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Outside Magazine March 2003

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DESTINATIONS SPECIAL: The Scouting Expedition
A Trip is Born (Cont.)

Day 15, mile 391
AS THE SUN ROSE, I was kneeling on a sandbar, stirring a packet of rehydration drink into my water bottle with my river knife. I looked up to see three men approaching our camp, one with a pistol drawn, another with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, and a third, apparently the leader, with a very unhappy look on his face.

"Bom dia," I said in my bit of Portuguese, rising shakily.

The others hurriedly kept packing our boats. With as friendly a smile as I could muster, and hoping I could distract the men, I asked in Portuguese if those were their drums in the night. Yes, they said, the drums greeted their chief from Negomano, the village at the confluence. Now we must go with them to meet the chief.

I gestured and fumbled. The three men deliberated tersely. Yes, they finally allowed, we could paddle to the confluence, but then we'd return—and soon—to see their chief. Cherri handed them each an energy bar, plus one for the chief. They turned the shiny packages over in their hands, unsure of the contents. We jumped into the kayaks before they reconsidered.

"Pete-ah," Rod said once we'd pushed into the mainstream, "you know why they call the AK-47 the 'African credit card'? It works everywhere, and you don't even have to sign."

We paddled downriver. First I was chilled, then hot, then so weak I could barely pull myself out to drag our boat over sand shallows. My body was beginning to fall apart— all our bodies were.

"Pete-ah!" called out Clinton. "Don't die on us now!"

I asked to stop and rest. They didn't object. Just before we left the sandbar, Rod got out the sat phone. Jamie had sent an e-mail saying that Paul Connolly was at the main Luwire Hunting Camp, leaving today. He couldn't possibly catch us now, unless the chief detained us.

I lay down on the warm sandbar, closed my eyes, and let a cool breeze play over me. I drifted into a tropical African subconsciousness.

Drums in the night, huffing lions, men with AK-47s in camp, hippos, crocs, rapids, waterfalls: another day on the Lugenda River. There would be many other adventures, too, when Josh and I flew in Jamie's plane to Niassa headquarters camp and spent a week in the bush, going on a buffalo hunt by full moon, watching a leopard feed on a baboon carcass, sleeping in villages, celebrating Mozambique's independence day with a wild, hip-thrusting dance with the women of Mbamba village. Riding in Jamie's open-sided Land Rover our last day in the bush, I finally thought we were safe, especially with the high-powered rifle mounted on the dashboard. But that's when a 12-foot black mamba—the most feared snake in Africa—rose from the track and struck the Rover's side, leaving twin scratches in the paint and narrowly missing my left leg.

They let me sleep, briefly. When I woke, feeling a little stronger, a fisherman had poled his dugout to the sandbar and greeted us warmly. We gave him an energy bar, too. I asked him how far to the Ruvuma River.

"Uma hora," he said.

We paddled on. The river broadened further. Flat banks of white sand covered with tall grasses stretched into the distance. Then we spotted it: the tiny square of Cherri's Land Rover parked on a distant bank and dwarfed by the immensity of white sand and blue sky.

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