The call of Africa

By Diane Daniel, Globe Correspondent, 06/09/02

		Sensible traveler  Destinations  Where they went  Travel gear  Student travel

Nancy Hannula had wanted to go to Africa since she was a child. "It's just so different from anything around here - the lifestyle, the animals, the topography," she said.

When she did go, Hannula, 37, of Boston, a college financial administrator, decided to divide her almost five weeks between group and solo activities. One would be a bike trip, and she traveled with her mountain bike the entire time, which was a challenge on the nine plane rides but worth it.

Cape Town was "a good way to arrive in Africa. There was enough of a European influence in Cape Town that you don't experience too much culture shock at once."

She went to Robbens Island, where many political prisoners during the apartheid era had been jailed, and saw Nelson Mandela's solitary confinement cell.

Another day she toured a private game reserve and saw giraffes, zebras, rhinoceroses, wildebeests, and more.

On the island of Zanzibar, she joined Bicycle Africa for its two-week trip called Tanzania: Surf to Summit, which starts with a week of biking and ends with a week of hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro.

The tours, run by the International Bicycle Fund in Seattle (www.ibike.org), use local guides. Hannula's group of six was taken "definitely off the beaten path" in Tanzania, where tourists were rare. The cycling was "vigorous," with strong headwinds on the plains and some all-day hills. They stayed in local homes, which sometimes meant a mattress on the floor and no plumbing.

Next came the long hike up Africa's highest mountain, led by Zara Tours (www.zara.co

.tz). "Climbing Kilimanjaro is a long, uphill walk. You don't have to be in great shape. What gets to you is the altitude. I'd only been up to 15,000 feet before. This is 19,342." At night they stayed in huts along the trail.

Reaching the summit, called Uhuru, was "the high point of the trip. Even though I look like I'm miserable in the picture, it was the happiest moment of the trip. It was 6:35 a.m. and I'd been hiking for 5 hours at a pace of step-breath-breath, step-breath-breath."

Her final achievement: "Standing face to face with a mountain gorilla. They're so massive." This was in Uganda, at Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, a visit she arranged through her travel agent. "You need to buy a gorilla tracking permit [$250] months in advance. Only six tourists a day are allowed to go see the gorillas, for an hour total."

Accompanied by "fully armed" Ugandan soldiers for protection against rebels from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, her group followed trackers searching for the gorillas, using GPS devices and clues such as chewed bamboo, a nest, and dung.

Finally they found a group of eight gorillas. "We got to watch the little kids play, and then a mama with a baby."

One adult male, who had been getting friendly with tourists, "decided he was curious" and approached. "He starts reaching out his arm to me." Hannula froze and the gorilla eventually walked away.

The next day, flying home, it hit her. "Oh my God. I was two feet from a mountain gorilla who was reaching out to touch me."

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