{"id":343,"date":"2015-04-15T04:41:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T01:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/?p=343"},"modified":"2015-04-15T04:41:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T01:41:16","slug":"memoirs-of-rwenzori-bog-boulders-and-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Memoirs of\u00a0Rwenzori: Bog, Boulders and Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11138598_796043100503283_1517621185388546509_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

Strip down, start running\u2014and never quit! Keep your eyes on\u00a0Jesus, who both began and finished this race we\u2019re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed\u2014he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he\u2019s\u00a0there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through.\u00a0That\u00a0will shoot adrenaline into your souls! \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0– Paul of Tarsus<\/p>\n

Well, morning came. And the sun did shine again, dispelling the dark\u00a0cloud that that had been hovering over our heads the previous night. The mood in the\u00a0camp was upbeat. It was a new day and hope had taken it\u2019s rightful place.<\/p>\n

Compared to\u00a0the rude introduction to\u00a0mountaineering 101 that we had been subjected to the previous day, today\u2019s climb, though going through bog and boulders, was going to be an\u00a0individual test of\u00a0courage for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just as we\u00a0descended from the moraine to cross the Mubuku River, I missed a step, slipped and tweaked my left knee.\u00a0What irony, considering the many horrendous \u201copportunities\u201d I had had the\u00a0previous day to do just\u00a0that. Only then, that tumble would\u00a0have resulted in a free fall ending either in raging river or very hard rock. Coming from the many years of running on tarmac and uneven ground, I\u00a0have what is termed\u00a0\u201cRunner\u2019s knee,\u201d the irritation of the cartilage on the underside of the knee-cap. Whenever this condition escalates, all\u00a0I have to do is rest my knee for\u00a0a fortnight. On the other hand, \u201cTime-Out\u201d is an altogether strange phenomenon that does not blend on this terrain. Sitting down to nurse myself, I had to quickly choose between two propositions: Carry on or Go on. You see, coming to this mountain for me was synonymous with going all the way up to Margherita peak. There was no two ways of seeing this. And sitting on the dirt that morning, it dawned on me that Margherita was not going to yield her beauty without a fight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was reminded of\u00a0a fellow in a similar predicament.\u00a0Well, not exactly.\u00a0There was a lot more at stake for John Stephen Akhwari. The\u00a0country\u2019s honor was on his head. On October 20th 1968 (at around 7pm, long after the winner of the marathon had tucked away his medal at the Olympic village in Mexico City, a\u00a0forlorn,\u00a0limping\u00a0figure came out of the shadows and made his way into the stadium. Nobody glanced in his direction until, over the the din came the voice of the announcer requesting the few remaining spectators, all starting to leave the stands, to honor a\u00a0true\u00a0sportsman. A lone clap erupted into a deafening crescendo as he was cheered on to the finish line. Hardly anyone remembers who the winner of that marathon was. But of\u00a0John Stephen Akhwari it was written,\u00a0\u201ctoday\u00a0we have seen a young African runner who symbolizes\u00a0the finest in\u00a0the human spirit;\u00a0today\u00a0we have seen\u00a0a\u00a0performance that gives meaning to the word\u00a0Courage<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0For his part, asked why he did not quit even\u00a0when it was obvious he was\u00a0badly injured, John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania had\u00a0this to say;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. My country sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not how you start the race that counts. Its that you finish the race. In life, the\u00a0highest mountains we climb are not physical mountains.\u00a0And so with a limp and a prayer – and a bandage firmly wrapped on my visibly swollen knee – I carried on. Stumbling, wobbling\u00a0or limping, it did not matter.\u00a0For\u00a0the joy set\u00a0before me, I was going to summit\u00a0Margherita. And nobody was going to know how badly injured I was, lest they\u00a0conspire with the guides to send me back down. Yesterday\u2019s events had schooled me enough to know that this was not a far-fetched notion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Rwenzori mountain range is the most challenging of all African mountains to ascend. Over the next next two days, we were going to climb up an elevation of 4600ft (1400m), a little over what we had already covered. Unlike the steep climb the first day, it was\u00a0going to be a seesaw going forward – down and down, and up and up. Then down. And then up. And then down again. And that\u00a0cycle would pretty much repeat itself for the rest of the climb. As in life, whatever altitude is lost had to be regained; an obviously daunting task. We descended to a valley\u00a0between two ridges at the\u00a0confluence of the Mubuku and Bujuku rivers. Here, the two rivers join up and flow as one – The Mubuku River. Mr and Mrs Mubuku (nee Bujuku); the imagery of Biblical marriage was not\u00a0lost to us. Over this confluence is the Kurt Schaffer Bridge, one of the many bridges criss-crossing the mountain. Further from this crossing is a steep incline overlooking the Bujuku valley, allowing for the transition from montane to thick bamboo forest and eventually giving way to the heather zone that has trees coated with moss and ferns. Continuing from the John Matte hut, we traversed the Lower Bigo Bog that leads to the now abandoned Bigo hut and\u00a0then onto the Upper Bigo Bog,\u00a0ending at Lake Bujuku. We did the shorter part of this crossing by hopping from tussock to tussock; any misstep being sure to get you tumbling in the mire of the bog. A bridge\u00a0consisting of irregularly spaced wooden slats is overlaid on the better part of this crossing and is a hazard of its own. With my bad knee, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking what absolute torture I would have had to endure if it was the tussock dance, like we called it, all through. From majestic groundsel, giant lobelia plants to the Everlasting Flower (with a flowering cycle of 50 years), we were in awe. Waterfalls. Lakes. Rivers. Mystic Flora. All in a stone-throw\u2019s\u00a0distance of each other. It was a whole new\u00a0world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My debilitating knee\u00a0\u201cdisability” came with benefits. Being relegated to the rear guard meant I had all the time to take in the views and beauty. Yesterday’s frenzied scramble to the top morphed into an\u00a0unhurried trek up the next boulder. This\u00a0badly\u00a0packaged blessing also came in the form of \u00a0a very amiable and knowledgeable guide, Josephat Baluku. Am still in touch with him. And the cherry on the cake was the opportunity to hang with Titus, one of the men on the expedition. I have known Titus for the better part of my earthly existence. As always, we talked, laughed, wondered and rested at will. Josephat was at our\u00a0beck and call. That took the sting out of the climb. And I was reminded that life is in the journey. Not even the formidable boulders or the\u00a0waist-deep bog (swamp at high altitude,\u00a0for the uninitiated) on successive days were going to steal our joy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0facilities at both camps (John Matte and Bujuku) are\u00a0much the same but John Matte is\u00a0still close to home for me. Not only did it give us our first clear glimpse of Mount Stanley but also had\u00a0splendid views of the mountain. With the excruciating pain in my knee, I still afforded a very uncomfortable shower. And one of the men shook his head when he saw me apply my\u00a0Giorgio Armani<\/i>\u00a0cologne. I intended to smell good even on the mountain; a\u00a0certain\u00a0level of propriety and decorum had to be maintained, I retorted.\u00a0There was a lightness of heart at this camp as we prayed\u00a0and\u00a0talked late into the night and\u00a0reminisced. We even talked about the trouble that brought the barbed wire many years ago. And the things we couldn\u2019t change then. And how we told the girls we loved them. Wonder-smitten and awestruck,\u00a0I later sat under the moonlit sky\u00a0into the small hours of the night\u00a0and was up at the break of day to worship the sun god. Oops, God the Son!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strip down, start running\u2014and never quit! Keep your eyes on\u00a0Jesus, who both began and finished this race we\u2019re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed\u2014he could put up with anything along… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}