Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Matt's thoughts had evidently been headed in the same direction. As we lined our stom-
achs with porridge, leaving generous leftovers for the children inching down to camp, he
said, 'I think we'll only go half way. We'll treat it the same as yesterday - come into the
reserve, then hitch a ride to the next camp.'
I nodded. 'How are you feeling?'
Matt only shrugged. 'I knew we'd be tired, but I've done these treks before. You have
to pace yourself. Being tired is to be expected. It's half the challenge - plus I've got a few
blisters, which is slowing me down . . .'
We had planned to walk twelve miles that day, but we would no longer be following a
well-beaten track, instead hacking our way through the scrub as we'd done on the way to
Murchison Falls. With the going so tough, we spent the early morning looking for porters
from Pawar, but the local men seemed too hungover from their night's excesses - and, in
the end, the two rangers Boston had acquired agreed to be our pack animals as well. Moses
and Charles were experienced guides and knew the area well, even if they did turn a blind
eye to the occasional villager stealing firewood from the park. Moses spoke good English
and evidently loved his job. Charles was big and strong - but, sneakily, only picked up the
smaller of the bags.
The first miles of Ajai were dominated by tall, elephant grass savannah, with only a few
trees growing up, like islands in a sea of green. All we could see of the Nile was the green
papyrus swamp sitting on the eastern horizon. The grass was dense and tall, and we had
to hack a way through - but it was not so tall that it could shield us from the worst of the
sun. This was going to be another punishing day and every mile was going to be earned in
sweat and toil.
By the time we emerged from the grass to make our way across the remnants of a dried
swamp, we had seen so little wildlife that the reserve seemed eerie, sun-baked and dead.
In fact, the only game we had seen at all were a few kob, a small sub-Saharan antelope,
spooked at our approach. 'Has it been hunted out?' I asked the rangers, but Moses and
Charles only looked up and pointed to the sun. The animals of Ajai, I understood, were
more canny than we were being - they didn't tolerate this kind of sun when they didn't
have to.
Though we stopped in every pool of shade we could find, by eleven o'clock the islands
of shadow were dwindling rapidly - and soon, with the sun directly overhead, there would
be nothing at all. I looked at Boston and saw that his gaze, too, was directed at a line of
forest some distance to the west. When he turned to me, a simple nod was all it took for me
to be sure of my decision. I turned to Matt and Jason; today, because we had been moving
at such a sluggish pace, they had not lagged behind - but their exhaustion was palpable,
mirrored in each other's face. 'We're going to head for the shade under those trees.'
