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Trekking through mountainous jungle to find mountain gorillas. While I was here I learned that mountain gorillas have an exceptionally small environment in which they can actually live; only here, in this protected jungle and in Virunga National Park (which is shared by Uganda, Congo and Rwanda). (The gorillas that you see in zoos are lowland gorillas, not mountain gorillas like these). Even more surprising was that there are only 800 mountain gorillas in the world.

When we turned off the well-maintained path, down into the real jungle, navigating the environment became much more dangerous. If it wasn’t for the thick mesh of interconnected vines underfoot, and all of the other small plants holding everything together, my boots would have been sliding out from under me constantly. Vines hung from everywhere, we had to avoid plants with sharp thorns high enough/low enough to catch you in the face and torso (everything was so connected that it was difficult to tell which way the plants were coming from), there were stinging nettles all over the place. The vegetation on either side of us was so dense that you couldn’t really see through it, our guide had to go to town with his machete for us to even get through at all, there weren’t really any ideal spots for foot placement; you had to make your own on the way down either by digging in deep or making sure that your foot would be caught by a vine if you slipped (and if you did actually slip, the vine would be just as likely to injure you as save you). There was a close call when one of the gorillas mock charged us too.

This was less a diving platform and more a tree leaning over the lake, with some wooden boards nailed on to it. Even the gentle breeze from the water announced itself loudly when I was stood up at the top.

Day trip to the Kigali genocide memorial in Rwanda.

Quad biking through Ugandan villages.

A 75 metre zip line at our campsite.

Booze cruise! Based on what went on, I’m amazed that we all made it back in one piece. Things got much messier later at the bar though…

White-water rafting grade 5 rapids on the River Nile. This was an intense experience and led to some unpleasantly long stretches under the violent waves. The choices I’ve made in life have taken me down some interesting paths and I’ve had more than my fair share of adventure, but rafting the fifth rapid on this river stands out. It’s probably the closest I’ve come to losing my life. One of the good friends that I made on this trip was right next to me when our raft flipped and dislocated his shoulder while underwater, Jill and I went with him to a tiny Ugandan medical centre to help him get it sorted out.

Game drive at Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya.

Friendly kids that lived near our final campsite of the trip. They all ran out to greet us as soon as they heard our truck pulling up.

The last time I was on the continent of Africa, I met the woman that would eventually become my wife. There were some setbacks to be sure: an attempted stabbing, the fact that my jeep was almost gored by a rhino, some unpleasantness with a group of ravenous baboons… but all things considered, I’d say it went pretty well. I had incredible experiences in each of the countries that I visited, did a lot of things that I hadn’t done before and made some lifelong friends. Africa is quite possibly my favourite continent, to say that I was happy being back would be an understatement of the highest order.

This latest trip took Jill and me through four new countries: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. As you can imagine, we did quite a lot during our travels and my personal account of the trip ran to well over 40,000 words (for reference, the typical length of a mystery novel is about 60,000 words). I always write my travel logs with an audience in mind but as often seems to be the case, this one is too long to share here. Instead, I’ll walk you through our journey with a photo diary.

The first of many scenic viewpoints during our month in East Africa.

A “superb starling”.

Pictures from our hippopotamus-spotting boat ride on Kenya’s Lake Naivasha. The lake included an island-like peninsula about half an hour from our campsite on the lake shore. The peninsula was private land but from the water we could get pretty close. We saw impalas, zebras, wildebeests and a few different kinds of antelope.

Our first campfire of the trip.

The first of three equator crossings.

This was probably the nicest campsite that we stayed at during the month we were away.

The second equator crossing.

We found these baboons just wandering around one of our campsites. We kept to ourselves so they didn’t bother us… much.

Akole tea plantation. The tea was originally planted by Indians that were brought over to Uganda for the sole purpose of introducing the country to the lucrative tea market. They owned, operated and maintained Uganda’s plantations until Idi Amin went full crazy in the 1970’s and started forcibly removing various groups from the country. Indians were among these groups.

These pictures were taken while trekking through dense jungle to find chimpanzees.

A weird looking monkey that I saw back at our campsite

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This dog’s name is Simba, he belongs to one of the families that we stayed with. Jill loved playing with him and I loved watching him hunt the lizards he spotted in the desert.

These two-humped camels give off a surprising amount of heat; I felt like I was sitting on a heated car seat the entire time.

Climbing Khongor, the largest of Mongolia’s sand dunes, started off straight forward but eventually became an exercise in frustration. Towards the top, the angle of ascent was 65 – 70 degrees and at that gradient, the sand is cruel and unforgiving. I must have climbed the same five metre stretch at least ten times, it was incredibly demoralising and it didn’t help that by that point, my boots and socks were completely full of sand.

The Bayanzag, rock formations in the desert were reminiscent of America’s Grand Canyon (though on a much smaller scale) and Rich of Saxaul, a petrified forest, was close to one of the families that we stayed with.

One of our lunch spots.

A well near a monastery. The water we drank here is believed to have healing properties.

One of the camps that we stayed at.

Wild Mongolia.

Orkhon Falls.

This unbearably cute baby goat still had its umbilical cord attached, it was less than a day old when these pictures were taken.

A building from the Erdene Zuu monastery complex. This was one of the few monasteries to survive the religious purge Mongolia suffered at the hands of the Soviets.

Mongolian barbecue!

The train that we’d learn to see as home.

The pictures below were taken while hiking the Great Baikal Trail. Lake Baikal is known as the Blue Eye of Siberia and is the oldest, largest and deepest freshwater lake in the World. It contains more than 20,000 cubic km of water, more than all five of America’s great lakes combined. If the world’s drinking water ran out tomorrow, Lake Baikal could supply the entire population for the next forty years. By virtue of the fact that it contains so much water (and the purifying action of natural sponges at its depths), Baikal water is incredibly pure and completely safe to drink. Jill and I didn’t drink anything else while we were there.

The train we slept on for three nights. Jill and I were the only non-Russian speakers on board.

St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square.

It didn’t occur to me until Jill’s dad, Randy, pointed it out but this trip was even wider in scope than I first realised. I knew that between, China, Mongolia and Russia, and the associated changes in people, culture, cuisine and landscape, that we’d be experiencing at least a few eye opening moments during our travels. What I didn’t realise was that with our planned visit to family in west Canada being right before our start on the Trans-Mongolian railway, we’d be heading in one direction and wouldn’t stop until we were back home in Boston. Around the world in just under a month!

As you can imagine, we saw quite a lot and I wrote a suitably comprehensive 40,000 words about our experiences during that time. Even though I always write my travel logs with an audience in mind, this one is far too long for me to consider sharing it with you here. Instead, I’ll walk you through our journey with a photo diary.

Highlights of our two day hike on the Great Wall of China and the surrounding mountainside. At night we set up camp in an old watch tower and cooked our food over a fire. When it got dark, the only sources of light were the moon and the stars. It was very ‘Game of Thrones’; I felt like one of the watchers on the wall.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, was not at all what I was expecting. The thousand year history made its presence felt but while walking around, things felt strangely modern. The locals spoke excellent English and the women were stylishly dressed in European clothes (not traditional Mongolian attire like I’d been expecting). The city already felt unique, what with the mix of soviet-era buildings, ultra-modern curved glass skyscrapers and the backdrop of both mountains and desert but with all of these other unexpected elements thrown in too, I didn’t know what to make of it.

Baga Gazriin Chuluu, rock formations in the South Gobi desert.

Mongolia is known for its free-spirited nomadic families and like them, we spent our time moving from place to place. Each night in the country following our first was spent with a different one of the Mongolian families that we met on our way. The pictures below were taken while with our first family.

The open road… We didn’t see many of these (roads, that is), while in Mongolia. Most of the places we went were only reachable with a robust off-road vehicle.

Mongolian food was like a mix of several Asian and east Asian cuisines. By and large it tasted pretty good but the amount of fat that Mongolians like to leave on their meat is ridiculous.

We had to stop for goats (and other passing animals) several times while on the road.

Yol Valley.

Jill picked a great time of year for our trip; not only was the weather excellent in each of the countries that we visited but all of the animals in Mongolia (horses, sheep, yaks, goats…) seemed to have given birth to their young right before we arrived. We welcomed the opportunity to revel in their unbearable cuteness.

These gers belonged to the second nomad family that we stayed with.

We came across these wandering camels while on our way somewhere (Mongolians let their camels roam free during summer, the camels often travel hundreds of miles away during that time but always return home).

After having my interest piqued by a cave at the top, I convinced Jill to let me climb this rock face right before we had lunch in the valley below.

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