in which I intended to sleep, and not half an hour before I had examined a poster depicting a local “Tree Snake.” It just seemed like maybe there was no direct need to poke fate in the eye with a fork. But then, I certainly couldn’t show any fear in the presence of my little sister, especially since she was resolutely refusing to show any fear in the presence of her older brother.

However, after climbing up the thirty-foot ladder to our arboreal home for the night, the coolness factor of sleeping in a tree house in the jungle quickly reestablished its footing in my mind. Black Mambas be damned! I’m sleeping in a tree in Africa! So after dinner, my sister and I settled in for the night. We played a [...]

The night before we went Chimp Tracking, I had a restless night, mostly due to the chomping, scratching noises directly over my head. Anyway, when I’m half awake, half asleep, is when I have the dreams I actually remember. I dreamt that while we were out tracking, my sister and I discovered a brand new monkey species, that was thus named the “Ford Colubus Monkey.” However, for whatever reason, I insisted to the authorities that the new primate must also be casually referred to as “Mr. Monkey Face.”

“And here, if you look carefully through the canopy, you will see the rarest of monkeys… Mr. [...]

My sister and I decided, in a spontaneous way, to rocket up to Fort Portal, a western Ugandan town near the Congolese border, where, among other things, you can get access to Chimpanzees in their natural habitat. I’m a sucker for monkeys, so we went for it. Jameson, an old-boy at Anna’s school (and pronounced Jemsen around these parts), was very excited over our trip, because he had been insisting since I arrived that I MUST go to Fort Portal. He had gone on a school trip once, and I thought he wanted us to see the extensive cave networks, the chimps, or maybe the dense rain-forests. Not So. “Teacher David, you must go to Fort Portal because the women have seriously BIG breasts and don’t wear shirts.” I was sold. However, I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy, because I have not seen even a hint of that particular topographical feature while I was there.

I was amused however, on the way to Kibale National Park (pronounced Chibolay, the Ki always being Ch here, which makes me wonder what they think of Chick Boxing). We were headed up a road that made me want to rename the town Fort Pot-Hole when I saw a sign that read “Blood Bank” and then right underneath, “Canteen,” apparently catering to the East African Vampire population. I didn’t have time to pause for reflection.

Post Script:

On our return home, I discovered that apparently, Jameson’s insistence on the merits [...]