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Outside Magazine March 2003
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DESTINATIONS SPECIAL: The Scouting Expedition
A Trip is Born (Cont.)

Wilson gathers firewood (Joshua Paul)
Day 5, mile 132
CLINTON LOST HIS SPRAY SKIRT in the river as we portaged our boats around the day's final rapids. He asked me to look for it. I walked down the riverbank. Hippo tracks were pressed deep into the mud, like a pile driver's imprint. I stopped. I was alone. I heard something. My eyes, never keen, seemed unable to distinguish shapes in the vine-hung forest. My left ear felt blocked. Only my nose was clear. It detected a musky odor, as if big animals were about. I now understood Cherri's comment about how Africa "makes you be aware." I'd never felt so much a member of the animal world. I'd never been so cognizant of the power, and dullness, of my own senses.


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