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WIN ATRIP FOR 2 TO TREK THE INCA TRAIL IN SOUTH AMERICA!

"HALF TH

E FUN OF TH

E TRAVEL IS THE AESTH

ETIC OF LOSTNESS.” RAY BRADBURY |AUSTRALIA

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ANY|IRELAND

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14

WORLDWIDE 2007ISSUE #14 $6.95

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FROM INTREPID TRAVEL

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#34 get lost! ISSUE #14 get in the know! When gibbons swing by their arms from branch to branch (apparently up to 15 metres apart) it is called brachiating.

With one last prayer and the memory of aninstructional safety video completely forgotten

– save for the funky porn-style soundtrack– Mark Rasmussen slowly steps off the platform. All that is between him and the jungle floor below

is a harness, a cable and a 60-metre drop.

text: mark rasmussen

images: scott gilbertson

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get in the know! To stamp out poaching, guards at Bokeo Nature Reserve can confiscate weapons, fine offenders and take them to the police. ISSUE #14 get lost! #35

laos

THE SUSPENSION CABLE DANGLES FROM ONEgargantuan tree to another. As I zip along, I recall the last piece of advice from the

video: make sure the safety line is secure! I barely have time to check as I bear down on a tree with nothing more than a plank ofwood attached. This is my landing platform. One by one, the members of our small groupmake their way into the main treehouse. We catch our breath and marvel at our exploits. And to think this is only the first flying fox. Withthree treehouses interconnected by hundredsof metres of cable running through and over thetree-top canopy, there will be plenty to keep themind and body on edge for the next few days.

This is ecotourism the Lao way. The success todate of the Gibbon Experience in far north-westernLaos suggests that it is doing more than merelyproviding a good time for adventurous travellers.This eco-friendly project was also established toallow local villagers to take greater responsibilityfor protecting the endangered black gibbon. Withpoaching, logging and slash-and-burn farmingdestroying much of the primary forest and itsinhabitants in South-East Asia, something had to be done. Fortunately, a concept evolved that entailed treehouses constructed by localmountain villagers and an extensive network of zip lines that weave their way through thecanopy of the Bokeo Nature Reserve.

With long cable lines and huge drops, the GibbonExperience is not for the faint-hearted or people prone to vertigo.

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get in the know! Bokeo Province is Laos’ smallest province yet has around 34 different ethnicities.

When the last of our local guides zips across to join us in the treehouse, we sit down and eat thefirst of many meals to come. With just enough timeto digest our delicious rice and vegetable dishes,we’re hooked back up to the flying fox and jumpinto thin air again. With long cable lines and hugedrops, the Gibbon Experience is not for the faint-hearted or people prone to vertigo. Yet despite the speed at which we travel, we’re able to take in incredible views of the absolutely breathtakingscenery. Not all of our time is spent dangling high above the canopy. There are plenty of forestwalking tracks to explore.

The three treehouses that we visit arewell-constructed dwellings, comfortablyhousing two, four and six peoplerespectively. We stay two nights in total and it is possible to switchbetween the houses.

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We can make out thecries of an animal about to become another’s meal.With no lighting or sense of how close the action andanimals actually are, ourimagination runs wild.

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get in the know! Gibbons’ loud voices cause them to be sometimes called the songbirds of the primate family – they even sing duets. ISSUE #14 get lost! #37

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The funds raised from travellers’ stays are reinvested to protect the forest for future generations.

The next day provides an opportunity to changetreehouses and for a more ‘romantic’ setting, my girlfriend and I move into the smallest of thethree treehouses. It sleeps two comfortably andwith the whole jungle to ourselves it is time tospice things up. What better way than a spot of‘skinny-zipping’? After removing my clothes, I zipout and back on our private flying fox. The nightproves more dramatic than our first eveningamongst the trees. We can make out the cries ofan animal about to become another’s meal. Withno lighting or sense of how close the action andanimals actually are, our imaginations run wild.

In the morning, a mist rolls its way through themountains like a slow-moving river. A morning hikemarks our last few hours in the beautiful reserve.We are still not able to spot a black gibbon but we savour the experience of such a worthy andinspiring project.

Flights You can get return flights to Bangkok from major capitalcities in Australia with Jetstar from A$862 tax inclusive.Check out www.jetstar.com for more information. Thai Airways flies from Bangkok to Vientiane for aroundA$230 one way. From there, Laos Air can take you toHuay Xai, (also spelt Houayxay and Houayxai), whichwill take around 45 minutes and cost around A$100.

Visas + VaccinationsAustralians need a visa to visit Laos. Check outwww.smartraveller.gov.au for health advice.

For more information check out the Gibbon Experiencewebsite at www.gibbonx.org

To book, email [email protected] call +856 84 21 20 21.

Sleeping in the junglecanopy is a surrealexperience. Birdcalls,monkey howls, animalgrowls and the sounds oftree branches snappingmake for an interestingnight of sleep.

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The local mountain villagers not only act asguides but also cook and clean. They ensure that the treehouses have all you could need:fresh water, showers with a view unlike any other,a drop toilet with the longest drop you’ll eversquat over, comfy beds and pillows, mosquitonetting and plenty of nutritious food.

As daylight gives way to darkness and ourguides leave for the night, we bed down. Sleepingin the jungle canopy is a surreal experience.Birdcalls, monkey howls, animal growls and thesounds of tree branches snapping make for aninteresting night of sleep. It is hard to drift off,partly because of the unusual sounds but alsodue to the adrenaline that accompanies being in such a remarkable environment.

Morning arrives with Ting, our guide, taking us on a jungle trek in the hope of spying a few blackgibbons. We bash and crash our way through thejungle undergrowth and with each snap of astepped-on branch and thwack of bamboo theprospect of sighting a gibbon diminishes. Thetranquil surrounds and the morning views aremore than adequate compensation, however. A few quick zips before breakfast and we returnto the treehouse to tuck into a well-earnedmorning meal.

The Gibbon Experience has transformed the localeconomy to one based on conservation-focusedactivity. At present, the forest guards in the BokeoNature Reserve receive a salary. This is fully fundedthrough the Gibbon Experience and they work 24 hours a day in rotating shifts and monitor 25 per cent of the 123,000-hectare reserve. Thereserve is rich in biodiversity, with a huge array of birds, insects and mammals (including groups of black gibbons, bears, tigers and migratingpopulations of wild buffalo and elephants).


#38 get lost! ISSUE #14 get in the know! The native papyrus plant that once thrived along the Nile was used by the ancient Egyptians to make paper.

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get in the know! Feature films The English Patient and Raiders of the Lost Ark were set in Egypt but were actually shot in Tunisia. ISSUE #14 get lost! #39

Penny Watson gives up basic creature comforts for some time-out on a slow boat down the Nile.

text: penny watson

images: penny watson

Another option, the one my new-found friendsand I have chosen, is far more rudimentary: a 30-foot felucca. Queen Cleopatra once sailed thesewaters in the same style of craft and little haschanged. Our little sailboat has no motor and – wait for it – no toilet. We are at the beck andcall of the wind to propel our craft downstreamand at the mercy of the Nubian sailors to deliver us to shore when nature calls.

Our trip began in the Egyptian town of Aswan, a sleepy place on the riverbanks of the Nile. It’sworth wearing yourself out seeing the sights in and around Aswan because a three-night feluccacruise is ultimately a chance to chill. From Aswandownstream to Luxor there are a handful of

I’M NOT SURE WHO WAS SNORING BUT THEorchestra of nasal instruments that woke me has subsided. I am left to ponder the

sounds of my first night adrift on the Nile. Aboveme, sails ping as they brush against the mast, arhythmic percussion that competes with the slowslapping of tiny waves against a wooden rudder. A lonely dog that I imagine to be sitting resolutelybeneath a date palm ululates into the blacknessfrom the shore. The haunting sounds of the call to prayer carry across the water from a nearbyvillage. I lie there, listening.

The sights and sounds of the Nile have captured the attention of western travellers sincethe nineteenth century. In 1869, Thomas Cook, an English publisher, packed two steamboats full of Brits and took them on an Egyptian river cruiseunlike anything they’d experienced along the RiverThames: vast sand dunes rising only metres fromthe river’s edge, date palms and camels silhouettedagainst the setting sun and open-air history lessonstold in the tombs and temples that punctuated theriver banks. Westerners are still travelling to Egypt in vast numbers and a visit would be incompletewithout an adventure on its famous river, thelifeblood of the country.

There is a variety of ways and means of travelling the Nile. The key variables are time,money and inclination. One option is to board a four-level cruise boat: a ‘floating hotel’ completewith swimming pool, bar, restaurant and all themod cons. However, this mode of transport mayguarantee you estrangement from the heartbeat of this enigmatic land.

Queen Cleopatra once sailed these waters in the same style of craft and little has changed.

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#40 get lost! ISSUE #14 get in the know! The word nile comes from the Greek word neilos, meaning “river valley”.

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The roomy deck... is the place to lay back, read a book, play cards or trail fingers in the coffee-coloured water.

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attractions on shore but most of the time is spenton board as the felucca quietly edges its way north,tacking from one side of the river to the other,sometimes getting nowhere.

Spread across the wooden deck, a flat expansethat fits two men lying end to end, are brightlycoloured mattresses and scattered cushions. Bynight this is our communal bed: five Americansand five Australians side by side, swaddled insleeping bags and beanies. By day, there is noother choice. The roomy deck, shaded by atarpaulin, is the place to lay back, read a book, playcards or trail fingers in the coffee-coloured water.

For the amateur photographers among us, it’salso an opportune time to get behind the lens. Theday-to-day life of the Egyptian people is played outalong the banks like an intimate movie. A fishermanin a wooden canoe sits patiently among the reeds,net in hand, waiting for a bite. Grubby children kicka soccer ball on the muddy water’s edge. A mandrags his donkey along a precarious dirt ridge while another, in long traditional dress, jumps upand down on shore, waving his arms around to get our attention for no identifiable reason.

The African landscape is beguiling. Camels, with their doe eyes, stare at us languidly fromthe banks, chewing their cud like gum. Datepalms spread their spiky branches over flat-roofed concrete villas and every so often theelegant minaret of a mosque appears against the brilliant blue sky, reminding me of the fragilehand-blown perfume bottles for sale in Aswan’sstreet market. The gentle putt-putt-putt of apump gets louder as we approach the waterstations that help irrigate the emerald greencrops flanking the river and extending toward the desert. A few days later, high up in a hot-air


get in the know! Aswan Dam was completed in 1970 and is one of the earth’s largest structures. ISSUE #14 get lost! #41

beasts once sunned themselves on the reedybanks of the river.

Such dangers no longer lurk in the murky waters. On the afternoon of the second day we don board shorts and bikinis for a swim. Taking a dip may be a particularly Australian predilectionas only one of the Americans braves the water andhe doesn’t dare sink below the surface. Despitescaremongering about water-borne bacteria, I can report that all five that took the plunge are still alive and healthy.

As the sun sets we keep sailing to make up for time that was lost when the wind died. Thelandscape is bathed in brushstrokes of brilliantpink, red and yellow, turning the foreground treesinto a series of two-dimensional paper cut-outs.The stars start to wink at us from above. Onenight while we bathe in the stillness of this serenetime of day, our felucca, devoid of any warninglights, drifts into the path of an oncoming cruiseship. The crew are swift into action, shedding

The temple of Kom Ombo.

balloon over Luxor’s Valley of the Kings, I begin to comprehend just how much Egypt and its peoplerely upon the Nile. Its water courses the length of the country like a major artery and its banksprovide the sustenance for existence. A definedline, like a jagged scar, separates the irrigatedcrops from the parched desert, the starving earth from the drenched.

Slow bends in the river often expose the darkeneddoorways of tombs and small temples burrowedinto the riverbank. We don’t stop at these, waitinginstead for the major archeological sights betweenAswan and Luxor. The first of these is Kom Ombo, a magnificent structure that sits high on a hilltowering above the cruise ships docked on theedge of the Nile. The temple is divided into halves,mirror images of each other. One side is dedicatedto the hawk-headed god Haroeris and the other toSobek, a god in the form of a crocodile. Mummifiedcrocodiles can be found in a small dusty room tothe right of the temple, evidence that these reptilian


#56 get lost! ISSUE #14 get in the know! Rwanda is sometimes called Africa’s Switzerland.

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get in the know! Gorillas are critically endangered, their survival is threatened by poaching, destruction of their habitat and their susceptibility to human diseases. ISSUE #14 get lost! #57

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In the jungles of the land of a thousand hills, Justin Jamieson eyeballs a mountain gorilla.

text: justin jamieson

images: justin jamieson

ILOOK UP WITH A START AS THE OTHER SEVENtourists gasp. The lush green foliage parts andstanding not more than two metres away is

Ubumwe. He’s tall, dark and looks a little bit pissedoff. Given that he is almost two hundred kilogramsof muscle I’m not going to argue with him.Remembering what I had been told in the morningbriefing, I look down quickly as he looks at us – “don’t make eye contact, and if the silverbackcharges, crouch over and show submission”. Is whimpering with fear submissive enough?

But Ubumwe does not charge, instead hereaches to his left and snaps off a thick piece

of bamboo and turns his silver back on us. Staring out over one of the thousand hills forwhich Rwanda is renowned, Ubumwe chomps on his morning tea. Behind him, his family beginto appear, almost nonchalantly unaware of thegaggle of gobsmacked tourists. Everyone is silent with mouths open in disbelief and awe. If I reached out I could shake Ubumwe’s hand. If I could reach out, that is. Instead, I am stuck to the spot staring at a creature with 97 per cent of my own DNA.

Mountain gorillas are drawing increasingnumbers of intrepid travellers to Ruhengeri

in the Virunga Mountains, part of the Republic of Rwanda. An understandable sense of cautionhovers over the central African country. Onlythirteen years ago, nearly a million people werebutchered in one bloody month. A day spent atthe Kigali Memorial Centre, built to highlight theatrocities that occurred, is a worthy introduction to Rwanda and offers real insight to its peopleand their troubled history.

We had been in Rwanda for almost a weekbefore venturing up into the Virunga Mountains.Amongst the hills is the capital city of Kigali, abustling, dusty town that hasn’t succumbed to


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vicinity before trudging off into the mountainjungle. The foliage has nettles the size of my head, a sting from which can render the areastung numb for up to a week.

The first sighting is exhilarating. Francois points to an infant sitting in a tree about fifteenmetres away. Having just unloaded all of ourcarry bags and water (which cannot be takenclose to the family), the excitement amongst our group is almost boiling over. Here in front of us is one of only 700 mountain gorillas left on the planet, so close and in its natural habitat.

get in the know! The first recorded gorilla sighting (by western civilization) was in the 5th century BC by a Roman explorer.

The first sighting isexhilarating... Here in front of us is one of only 700mountain gorillas left on the planet, so close and in its natural habitat.

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the tourist dollar. Its lack of pretension is part of its charm. Tourists are given a curious glanceand generally greeted with a smile. Evenings inKigali buzz with local street stalls and vendors.Small bars welcome the thirsty and music luresthe drunks to dance. With the genocide being sorelatively recent, the desire of the Rwandans tomove on and celebrate life seems to come alive inthe music of the evenings. We spend three daysin Kigali, enjoying the atmosphere and seeinggroups return from their treks to Ruhengeri, wild-eyed with stories of chest-beating silverbacks,curious baby gorillas climbing onto tourists’shoulders and even the tale of a young Americangirl being wrestled to the ground (gorillas arevery intelligent). Each night we’d sit around one of the local bars with a cold beer, growing moreenvious with every story.

On the morning of our tour, the gorillabriefing from our guide Francoiswas strict. Given the dwindlingnumbers of these amazingcreatures, his stern

warnings were not unexpected. Anyone with flu-like symptoms cannot make the trip and we are told several times that we must keep a distance of two metres at all times as the gorillasare susceptible to human diseases. Francois is a tough old character (the other guides call him“silverback”) with sorrow in his eyes. While hispassion for the primates is obvious and he tellsus with pride of the honour in his job, Francoishas also seen the dark side of the work. Thisincluded the death of his friend Dian Fossey, the pioneer of this incredible opportunity.

We are split up into groups of eight. Each groupis allocated one hour per day with their designatedgorilla family. No more, no less and accompaniedat all times by a soldier that is armed and readyto kill any suspected poachers. Depending on which group you find yourself in and where your family has wandered to, the treks into the

mountains can take from two to six hours.With trackers out in the mountains

radioing back to headquarters, weare aware of the gorillas’ general


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IT WAS 20 MARCH 1998. FOUR MONTHS ANDfive days has passed since 19 of us had left London for one of the most incredible

adventures of our lives: an overland trip fromLondon to South Africa. Over these months, wehad come to know each other well. But things got more intense in the heart of Africa.

We’d travelled from London to Congo, a country that had not featured on our originalitinerary. Our plans had altered dramaticallywhen a group ahead of us was held up just over the border of the Central African Republic.Horrifically, two female travellers had been rapedand the rest of the group were beaten senseless.The border was closed and our path changed. Weheaded south to Gabon and on to Congo, bribing our way through borders and police checks on our new route south through Zaire.

One night, as we turned off the road into ascrubby area to camp, we noticed a roadblock 20 metres away. Assuming we were fleeing, 30-odd military-clad men cocked their guns and prepared to fire. We stopped as soon as we saw them and awaited their approach. Most weredrunk and all were armed with AK-47s, M16s and the like. One came to the back of the truck and threatened us with a hand grenade. We wereordered off the truck and were split into groups:boys to one side, girls to the other. I honestlythought my life was over. They looted our gearwhile drunken soldiers, half of them still teenagers,kept us in our lines. I held back tears of fear andanger while trying to keep a passive face. If I make it through this I’m outta here, I thought. This was not the Africa I had come to see.

The mood changed considerably when amilitary vehicle approached. The boy soldierssuddenly attempted to appear sober andauthoritative. The vehicle contained a seniorofficial who, to our delight, could speak Frenchand took our letter of safe passage from theborder officials very seriously.

Two nights in the nearby base later, a heap of diesel, medicine and t-shirts had bought ourfreedom and we were on our way again: shocked,relieved but all intact. Ten days later I farewelled my mates for London. It took me only 26 days torecover and return to Africa and two months before I rejoined the group. After all, what doesn’t kill youmakes you stronger.

TIMETOMOVEONSOMETIMES YOU JUST KNOW WHEN IT’S

Trips never work out exactly asplanned. On a trip of a lifetime in Africa, Karina White foundthat out firsthand.

text: karina white

images: magda bytnerowicz

#96 get lost! ISSUE #14 get in the know! Bottles of Kalashnikov vodka feature a picture of General Kalashnikov, who designed the AK-47 automatic rifle, also known as Kalashnikov.

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