-Aldous Huxley-
We had a busy day if we wished today with a 3 hour walk
in the morning around the Mt Kluto Village and surrounds, back to the camp for
lunch and then an afternoon walk up Mt Kluto to get a panoramic view from the
top. I am NOT a trekker by any means, I
enjoy walking, if it is on the flat, but give me a mountain and I am not
happy. From a fitness point of view and
also I just cannot understand why people would want to walk for hours and hours
for ……well nothing. But that is a
non-hiker talking and I don’t want to offend all my hiking/fitness buddies and
it all comes down to each to their own.
In saying that I also hate to miss out and I am also happy to give some
things a shot. So I decided to give the
morning walk a shot, see how that goes and then make a decision on if I would
do the mountain walk in the afternoon.
With reassurances from Apu, our guide for the day, that the walk was
fairly easy, I felt confident that I could do the morning without too much
hassle.
So we waited for Apu and after Sam made a phone call, he
arrived at 8.40am and we set off for our walk.
The village was a 10 minute walk from the camp, using the dirt road for
a section and then cutting into the foliage using some tracks that popped us
out into the village. It also happen to
pop us out where there were 3 small, very small artisan shops, that were full
of paintings mainly, with the colours coming from local plants, they were all
natural colours. I am a BIG painting
fan, but I am starting to run out of room at my place at home for pictures now,
so I have decided I will only buy something now if they literally jump off the
walls at me, which none of them did here.
They also sold small hand painted cards, but there was a guy that had
set up some of the same near the camp, and I had promised I would buy some from
him after our walk, so true to my word I didn’t get any here, but I really do
like them. It is a little push for me
buying stuff at the moment, as I want to get things that are different from
Kenya, and things that I can’t buy there as some of the stuff looks similar. In saying that it hasn’t been too hard
finding things to buy, but I am slowly getting a little particular.
After the shop stop, it seems no matter where you are
they take you to certain shops, Apu took us to the oldest house in the village
that dates back to the 1920’s. It was
painted differently from all the other buildings and had some pretty cool
pictures painted on the doors and the shutters that were worth photographing. Apu seems to be the man around town and continually
stopped to talk to people while we waited around and it just started to rub me
the wrong way as it wasn’t just once but at least 7 times and there comes a
point where it is just bad manners. He
did know all the plants of the area and showed us where some of the colours
came from that the artisans use in their paintings including a red paint from
the rubbing of some leaves that stained our fingers but was super cool that one
minute it was a green leaf the next it looked like you had cut your finger and
it was blood. The white was from the
milk of a particular tree and Apu used my arm and drew a butterfly using the
milk and said that he would come back to the ‘tattoo’ later in the tour. He found some orange that came from a nut, which
he used to paint his and my lips as a lipstick and also gave me a bindi. I was wondering how long the stuff lasted on
your skin, but figured it couldn’t be too long if he also added it to his lips! Later on he crushed some charcoal and this
was applied over the now dried plant milk on my arm and the butterfly came to
life under the charcoal and was not outlined in black. It was pretty cool, but now left a patch of
charcoal on my arm around the butterfly.
I was starting to look a real treat with orange lips, an orange bindi, a
plant mark on my pants and now a black charcoal arm and a new environmental
tattoo. It’s pretty amazing that locals can use what is around
them to get things done and you wonder who first had the thought to use a
certain green plant and break it down to produce a red colour to paint
with?
After Apu stopped to talk to a few of his friends we finally left the small village and headed for butterfly territory. We were walking through a rain forest, that was 15C cooler than the village temperature, with a canopy of shade, the sounds of birds tweeting and seeing small running streams it was a little oasis and really pleasant. We walked along a small path, basically made just by the traffic that passes through it with Apu pointing out a few trees, plants and the spotting of a few butterflies. There were more flying around than the ones we could see resting on plants, but we did get a couple of opportunities, and to be honest all the butterflies I have seen worldwide all look the same, but they have a magical essence about them and to think that these beautiful creatures only live for 2 weeks is one of life’s little mysteries! We popped out of the shade of the forest and headed on a track that bordered the Togo border getting us to another small village at 11am for a small rest on the steps of the Catholic Church before setting off fir a further 20 minutes to a small waterfall. As we were leaving the village there was a small descent, it was no big deal, but not realizing it was shale/quartz that we were walking on and it was wet and of course I had to take a dive, with my feet slipping out from me, literally with me falling straight on my arse, taking great care to make sure my camera in my hand was not smashed, in the split second of it all happening, that camera was straight in the air like a reflex of saving a small child and all that was hurt was my pride and a quite remarkable my arse wasn’t that sore. Hmmm maybe it was because of the extra padding I have back there.
The so called easy walk hit a stumbling block 5 minutes
later when we had to descend further again down a mud looking staircase that
was as wide as your foot. Having just
slipped over, I was not in the mood for this ‘easy’ walk and with a few
expletives, I ended up going down backwards as I wasn’t confident enough that I
could keep my footing as some of the small steps were wet and had turned to a
slippery clay. Apu didn’t seem to care
and was already around the bend of the tall grass not even checking that we had
all made it down. He was not winning any
brownie points from me that is for sure.
This section we were in full sunlight and man was it hot and humid! The walk, again on a small path, was through
tall brush and grass with some butterflies braving the heat before we got to
the waterfall oasis which again was 15C cooler then where we had just come
from. There was a guy setting up some
paintings as we arrived and you wonder if Apu rang ahead to tell him to set up? While the boys had a quick swim you can’t
help but look at the pictures and I got sucked into a voodoo looking picture
and with a good price bartered, both Duck and I left with a painting each. Suckers.
By this point I had had enough. I was hot, tired and finally heard the news that
it was time to head back to camp. We had
to circle back, but not all the way, taking a short cut along the track that
bordered Togo, and from there it was a 35 minute walk uphill! Yes this ‘easy’ walk I think was a little
exaggerated. But I didn’t stop once, and
I wasn’t the last as Patrick and Duck were stopping to take photos of the bugs
and butterflies and we finally made it back to camp at 12.30pm. I must have had a pretty red face as Sam
asked if I was okay when I got back, which I was, but there was no way I was
climbing a mountain this afternoon, no matter how good the view was. No siree.
I was glad that I went this morning, I gave it a crack knowing it was
not my forte and I didn’t hold anyone up, but I do know my limits and I had hot
them, especially slipping over, I was done.
Lunch was care of Zoe today who made a pasta dish with a
mix of food that we had left over that we had to use, as there weren’t any more
camping days left. It was a slap of
tomatoes, tuna, onion, peppers, corn, peas and seasoning and it was
delicious. I washed it all down with a
cold coke from the bar and then it was time to shower, wash off all the mud, charcoal
and plant colours that I had obtained on the walk. The charcoal butterfly stayed on my skin
after the bucket shower (there was now no water from the taps), which I was
okay with as long as it comes off in the coming days, which I asked Apu the
next time I saw him and he said it will last around 2 days.
After lunch, people pretty much had some down time until
3pm and most of them went for an afternoon nap.
I of course worked on my blog and started to go through my photos in
preparation for an upload when I get some internet. But at the moment my priority was to make
sure my blogs were done and I had to mass upload them, again when I finally get
some internet access. I do seem to spend
a lot of time on my blog, but it is a labor of love and I love sharing my
experiences with people and knowing that people are reading my posts is a real
thrill for me and it keeps me enthused to also keep writing them, even when I
am too tired. Needless to say I am now 3
days behind in my writings, the catch up never lasts for long, but I like the
nights at camp as I have time to catch up then and still be involved in people’s
conversations as I sit on the truck under the light.
The gang left at 3.30pm for the climb to the summit. According to Apu, he said it was only a 15
minute walk up no more steep than what we had walked up this morning, but I
wasn’t going to believe it as this morning wasn’t a breeze as he had suggested
it would have been, so I waved them all off and continued with my photos. Imagine my surprise when Sam and Harj
returned an hour later and the walk really was only 15 minutes up, but my feet
had seized up a little and I just knew that I had made the right decision. The others came back around 30 minutes later
and we just bummed around until 6.30pm when we were collected by Apu to walk to
the village for some dinner and to see some local dancing. It was pitch black by this stage so armed
with our head lights and torches we set off down the road. In the morning we had taken a short cut
through a small muddy track, but tonight we walked the road and went the long
way which I think was the best move. It
was a beautiful evening and looking up into to the sky it was crystal clear and
the stars were like shining diamonds blinking down at us. I haven’t seen a clear sky like that in a
long long time and I could have just laid down on the road and watched the
night sky turn past us. It was actually
stunning.
The walk to the village took 10 minutes and as we
approached the buildings and light, we could hear what seemed to be a football
match on a TV. We could hear the locals
cheering and the crowd from the TV also going off. Well you could imagine our surprise when we
rounded the corner, there was a crowd of around 40 people, sitting and standing
around what seemed a like large projection screen (which was really a wall that
was painted white) and a football match playing. It took a second to comprehend what was
actually going on and it was an animated PlayStation game with 2 guys with the
controls playing the game. It was the last
thing you would expect from a small mountain village in the middle of nowhere. Seriously the screen would have been 2mx3m
and it was like actually watching a real game, but animated. We bought drinks from a small shop that
looked like it was owned by a foreign guy, who also owned the PlayStation and
them we moved into a small room to eat dinner.
It was a local fare of fish, rice and vegetables and it was a very big
portioned meal. I eat fish, but normally
the kind that doesn’t have any bones and this is part of the reason I haven’t
had a fish dish the whole trip, but this fish wasn’t too bad and you could get
chunks of bone free flesh and the meal was delicious. There were a few cats hanging around and
after our plates were collected a cheeky sod hit the jackpot getting a fish
head off one of the plates. I decided to
let the fact that the cat was on our used plates slide.
After dinner, within literally 5 minutes, the PlayStation
had been packed up, the chairs moved and the people dispersed to around the
area and we were shown some seats that faced the small dirt courtyard and then
the locals came, in waves until it looked like the whole village was
there. It had a great atmosphere, the
kids were running around all excited and there was a real buzz in the air and
it made me think that they mustn’t do this too often, which was nice that they
were also excited about the nights dancing to come. There were 3 foreign ladies that arrived
after us and the older lady was working as a nurse in the village and her
daughter and friend were volunteering at the school for a month. The lights were then turned on and the show
began and I have to say I really enjoyed the Togolaise dancing. It is very active, a lot of knee wobbling and
arm waving and it just made you smile.
There were 4 dancers 2 women and 2 guys and they kept us entertained for
the next 90 minutes. We saw a fire eater
and also some guys who were more like gymnasts performing some human pyramids
and all sorts of other poses between 3.
There was a kid of about 10 years old who came out and he was very
flexible, wrapping his legs around his head.
At one point he couldn’t quite get his leg there and one of the older guys
just forced it behind his head to help him out, as you do of course. The dancing reminded me of the Ethiopian
dances, in their originality and I have to rate the Togolaise dancing right up
there with the Ethiopian dancing as one of my favorites.
It was a great night and I think one of the highlights of
the trip to date. It was nice to see the
ebb and vibe of a village after dark and when we left at 9.30pm, Bob Marley
came out on some big speakers as we walked back to camp, under the blinking
diamond stars and was wrapped up in bed by 10.30pm. Everyone was tuckered out from such a massive
day, but the general consensus was that everyone had a great day and it was
nice to get out and stretch the legs after being cooped up in the truck for the
last 3 days and that is coming from me the non-walker of the group. To think this time next week I will be on a
new tour with new people is hard to comprehend at this stage, as I am sure it
is also for everyone leaving, probably back at work this time next week and the
trip a distant memory already!
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