Most of the Aconcagua team made it back to SA safely yesterday. Lorna remains in Argentina to climb other mountains and spend some time in Patagonia. The trip in brief: - our route was fantastic - we even had the camps to ourselves for the first 2 nights, and the 'False Polish' route proved to be both tough, scenic, and much less densely populated than the normal route on the way up, while the normal route provided welcome human contact and a different perspective on the way down.
In February 2004, 12 intrepid explorers, nicknamed ‘moonies’ for our desire to walk the mountains of the moon, ignored the news of violence in northern Uganda, and departed for a magical journey to walk the mountains of the moon.
The spirit of exploration and enviromental conservation, a core tenent of the Society, is as alive in this century as it was in the last. To prove it we ran a competition during the year 2000 to find an expedition worthy of our support. Did we find it !
We've returned from our Rovuma River trip in Northern Moçambique on the border with Tanzania, just off Lake Malawi. This trip was an EPIC of all epics! Rafting accidents were about the only thing not on the agenda! It took us 7 solid days driving; 7 days paddling like crazy; and 7 days slogging back slowly with a smashed and renovated radiator.
Or, Through Binga To Binga
There had surely never been a trip quite like it, even in the long history of Zambezi exploration. The bare outline, for anyone who hasn't heard yet, was a follows. Three of the Explorer rafts shot the world-famous white-water Stretch,
The N2 crosses the river near Quimbu and served as a good put-in. with 209km to the mouth of the Umzimvubu, and with the fairly rough Umzimvubu trip still fresh in our minds, we felt pretty apprehensive. To put ourselves a bit at ease, we recced the sections both above and below the Falls, as these were the steepest parts according to our river profile. In the first few days, however, the river was kind to us, allowing us to first find our feet. The gorge was beautiful & lush, liberally sprinkled with shining yellow acacias. Bird-life was ample.
