CHAPTER 2: LION SANDS

Man, it was good to be home. I had had a decent sleep on the plane, and after throwing my dirty clothes in the washing machine and giving my little sister Charlene the rundown on how the trip went, I had a shower, put on some clean gear and jumped in front of my laptop in my favourite spot in the world... my porch!

Charlene and I had bought this house together a year before. It was an expensive buy, mainly because of location, but together we could afford it, and, seeing as we were both still single, why not... suffice it to say, the house was built in the foothills of Table Mountain, it was therefore elevated from the rest of the city and we had a magnificent view of the Cape Town city bowl, the Atlantic and Robben Island - the infamous prison facility where world icon Nelson Mandela had spent half his life in jail before being released and eventually becoming president of South Africa.

It was a great house, and the best part was the porch with the view. I sat down with a Castle Lager (the dominant beer in South Africa, and a must have after climbing them peaks...) and started to type away my report on the trip, while simultaneously accessing the wireless internet link and starting to cyberstalk Jamie...

After some frustration and a few useless phone calls, I had to resign myself to the fact that she had disappeared. The Tour Operator would not divulge her personal information, internet search engines came up a blank and I did know something about Americans and their respect for a person´s privacy. Damn! At that moment I wished I had a mate in the FBI...

With some difficulty but with far less enthusiasm I rededicated myself to my article on Kili, while my sis started to paint some new abstract creation on the floor next to me. This was a frequent ritual with us.. me writing and her painting. If we both had felt it to have been a good effort on the day, we would jump in her vintage MG convertible and zip down a trendy sushi bar on the waterfront to end off a glorious Cape Town day with Chardonnay and the culmination of Japanese cuisine.

Yep, I reflected, maybe the love of my life (I had said this before) had just slipped through my fingers, but at least I had my sis for company. She was spunky alright... at two years younger, we were quite close and had become more so as the years had gone by. She was an attractive brunette and, at 29, at some point either her or I would get hitched, and we would have to figure out how to deal with who stayed in that fantastic house. But that was an issue for another time. Right then, it worked well... she was playing at being a finance power broker at a big insurance company while she moonlighted as a painter, while my freelance writing helped me pay my share of the bills.

As if reading my thougths, she looked up right then from some textures crystal ball she was painting. "Boeta, what are you doing about Lion Sands? The only reason I ask is that you mentioned that the prize expires end of May, and that is a couple of weeks..."

I was glad to be able to smile about this one. "Did I not tell you? Everything is booked... we go next weekend!" She whelped in joy, and rushed over to give me a big kiss and hug. The joys of brotherhood...

Lion Sands, of course, happened to be an amazingly exclusive game lodge in the Sabi Sabi Game reserve next to the Kruger National Park, and normally way out of my price range. One was sure to see all kinds of wildlife on their safari drive, including lions, elephants, rhinos, hippos, etc... and I was lucky enough to have been awarded a weekend there by Travel the Globe as a reward for good work on a Mauritius project. A combination of bad planning and kinda holding out to see if I could scare up a girlfriend to take there had culminated in them having only one date available... luckily it didn´t clash with my Kili trip, but now it was imminent. And my sister was pleased as punch to be my fallback companion!

Aforementioned ritual of a sushi-finding expedition commenced thereafter. It was a glorious sunset in Sea Point, one of the trendy areas on the beachfront, and we proceeded to get mildly drunk and toasted our upcoming adventure. In Cape Town the seaside restaurants are hardly ever empty on a good night out, and the vibe was great, enhancing our mood. As we stumbled out, I had the strange notion that I had seen the fellow sipping his Coke at the bar before... and quite recently! The good white wine messed with my memory, however, and I dismissed further thoughts of bland looking men with black polo shirts, and fell asleep that night thinking rather more of olive-skinned American women with Almond brown eyes...

-

The week passed by in a flash. One of the drawbacks of being semi-freelance is that you have no steady paycheck, so I had to have regular published articles to keep afloat. I was clocking in with several editor mates to see what was cooking, and keeping tabs on what Travel the Globe might have lined up for my next assignment. Great was my surprise when my sometime boss Pete handed me a brief on Bermuda! He grinned and winked at me.

"Looks like you are starting to hit the big time Gideon my boy! Head office has requested that you take a cruise on the Empress of the Seas cruise line to Bermuda sailing out of Philadelphia, the United States. It´s one of those bigass luxury cruise liners, all inclusive. Don´t know what you did to deserve this gig, they have plenty of top talent to take care of this over there, but they must want some fresh talent for their North American travel guides."

The US! Bonus! I told Pete to tell them I accept immediately, thoughts of Jamie once again flooded my mind. Yeah, maybe there was 300 million people in the States, but you never knew... and a great topper was that if I could start writing for outside of Africa, I was set!

It was turning out to an eventful month, what with Kili, Lion Sands and now a cruise to Bermuda! Lady luck was surely smiling on me...

-

That Friday, Charlene and I boarded the small charter plane that would take us to Nelspruit, the largest town close to the game reserve. From there we hired a car to Lion Sands. It was typical highveld terrain, the kind you often see in lavish American movies depicting Africa, complete with locals passing by with colourful dress and flat grassy vistas... We were quickly ushered through the main gate upon arrival at Sabi Sabi, and another 20km onwards we found our game lodge. And what a treat! It was sumptuous luxury at its best... they welcomed us with open arms, several friendly staff members alternately parking our car, taking our luggage, pushing a glass of champagne in our hand and leading us to our beautiful room. We were loving it!

We were a bit late for the afternoon game drive, but they quickly arranged an additional vehicle that would take us to a rendezvous point. The other guests were out there in the bush somewhere having sundowner cocktails. Exciting stuff, and it was less than half an hour when we rounded a bend through the thick bush to a lovely clearing. The other vehicle was there, with about six other guests enjoying crackers, wine and champagne. First class, and we grabbed ourselves a drink and started introducing ourselves, flushed with excitement.

The other guests were an interesting collection... There was an elderly couple from Germany that were pretty friendly, Gerhard and Ingrid... their English was pretty good, and it turned out they were on their second honeymoon on a six month oddyssey through Africa. The second couple was a black executive and his wife from Johannesburg, Jacob and Ndphile. They were having a blast, and Jacob took hit upon himself to keep filling our champagne glasses. His wife was slightly more reserved, but she dutifully shared in the laughter at his jokes, which one had the feeling she had heard many times. A camaraderie between them, the Germans and us was struck up right away. There was a third other couple present... but after a cursory introduction and hallo they kept to themselves, not joining our little circle of fun. William was an American... I judged him to be in his mid-thirties, although he was a big man, and his obesity made it difficult to judge. His face betrayed neither pleasure nor boredom at the amazing surroundings, he seemed much more intent on the quiet conversation he was having with his companion.

She, on the other hand, was quite something. She introduced herself as Natalya, and her accent sounded like the Russian ones you hear in the movies. She wore khaki shorts and a safari shirt that was maybe two sizes two small, which I didn`t mind (she had perfect curves, and my sister prodded me in the ribs when se realized I was staring). She had great skin as well, and luscious red hair. She had a beautiful angular face, except for the fact that her forehead seemed disproportionately large, slightly marring her otherwise flawless features. She was carrying a huge camera bag, presumably for them both. Their conversation was quiet and intense, and she seemed to be doing most of the talking. I caught her once or twice looking at me with a quizzical expression, as if she knew me.

Regardless, we were off pretty soon and, slightly tipsy from the hastily gulped multiple glasses of champagne courtesy of Jacob, we proceeded to see some magnificent wildlife at night... including some lions!

We got back to the lodge with about an hour to freshen up before dinner. We made our way to our lodge and had a brilliant outside shower, then in due course camped off to the bar to continue the revelry before sitting down to dinner. Charlene is always good fun in these situations, she brings a sense of adventure to things that is quite infectious. We were the first to arrive at the bar, and settled ourselves in with a couple of beers and some of the house nuts... even they were good!

The first other guests to arrive at the bar were William and Natalya. They seemed to have concluded their earlier urgent conversation, and we chatted aimlessly. She was again resplendent in a tight black nightgown, and I was deligthed to know that she was not William`s wife-girlfriend but in fact his personal assistant. Once this information became apparrent, and with full cognizance of the fact that being his assistant could mean a number of things but forging ahead anyway, I had my sister engage in a deep history of the African bush with William while I zoomed in on Natalya.

I was to be disappointed. She hardly seemed interested in talking to me, and all I could learn from her was that she was originally from the Ukraine (I knew this to be one of those former Iron Curtain countries, but beyond that I was lost) and that William was a very important man in the States, and she was very lucky to be his assistant and she took her job very seriously. I could feel that I was losing her, and started to blabber somewhat about my life and job. I was just about to give up and go join the just-arrived Germans when something I said REALLY caught her attention.

"You are a writer for Travel the Globe? And you just climbed Kilimanjaro?" she asked, and suddenly her eyes were totally focused on mine... but not in a good way, I kinda felt like a rat being studied by a cat...

"Er, yes... it`s not the only publication I write for, but it is thanks to them that I am here, you see I won this prize..." but I had already lost her. Without excusing herself, she interrupted William and Charlene (to Charlene`s great relief, I could tell that things had gone little better there) and they stepped outside, heads huddled together as Natalya was explaining something rapidly to William.

Wondering what that was all about, I asked Charlene what they had talked about. She was of the opinion that I owed her a drink for putting up with THAT man while I was chasing his companion, he could only talk about how important he was, how much money he had and how many millions he might be losing at that very moment because he had no cellphone reception and his company could apparrently not survive without him. As the bell rang for dinner, I asked her which company he worked for.
"Not work for boeta (this is the Afrikaans slang for brother), runs! He`s the boss at some media company in the States... he gave me his card, I forget the name. Here it is... Nuevecielo Inc. That name rings a bell..."
I couldn`t help but giggle as we sat down for dinner on the veranda, joined by Jacob, by now in full swing and ready to make some jokes. "That name rings a bell because you probably saw it at the bottom of some of my correspondence! Holy shit! Nuevecielo is the company that owns Travel the Globe! That guy is my boss!"

Or rather, as I thought about it for a bit... he would be my boss`s boss`s boss`s boss, or some such ridiculous thing. Anyway, if there was a tree and I was at the bottom, he was at the top. That must have been why Natalya`s interest was aroused, but why she didn`t just come out and say so... I was glad they were at another table, I wanted to enjoy myself not subconsciously impress the fat guy that now turns out gave me this trip. So I threw myself into some great steak, superb red wine and Jacob`s tales of conquering the corporate world in South Africa. We had a great time, and by the time we had finished desert we were the last table left on the patio. We called it a night, the next game drive would be at five in the morning...

CHAPTER 1: KILIMANJARO

Three things occurred to me simultaneously when I was jarred awake by the urgent call of my bladder. One: Despite having on three pairs of wooly socks, two pairs of pants, four layers of shirts, fleeces etc, my gloves and a beanie... inside my sleeping bag!... I was still fucking cold.
Two: My toothache was back, worse than ever. Time for more painkillers!
Three: This was the third damn time tonight that I had to pee!

And gettting out of my tent to take a pee was not now, nor ever, a pleasant prospect. Still, the altitude pills did keep the nauseau slighly at bay, and constant bladder emergencies were the price we paid. As I stumbled out of my tent, I noticed that tentmate Rob was also not in his bag, and I spotted him in the moonlight not five feet away just unzipping himself to do his business. He was facing the peak...

I went up to stand next to him (at a proper manly yet comradely distance of course) and started to relieve myself. My eyes sought out the beast, and there she was... resplendent, white peak eerily shining in the light of the full moon, majestic, taunting us... Mount Kilimanjaro.

You would think after five days of climbing, slowly circling the bastard from campsite to campsite while we accustom ourselves to the altitude, and now having come up from 2000m to 4600m and with just over 1300m to go, we would have more confidence about the whole ascent thing. Thing is, we had only got to this campsite at noon this afternoon, and at midnight (which, looking at my watch, is in three hours) we start said ascent. In the interim, one of my fillings has popped, just about everyone seem to have a splitting headache and the temperature is rapidly diving to below zero...

Rob nudges me. "Check it out". I look to my right, and... not for the first time... we see a mountain guide coming down with some wayward tourist. This one looks like a 20-something female, good looking girl except for the fact that she is stumbling down every second step, and her eyes are completely vacant. In any other situation we would have assumed she was just drunk or stoned, but we knew - from scary stories we had all heard and which was regaled around dinner each night - that she had the high altitude version of the bends, and they had to get her down as soon as possible. The fact that it had been 21 hours since she had started from this spot to get up there and was only now coming back... in the middle of the night... with help!... weighed on us as we got back in our tents to try and get the last few hours sleep.

Trying to reclaim the little warmth that I had in my toes before venturing out there, and fully knowing that I might not sleep again until we set out to tame the monster, I do what I always do in these situations (being a Virgo, I am a serial list maker) and mentally listed the reasons why the hell I had joined this crazy expedition to conquer Kili, the highest peak in Africa and the crown jewel of the Tanzanian plains:

1. My mate Greg was celebrating his 40th birthday this way, and I, along with 8 of his other mates, had joined the party. Could the bastard not just have organized a house party like everyone else...
2. I got my employer... TTG Publishing, to pay for the trip. That is, providing I supply them with updated info on the location, a full match report on what the route was like etc etc.
3. I had always thought it was a good idea to try it (this one seemed stupid at right then).

You see, I, the venerable Gideon Hugo, considered myself to be one of Travel the Globe Guidebooks´s best travel writers. I had traveled Africa far and wide for them since I landed the very sweet gig of writing for them full time four years prior, and even landed some jobs to Mauritius, Madagascar etc. The paid reasonably well for doing the two things which I loved most in the world: Travel and writing!

I drifted in and out of sleep for another couple of hours, then Rob woke me up so we could make final preparations. Like an elite fighting force (only that we consisted of a bunch of slightly out-of-shape grouchy working class types) we assembled our hi-tech gear: Water bladders that won´t freeze up, headlamps to get up the mountain, chocolate bars for energy, cameras (tucked away in layer 2, so as not to freeze on the way up). Then, our guide Ben, properly satisfied that his ragtag group of soldiers were up to the challenge, started us up the scree slope. Greg had a thermometer on his watch, and blandly announced that it was now officially minus 3 degrees Celcius... and then we were off!

The full moon cast a magnificent light on the lunar landscape that was the volcanic scree at this altitude. We couldn´t care much, after some inititial banter we all lapsed into silence and just put one foot in front of the other. I had to keep blowing into my waterbladder to make sure it didn´t freeze up, and the chocolate was all but useless to me when we did stop for a break. I did manage to chew a small piece though...

About halfway up, I was really feeling a struggle. I fell back in the bunch, and decided to sit down for a second, my breath really ragged. Man, they said it was hard, but no-one prepared you for the tremendous fatigue, the headache, the fucking toothache! I was dimly aware that I might be holding up the group... then a hand tugged at my shoulder.

I looked up into two deeply brown eyes, that twinkled (twinkled!) at me. Jamie was all smiles, even though her cheeks had also gone past rosy refreshing coldness to semi-blue slightly frozen. "Come on Gideon... walk with me, we´ll do it together!"

My male ego took control, and I got up with great bravado. "Sure, no prob, let´s go!" and stalked off as if I had just sat down for a tea break. Jamie conceded the point to the male insecurity, and fell into step right behind me. She was humming a familiar tune, but I couldn´t quite remember what it was...

Jamie Gonzalez and her friend Heather had been climbing the mountain on the Machame route on the same schedule as our group, and consequently were camped quite close to us every night. Being the token single guy in our group, I took it upon myself to befriend these two thoroughly attractive American girls. They had great spunk, and in particularly Jamie and I got along like a house on fire. She was a lawyer for some big corporation back in the States, but she had taken a break to travel the world for a bit, and had some great stories to tell. She had been to Cape Town, my home city in South Africa, and I had already invited her back for a repeat visit.

Now, as we again drifted into companiable silence, it was as if we had created a rhythm between us that would get us both up the mountain. I could hear her every step and breath, and she mine. After a bit I let her in front of me, and we kept on alternating positions all the way up the slope. Every half-hour or so Greg´s voice would ring out: "4900!", "5100", "5300"... this reminder of our altitude was encouraging and discouraging simultaneously, but we were making progress.

And suddenly, we were there. The rim! At 5500m, we were suddenly at what was perceived to be the summit, and high fives and big smiles ensued between our group, Jamie and Heather, and anyone else who was present. Our guide reminded us that this was considered by most people to be success, but the highest point was actually Mount Uhuru at 5800m if we wanted to trek round half the rim to get there. Hell yeah we did!

A further hour later we did a fair amount of picture taking, hugging and appreciating the magnificent views of the sunrise, Africa laid out beneath us and the glacier peaks on top of Kili. Jamie and I shared a special moment as we turned back from Uhuru to watch the sun gently crest over the cloud cover that lay like a blanket over the Tanzanian highlands... but special moments do not last long when coupled with splitting headaches.

We proceeded to troop down with due haste, it was seven in the morning and we had done it! We had conquered Kili! The trip down to Barafu Hut that had taken us over six hours was now a one-and-a-half-hour joyride as I skied down on the loose scree stones, thanking the stars for having packed near indestructible Caterpillar shoes. I could hear yelps and shouts from the other guys, and Jamie was somewhere right behind me, giggling uncontrollably.

At Barafu, we rested for about 3 hours... nobody was in the mood to speak, we were all physically and mentally exhausted. It was important that we decrease altitude as soon as possible, so that same day we continued down to another campsite at 3000m. When we left just after lunch, Jamie and Heather had already gone. I hoped to meet them at the next campsite...

The gods of luck obliged. As we arrived down at the last campsite before we would finish the trek the next day, the two girls were also there. This campsite had beer (!) and we had one together. Everyone´s good humour was starting to restore, and we all started to swop war stories. At some point in the evening, Jamie pulled me away from the revelry, and put something cold and small in my hand. Before I could have a proper look at what it was, she took my face in her hands and stared intently into my eyes.

"Gideon, this climb has been an amazing and spiritual experience... I had come here with one objective in mind, but I got so much more than I had bargained for." She paused, her eyes searching mine... and finding what they were looking for. She suddenly, forcefully, kissed me. I was taken aback at first, but soon got into the swing of things (I had done this before). We lingered in that embrace for a while, then she pulled back as suddenly as she had started.

"I want you to take this stone as a gift... I have carried it around with me for luck for years, but I now need you to take it. It will keep you healthy, it will give you courage and guide you on your way forward. Please keep it close to you, till we meet again..."

And without another word, she turned around and went back to her tent. I started to follow, but there was a finality... a goodbye... in her words. I would respect that - for the moment - but the next morning I would make sure to get her e-mail address and number. As I walked back to my slowly dissipating group of mates, I looked down at what I was holding, a round object about the size of a bottle cap.... it was a beautiful purple amethyst stone.

The next morning, she was gone. When we reached the bottom of the mountain a few hours later (and I virtually ran down to try and catch them) there was no trace of her or her friend Heather.

We had a wild party that night before flying out back home the next day, and even though I loved the finaly bit of companionship with this great group of guys that Greg had assembled around him, the Amethyst that was now tucked away in my camera bag strenghtened my resolve to find this girl... whatever it would take!