Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Boston,' I began, as I passed him the whisky, 'I have something for you.'
He thought I meant the bottle and took it hastily, but I had something else as well. Until
now, the jumper I had wrapped up had been serving as my pillow, and the one piece of
warm clothing I was carrying. But Christmas is a time for making presents of jumpers, and
I gave it to Boston with a smile.
He beamed. 'It looks like I'm going to need it, Lev. Look . . .'
Above the lake, storm clouds were gathering, brooding and black. They were coming
this way.
Before the day was done, the rains had started. The way it fell in sheets across the lake
was a spectacle of light and sound, the spray distorting the surface of the water so that
it seemed we were staring through a constantly shifting veil. In the camp, Selim and his
brother sheltered beneath a tarpaulin sheet, but there was no longer murder in their eyes -
only misery. Boston and I sat out and let the storm rage all around.
The rains moved on in the night and, by morning, the sun had returned with all its fero-
city. Boston and I were up at dawn, debating whether to spend another day resting by the
lake or to continue our push north, when Selim and his brother made their announcement.
Animatedly, they summoned Boston to the tarpaulin and ranted at him in Swahili. When
Boston returned, there was murder in his own eyes. 'You were right when you said they
were bone idle, Lev. Well, they were scared, but bone idle as well. They're leaving us.'
'Leaving?'
'And they'll leave us here, with all our packs, unless we take them back to the road
today.'
I looked at the camp. There was too much gear for Boston and me to shoulder ourselves,
and it was twenty miles to the nearest road where we could realistically hope to find new
porters. Part of me wanted to scream at Selim but the better part won out and I couldn't
help but smile in dismay. This was exactly the kind of thing the original Nile explorers had
contended with on a daily basis: truculent aides who turned out (as I'd predicted) to be a
hindrance rather than a help. There are certain clichés about African travel that always turn
out to be true.
I couldn't bring myself to speak to Selim. Boston ordered them to begin packing up and
we set off.
It was a silent twenty miles to the nearest road, hacking through the entangled forest.
When we reached it, the road was little more than a dirt track, running parallel to the river.
When we emerged from the forest to see the red earth snaking north, a large cross, choked
with creepers, stood amid the bushes on the opposite side of the track. Behind the creepers
there hung a tarnished brass plaque. A chill ran through me: this was a memorial to a Dan-
ish aid worker who had been killed by robbers on this very spot in 1994.
'I told you it was dangerous here,' muttered Boston, darkly.
