Up Country! Down, Leg!!

1/30 8:30 PM Bwindi Tented Camp, Impenetrable Forest, Uganda

Okay, this email will be at least three parts--again, infrequent journal/computer access.

Here tis:

Part One: Pearl Jam

Winston Churchill called Uganda the Pearl of Africa. It’s easy to see why. It’s drop dead gorgeous and the people are so kind. It’s sort of otherworldly.

Okay.

Just to set your keels straight—my lovely-dovey ‘life’s a rainbow’ demeanor hasn’t been a true reflection of the real Craig. The Gemini Craig. Anyone who knows me acknowledges the optimism but also knows the dark, cynical, sarcastic ghoul that lurks within as well. Life as paradox—ideal.

Well, I hit full on the optimism tank, and it’s time I switched modes and paid some attention to my other half.

Yesterday sucked. Out loud.

It was one of those days that comes along about every three weeks or so when
you’re on an extended trip. Like the times in India when I would get so fed up, I’d have sucker punched Gandhi if he’d offered me chai. Don’t even get me
started on Ma Theresa.

I went to pay for my gorilla trek with the assumption that a credit card was accepted with a substantial service charge. Nope. Not Uganda.

Volcanoes was very helpful and pointed me to Barclay’s Bank, where I could do a cash advance on my MasterCard. I approached the teller and said,

“500 US please.”

“Would you like US or shillings?”

“Oh. Shillings are fine.”



Denied.
“Sir, do you have perhaps a daily limit on your card?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Let’s try three hundred.”

“Lets.”

Denied.

“Sorry, sir.”

I left and went to the cybercafe to check my First Card account. I paid it before I left, but thought I might be into a new billing cycle which was precluding the transaction. I didn’t owe anything and a had a $12,000 cash advance
limit.

Huh.

Went back to Barclay’s and ‘splained.

“Let me try again sir.”

I looked around at the We Welcome Visa Sign. At the We Welcome MasterCard sign. I’ve come to realize that no one welcomes American Express. The AmEx
affiliate in Kamapla is listed in Lonely Planet as “providing the usual cardmember services, including mail delivery.” I think mail delivery was all they did.

“Do you sell traveler’s checks?”

“No.”

“Do you do cash advance on American Express?”

“No.”

I wondered what they did other than receiving mail and looking bored.

Went back to Barclay’s.

Denied.

Come to find out later, they only do cash advance on Visa cards. Which the teller didn’t know. Or their sign, for that matter.
Starting to stew a little, I also start to get a little frazzled, realizing I’m in Uganda with three visas and a bus ticket I need to buy in order to get back to Arusha.

Feeling very short on money, I walk over to Volcanoes and hand over the majority of my few remaining traveler’s checks. (For comparison’s sake, I’ve spent as much in four weeks in Africa as I spent in 8 months in India, Tibet & Nepal.)

From there, I head over to the Internet café, again, to, just for fun, look up cellulitis. Seems I’ve got a textbook case. And it’s the same family as abscesses, gas gangrene, you know, good fun. And the worst, most maddening part?
The words, “Can be more severe/complicated in the immunocompromised.”
I’ve never been one to willingly compromise—why should my immune system?

I HATE THAT.

It just makes you feel so vulnerable. So it suggests dicloxacillin or cephalaxin 500 mg every 6 hours till better. I figure I’ll give it a whirl since I’m heading ‘up country’—euphemism for “get sick and die or pay 20,000 dollars to be flown to
Nairobi.”

The leg goes red, goes down, gets hot, resolves as the immune system thrusts and parries with either staph, strep, or fungi. It’s baffling.

In reading about cellulitis, it said it is also common in people who handle fish.
Having remembered scraping my foot over coral in Honolulu, and developing a sore and stiffness almost the next day (which I attributed to fins), I wondered
if the chiropractor just pushed around an existing infection. That might explain why my T-cell numbers were so low post marathon.

So I go to buy Keflex, but everything is closed. I’m wandering around dark streets looking for a pharmacy—with three cameras and all of my few remaining
dollars on me. Isn’t that recommended?

(Are you enjoying the dramatic suspense yet?)

Anyway, I find a pharmacy open, and I take two pills, wondering if I’ll be going into anaphylactic shock from some drug sensitivity or interaction with my
other meds.

(I didn’t die.)

After the treks, if I’m not completely better, I’ll see a doctor at the UK High Commission in Kampala. They’re recommended highly.

You know, sometimes it’s just not as much fun trailblazing when you don’t know whether or not the trail you take will lead you right off the edge of a cliff.