Aberdare National Park

 We leave Nairobi. Martin has come to pick us up in an eight-seater jeep.

It’s morning rush hour but we are leaving the city so the traffic flows. There are people everywhere. Pedestrians circulating on every bit of green beside and between the highways. Small motorcycles, solo riders, milk crates full of live chickens strapped four high on the back, couples with a baby bundled in a blanket between them, blasé passengers in flip-flops watching the world go by. Ten-wheeled trucks, taxis with dashboards lined with fluorescent shag carpet, hundreds of matatus (VW van-sized buses) that go back and forth from the city to the country and everywhere in between. Passengers stand on the side of the highway and hail them down, piling large bundles on the roof rack. Four rows of people sit behind the driver — officially 12 passengers but usually 16, half leaning forward or with one arm out the window to make room for one other. A very affordable way of getting around, Martin tells us a two-hour trip from Nairobi to the countryside costs 600 Kenyan shillings (about 4$). 

On the outskirts of Nairobi, shops have beds and other rough wooden furniture out on display in the red dust, tree nurseries, rows and rows of soursop, lime, orange, tree tomato, mango, banana, papaya seedlings growing in feedbags. The concrete block buildings are pink and neon green, bright yellow, pink. A riot of clashing colours that somehow works. Billboards tell us how to get closer to God. There are 4,000 named churches in Kenya. Each tribe leans a different way. Catholic and Anglican dominate but the pentecostal and evangelical churches abound. Martin tells us that, with their tax-free status, everyone is recognizing what money-makers churches can be and is getting on board. Freshly-painted fences are all sponsored by paint companies — “If you like it, Crown it”.  Eucalyptus stands everywhere. Then wispy jacaranda and squat coffee bushes as we get further from the capital.  Fruit stands built with lashed together bamboo, the roof a frayed tarpaulin, a sun-bleached feed bag or a scrap of corrugated tin roof that has long lost its colour. Each town seems to have its produce of choice — this town’s stands sell red onions, narrow mesh bags dangling from the roof. In the next town, all the vendors stand behind tidy piles of mangoes. The next village has oranges.  Cows graze on the verge. A shoebill, a four-foot tall heron with a beak that could double as a man’s dress shoe, wanders around in a field looking like a time-traveller from prehistory. Euphorbia candelabra, cactus bushes the size of apple trees, announce the foothills of the Aberdare Range as the landscape turns into rolling hills.

We drive into the National Forest, through an electrified rhino fence manned by a man in uniform and then along a single track that weaves through old growth forest before turning into a compound of cedar cabins tucked in among the trees.

Martin and Nickson take us for a walk in the woods. Martin walks ahead, very quietly, the sole and straps of his sandals fashioned from bald car tires. He carries a long stick of well-polished olive wood, the end a big knot smoothed to a perfect ball. He explains that it is the stick carried by members of his tribe, the Kalenjin, pastoralists who keep sheep, goats and cows. He has a wife, a four-year old and an eight-month old who he sees once a month when he returns to his village on his days off.

We come across a troop of Colobus monkeys swinging in the trees overhead. It’s hard to get a good look at them as they launch themselves from treetop to treetop trying to get away. Long-haired black monkeys with a white fringe and a long fluffy tail, their fur flounces as they move, a poof of white framing their faces. The name colobus comes from the greek work for maimed. Their thumbs look like they have been docked. Martin tells us their numbers are dwindling because the singular colouring of their pelts makes them very popular as neck decoration for traditional dancers. 

Further along, a group of baboons grunt as they catch sight of us. They run a distance away, then perch on downed trees with their backs turned. They glance over their shoulders, watchful, bodies ready to flee but not wanting to expend energy unnecessarily. They know how close is too close. Giant cedars tower over us, their ropey trunks twisting skyward. It would take several people with arms outstretched to encircle their massive trunks. The woods, draped in Old Man’s Beard, a wispy pale-green moss, have a somewhat sinister feel.

We find a crimson feather with black tips belonging to a Hartlaub’s turaco, a big blue and green bird whose feathers flash red in flight. Elephant poop, like little keg-shaped clumps of fermenting straw is scattered everywhere. Thankfully none are very fresh. When we have walked in the Kenyan bush before, our guide always had a big shotgun slung over his shoulder. Martin only carries his herding stick.

Tree hyrax make a racket all night. An ancient forest draped in gauzy moss in the deep dark of the night. Invisible creatures screeching bloodcurdling screams above us. It feels a bit like a scene out of Jurassic Park. The kind of noise that makes stepping out onto the balcony feel like an act of bravery, despite the fact that hyraxes are basically big guinea pigs. 

The bull elephant comes for a visit to the clearing. His hide made by an unskilled upholsterer. Too much material for the job with wrinkles across the forehead and back, sags below the belly and excess gathered into untidy rumples above the tail and knees. The ridge of the spine looks like the rib of rocks that cut across the meadow on our walk. Despite his size, his legs hang in such a dainty way. He puts his feet down so slowly it’s like he’s tiptoeing. It looks like his knees are halfway up his thighs and his ankles are in the middle of his shins. He must be lonely, this herd animal shunned by his family. Despite the fact that young males are nursed longer than their female siblings, once they hit their teenage years they are sent out on their own because their newfound testosterone makes them unpredictable and they’re seen as a threat to the new cubs. He hangs out with the cattle, pushing them around but maybe secretly enjoying their company. This bull will probably spend another fifteen years maturing before he can start competing for the right to mate; only to go back to being alone once the job is done. He spends a lot of time backing up, as if not quite sure where his feet are.  His trunk gropes around on the ground, grabs a bunch of soil and salt and tosses it into his mouth.

We get an early start the next day for a hike up Satima Mountain, the third highest peak in Kenya. We bounce up the rutted road in a jeep, with Martin at the wheel, into a clearing at the beginning of the trail. Mercy, Nickson and Joseph are our guides. Long-legged Mercy sets the pace at the front, minuscule backpack strapped to her back. Slow and steady. Joseph and Nickson pull up the rear. I listen to them chat away in Swahili interspersed with technical words in English. Joseph acknowledges Nickson with a long string of Ehs (like the sound of E in bend.) The tone rises or falls, quiet or with surprise but it seems to be the perfect, universal response. Some of the Swahili words sound like the little Portuguese I learned in Lisbon. Nickson tells me Swahili borrows a lot from Arabic and also to some extent Portuguese, English and German, adapted to do business on the East African Coast. He tells me that Kenyans of his generation never really learned how to pronounce English words properly, that there were no phonetics at school, which is why his “book” sounds like “bok”. His son’s generation, he tells me proudly, is getting a completely different education. 

The trail is a worn track a foot wide through alpine pasture — a mix of low-lying vegetation, little hummocks of elephant grass, clumps of everlasting flowers (a chrysanthemum that looks like the most diaphanous of tissue paper), what looks like tiny alchemilla, sedums with bright yellow flowers, giant thistle, pale purple scabiosa, giant lobelia that look like small palm trees with an erection. So many of the plants in my flower beds had their start here. We’re ascending, very gradually, but it’s seriously hard work. At 4000m, the amount of oxygen in the air is 40% lower than at sea level and most of us are regularly gasping for breath, bent over, hands on our knees, far more than seems reasonable for the pitch of the slope.  It isn’t especially hot but the sun bears down. Scattered across the hillside are enormous, craggy rock formations, some worn smooth, others so jagged they bear the name Dragon’s Teeth. The trail is peppered with scat — matted fur balls left behind by leopards or jackals or serval cats.

Hunter’s Cisticolas, little chubby, brown birds sing to us along the trail. Their song rises and falls, repetitive and insistent like a car alarm. They know that where humans pass, crumbs are left behind so they follow. Swallows dip and dash around the big rocks. Buzzard-eagles soar overhead. When we get to the peak, long-legged Moorland Chats perch a few feet away, swinging their heads side to side as they eye our sandwiches. Mt. Kenya is off in the distance, blanketed in a big poof of white clouds. It is so perfectly quiet. The trails are dusty. The rainy season is coming. Soon, all the dry grass will be a lush sea of green. The air thick with bugs and birds and life.

Driving back to camp we catch a glimpse of a lone Colobus monkey on the side of the road. We’ve obviously spotted him as he is about to cross. He lands on his two back feet, one of his hands holding the tree from which he just leapt, his long fur sways. A coiled spring, ready to leap back into the trees. He peers at us with his big eyes. We back up to get a better look but he is long gone.

After dinner, Eva, the lodge manager, grabs a flashlight and runs away from the house into the dark. Her flashlight swings back and forth as she dashes back. Elephants are in the clearing. Lots of them. Go to the viewing platform, she says, I’ll turn the light on for a bit. We walk down toward the trail and climb the steps to a huge deck wrapped around five big cedars about twenty feet off the ground. From here we look down onto where Eva scatters salt for the local wildlife. It’s hard to explain the depth of the dark here. With no moon, you cannot see your hand in front of your face. At first we can only hear low rumbling and shuffling but, as our eyes adjust, the massive shapes emerge from the gloom. Eva hits the light and there they are. More than a dozen elephants right beneath us. It looks like several distinct family groups, as they seem to keep a certain respectful distance from each other. Mothers and their babies. The very little ones are irresistible, weaving in between their mom’s legs, tugging on their siblings’ tails and trunks. They’ve kicked up a lot of dust as they sift through the dirt for the salt so, despite the light, the image is eerily soft-focus, massive grey shapes wandering in and out of view. As my eyes adjust to the dark I see more and more approach. I count 22 in all. Grunts and huffs and what sounds like someone blowing bubbles in the bottom of a glass (whether this is coming from a trunk or a backside I’m not sure). The pecking order becomes obvious. The matriarch, whose tusks are longer than me, moves very little but everyone seems to give her a wide berth. A young male wanders around the periphery, occasionally trying to make a little foray into the group but is quickly chased away by a mother.  Some of the ground has been washed out, leaving deep ruts between mounds of red soil. The elephants step into the ruts and use the lumps as scratching posts, rubbing their bums back and forth or straddling the mounds and giving themselves a good belly scratch. There is some jostling for the best spot. The matriarch trumpets, scolding the kids and telling them to settle down. 

We fall asleep to the sound of the tree hyraxes shrieking.

Cascais and beyond

A quick drive along the coast to Cascais and the beautiful Casa das Historias, a museum devoted to the amazing artist Paula Rego. Throughout her life, she suffered through bouts of anxiety and depression and her work can verge on the disturbing. Etchings of fairy tales from a childhood spent in England bring out the very darkest parts of the stories. Her portraits are full of strong, physical women staring at the viewer. A quote from an early teacher of hers instructing her to “paint what’s in your head” seems to have freed her to explore the depths. 

We drove on to Cabo da Roca, Europe’s westernmost point and took a quick hike through a blanket of succulent plants, sour figs, their yellow and pale pink blooms little pops of colour in the spiky mass. The edge of the path is littered with white rose petals —their perfume still wafting in the sea air. The scrabbly path led down to a small beach framed by massive towering rocks. The waves crashed, fellow walkers tanned in the 20° sun, a pair of young women posed endlessly for each other with the sea as backdrop. What a feeling to stand here, feet pointing at the Atlantic knowing that the next land west of here is home.

We headed inland toward the Parque Natural da Estrela for a little countryside. Cherry trees coming into bloom, sheep and goats in the fields, lots of stone buildings left to ruin. I imagine the cost of maintaining and/or renovating them must be prohibitive. I had seen a little remote hotel while we were researching the trip called the Cherry Sculpture Hotel. Kitsch meets kirsch. In honour of the ginjinha (sour cherry liqueur) we enjoyed in Lisbon, it seemed like the right thing to do. Some lovely design tempered by the incredibly gaudy — freestanding room pods shaped like cherries — complete with massive stems pointing skyward. The pool is also, you guessed it, a bunch of cherries. The bed in our room —  a cherry. What must the locals think of this wacky place tucked into their remote village. We had almost no company in the dining room, cheesy music playing in the background.

Roads lined with eucalyptus, silvery olive trees, orange, lemon and grapefruit trees all heavy with fruit. The fields separated by low stone walls topped with wires waiting to train the pared-back grape vines planted below. The towns are all fanned out on hillside terraces. Tall retaining walls of sand-coloured rock separate streets as the villages climb above us. The mountainsides are crisscrossed with tracks.  So many trees are black. 333,000 acres decimated by forest fires in 2019 and again last fall. A third of the fires were started by arsons. Police claimed the culprits were doing it for financial gain — aiming to buy the burnt wood afterward or looking to pick up the land for bargain prices after the fact.

We pull into a village at the base of a mountain and park the car. After a couple of scares, thinking we are doing something very wrong, we discover that delivery truck drivers in rural Portugal don’t use doorbells, they just sit on their horns. 

We wander through someone’s backyard, misunderstanding the symbol that means “This is NOT the path” but find it soon enough. The trail is up and up and up. Way harder than anticipated. Turns out the European moderate trail is the Canadian difficult. Noted. We climbed for two and a half hours. No switchbacks. Just up, through old oak and beech forest with signs of boars everywhere, little upturned patches of dirt along the track. Empty beech nut husks and acorn caps scattered in the leaf litter. The path is built and lined with huge, mossy rocks. It feels ancient. No doubt built in a time before people got jobs, when the scrabble to survive on one’s little plot of land meant long winters filling time doing projects to make summer farming easier. The top of the mountain is like a moonscape, granite rocks, strewn hither and yon. We scramble down the other side, a steep meandering track through loose rock. The kind of trail that makes you pitch forward so much you’re sure a slip will send you tumbling into the abyss. We pull out our sandwiches at the Poço do Inferno, a pretty alcove cut into the wall of rock, a waterfall that makes everything around it cool and damp and green. 

The rest of the hike is a leisurely walk along a logging road curling around the backside of the mountain. I almost put my foot down on what I think is a snakeskin and take a closer look. It isn’t a snake but a long line of processionary caterpillars. Designed to fool predators into thinking they are one large insect as opposed to a hundred small ones, they travel like this, in safety, nose to tail, following a trail of pheromones on the hunt for a new source of food. It is said that if you make the first one go in a circle they will all follow and spiral for eternity. We make a quick stop at the grocery store (closed from 2-3. I guess lunch is later here). Olive-flavoured ruffle chips are hands-down my new favourite snack.

We opt for smaller roads to take us back to the coast. Switchbacks through rolling mountainsides. It feels like the moors of Northumberland. Desolate, rocky. The finest coating of topsoil on the tan bedrock. There is nothing here save the occasional, abandoned farmhouse. Steep drops beyond the guardrails to the right of the road. Signs indicating that it is single track for 5 km. Luckily we only cross one car’s path and it is an old Portuguese guy who blasts past us completely unfazed by how tight the squeeze is. We drive through tiny hamlets. Not unlike Quebec villages, the houses are very modest, the town budget having been blown on the church. Everything is stone. Walls, homes, churches, roads, We are blindly following Google maps, bumping our way down narrow cobbled roads through towns of twenty homes. The villagers peer through the windshield at us. Before I moved to the country, I would’ve thought they were giving us the evil eye, now I know they’re just wondering which of their neighbours got a new car.

On to Costa Nova, a deserted seaside resort. Beach clubs — front doors blocked by puddles of sand, piles of stacked chairs and striped chaises longues, little palapas stand in sand drifts. There is no one here. The long wide beach is totally empty. We stroll on the wooden boardwalk, past a little church tucked behind the dunes, past the buildings painted in colourful stripes, past the stores selling tacky tourist trinkets. Is there anything sadder than a beach resort in the winter?

Lisbon

Lisbon is a maze of hills. Every bit of sidewalk an irregular mosaic of white and black rock. This is not a city for high heels. The streets meander, leading up and down and around. They are narrow enough that every corner brings a little surprise. Highly ornate stonework, round windows, endless staircases, four story buildings with tall windows and elaborate ironwork to frame the bottom half. Hues of pink and cream and yellow beneath terracotta roofs. The polished rock of the sidewalks are uneven, faceted so they shimmer in the sunlight like fish scales. The roads are dark grey — matte square cobblestones. Grand boulevards, some streets just wide enough for a small car, some narrow enough you feel you could touch both sides of the street if you stretched your arms wide. The buildings are narrow and tall, french windows in lines that stretch from corner to corner, the top floor windows are often tucked into a gable cut into the terracotta roof. Many windows have a rack fitted below with strings of clothesline and pulleys at one end so people can reach out the windows to hang their washing. A hell of a walk if you drop a clothes peg. So many of the buildings are tiled — each with its signature pattern. Geometric patterns in every colour under the sun. No two alike. Some of the tile work is more elaborate —  hand-painted scenes in blue and white that span the whole façade. A city of 500k people invaded by over 19 million visitors a year, I am relieved to be here in the winter. There are still packs of tourists wandering around hunched over their google maps but the thought of heaps more, in >35 degree weather, is terrifying. There is little occasion to practice my terrible Portuguese as everyone speaks great English. My usual chitchats with cab drivers foiled because most of the drivers we get are immigrants whose English is miles better than their Portuguese.

So many empty buildings. It seems there’s at least one on every block. A regal grand dame of a place, or a tiny home with windows boarded up or a collapsed roof. Lisbon recently passed a bill — following a citizen petition that garnered ten thousand signatures— to outlaw airbnb as of this summer. You can see how the short-term rental market has gutted neighbourhoods. Graffiti on buildings being renovated bear messages like "speculation doesn’t make homes”.

Our days are punctuated by hours-long visits to the Quiosque, ubiquitous stalls with their classic green dome, around which are scattered a handful of tables and chairs, to be found in seemingly every park in the city. We sit together early in the morning drinking coffee and munching on pasteis de nata, or in the evening sipping Apérol spritzes and Super Bock beer on tap. The waiters move chairs around to follow the path of the sun. It is glorious to be together. Everyone settles into group-travel mode, making few demands and lots of concessions — following whoever’s pitch for the next activity is the most winning, which means Wil and Henri are usually leading the charge. We eat like kings. A lunch at Cervejaria Ramiro was a highlight. We all came from different directions to meet up at the little lectern by the front door where an older man checked his reservation book. He shouts unintelligibly into his walkie-talkie, then hands us a tiny piece of scribbled paper to hold on to. A few minutes later we were led up some iron stairs, and weaved our way through a corridor bustling with wait staff and led to our table tucked into a window.

The room could not have held more tables, most of them groups of six, families off all varieties, generations at a table, many of them dressed in their Sunday best. A long room with a curve at the corner of the building and grand French windows that faced the street. Clattering plates, clinking silverware, waiters hustling around, a group of women in their forties having a ball, laughing and singing loudly. As they left their table, they flirted with the kitchen staff, pouring their drinks into plastic cups to take the party with them. The menu was all seafood and we tasted as much of it as we could. Giant shrimp, little shrimp, crab, barnacles, little steamers, razor clams, all simply prepared, steamed or boiled, served in their juices with melted butter, lots of garlic and bread to sop up the drippings. The waiter demonstrated how to eat the barnacles, which to me looked like clumps of tiny witches’ fingernails. Surprisingly delicious. We followed up the heaps of seafood in the traditional Portuguese way, (don’t ask me why) with a steak sandwich, fine slices of beef heaped in a round bun, slathered with mustard and hot sauce. The dessert was sundae glasses of ice cream generously drizzled with shots of vodka.

We get some tickets to go see a soccer match, Lisbon’s Benfica against Porto’s Boafica. Crowds wander around outside the massive stadium trying to get as much beer in as they can before the game. No alcohol is served once the match begins. Multigenerational families pulling their young kids along, couples out on dates, packs of giddy young men jostle each other, everyone in red. The energy is electric. We head up to our seats in the nosebleed section, over 50,000 people packed into their seats. At the end of our row, a ten-foot high wall of plexiglass topped with fencing separates us from the Boavista fans. The plexiglass to keep us apart, the fence to keep flying projectiles from making their way over. They have a separate entrance and exit. There is no mixing. Serious business. Lovely scenes all around — a father dips his head down so his daughter can place her sparkly headband on his head. A man in his sixties in the seats in front of us leans over to chat with his tiny granddaughter while her parents are off looking for better seats. The local team is introduced with much fanfare. The announcer calls out the jersey number and the first name of the player and waits for the crowd to shout the last name. Everyone stands for the national anthem but the singing only really starts when the Benfica fan song comes on (with lyrics in lights all over the stadium) to get us all in the spirit.

Anytime the opponents touch the ball there is whistling. We had a moment of discomfort when we realized that Adèle was wearing a black & white checkered jacket (coincidentally the colours of the visiting team). Thankfully the inside was black so she turned it inside out to reassure our seatmates that we weren’t the enemy. The small Boavista crowd waved massive flags and sang their songs but were quickly drowned out by the Benfiquistas. A fistfight erupts around the margins of the away team zone but the security guys quickly have it in hand. Boavista is outplayed, not helped by a red card early in the game that had them scrambling one man down for 75 minutes. Our seats hung high over the Boavista goal and we got a great show. Each of the three Benfica goals was rewarded by everyone getting on their feet, spinning their rally scarves overhead and singing. When there were changes to the lineup, the announcer called out the names to huge cheers, in contrast to the away team’s subs which were comically whispered as quickly as possible into the mic. When the game ended we emerged from the stadium into the dark washed along the boulevard in a sea of red.

On my birthday we went out to a neighbourhood far from the tourist zone. We got out of our Bolt at a little park lined with ancient trees, hoping to try out another quiosque before walking over to the restaurant we’d booked. When we stepped out of the car, the park was heaving with people, all standing around a group of musicians  playing what sounded like Brazilian music, lots of drums and instruments of every variety, the musicians all dressed in green, swaying in time to the music. A curly-haired woman wandered around among them with a mic and sang her heart out. The crowd sang along. A warm up for Carnaval, a man explained as he sold us tiny brigadeiros, small balls of chocolate and condensed milk rolled in sprinkles, like a truffle tucked into a colourful tissue paper which he pulled out of his big, rectangular Tupperware.

People swayed and danced. It culminated in a conga line with everyone moving in a big vortex around the musicians. And then, without fanfare, it was done and the crowd dissipated as we made our way to Tati.

An amazing meal. Tucked into the back of the small tavern, our table was right beside the kitchen and watching the buxom chef and her tiny sous-chef quietly hustle in the minuscule kitchen was great entertainment. Henri had some pointed questions about the wine. The waitress hemmed and hawed and then went to get the expert, who turned out to be the chef. She came out of the kitchen, wiped her hands on her apron, hair piled high on her head and chatted with Henri about wine. She came back a few minutes later with a few bottles and introduced them to us. She spoke quietly, wringing her hands a bit, but she was so patently jazzed with her offerings  that she relaxed, telling us a story about each of the wines. We ended up with three glasses each on the table, one for each colour, because it was all so good. She was obviously tickled. We all had a crush on her by the end of the meal. The food she served up was delicious and creative and spot on. The beauty of dining with seven people is you get to try everything on the menu and we did. We feasted and drank and made merry.

Saying goodbye to our team broke our hearts.