beyond the rivers of ethiopia

for uncle jim, master bullshitter
[rip]


a tiny speck trudges upwards through the snows.


every labored step comes at the cost of two slow, deep breaths; the exhalations condensing into a swirl of grey smoke in the frigid alpine air. a harsh world of rock and ice. over much time, progress can be detected. the speck gains the summit ridge, and with a few final steps arrives onto the true roof.

taking a moment to survey an otherworldly view of jagged peaks rising through the clouds in all directions. then kneeling down on the frozen stones, removing a glove despite the -20 degree wind whipping fingers into a frostbitten numbness. a tiny bag is pulled out of a pocket on the climber's protective shell jacket. reaching a bare hand inside, a handful of chalky grey dust emerges.

ashes are spread softly around the summit stones; sifting through fingers in a final quiet goodbye to an old friend.


******


we launch over the misty jungles of africa, rising into the dawn's humid lucidity with the steady reliable whine of our PT-6 turning jet fuel into torque and thrust.

rising over the tranquil waters of lake victoria. peeking around a curtain of clouds is a shy sun. she quickly gathers courage, that great celestial watchfire, and we are overwhelmed by the magic of a plasmic meatball rising into the skies one more time; blasting our crotches with the radiation of solar flares.


before being laid-off next week, my buddy random and i are ferrying the swiss miss up to her birthplace, where she is scheduled for a checkup. it promises to be a great trip, and we bid goodbye to entebbe center at the kenyan border.

“jambo nairobi, november alpha sierra position nabro, flight level two four zero, estimating patar at zero four one seven, lima oscar victor next.”

“jambo november alpha sierra, cleared to ekbul flight level two four zero.”

dudley and i are both reluctant to break the morning silence in the cockpit, contemplating a painted african dawn on the plain of stratus far below. nearing another line on a map, we are handed off to the next controller.

i say good morning to the man sitting in front of his radar screen on the ground in addis abeba, 24,000 feet below and 210 nautical miles away.

weaving around some morning storms over the central highlands, i call djibouti approach control as captain dudley lets down over the burnt dustbowl wastes of the horn of africa. somalia is visible a mere 20 miles off the wing. world capital of human misery.

we touch down and park and it’s already 106 degrees at 10 in the morning on the sandstorm-blasted concrete ramp. dudley stays with the bird to supervise refueling. the sweat is rolling off my brows as i walk the few hundred yards to the tower to double check that we have a flight plan on file for our next leg up to luxor.

the man in the office is busy talking on one of the four phones on his desk. taking an opportunity to carpe the diem, i walk down the disintegrating building's hallway searching for a socially-acceptable place to return some uric acid into the ecosystem. djibouti has some sweet pit toilets, i have to say.

after straightening out the flight plan, i return to the bird where random and dave, our mechanic, are still waiting for fuel. the intensifying nuclear bombardment baking our brains, wilting our wills to live. finally, a mirage appears in the form of a tractor trailer towing 10,000 gallons of liquefied dead dinosaurs. dave adds a can of anti-icing/anti-fungal agent prist to the tanks as the oil libya employee tries to quench the swiss miss’s thirst for jet fuel. (between you and me, she has a bit of a drinking problem). the fueler withdraws the nozzle prematurely and strong gusty winds splatter drops of jet-a all over dave’s shirt.

dudley and i swap seats for the next leg. he runs to take a quick piss while i’m programming the flight management system with our route. dave pops his head into the cockpit, unlit cigarette dangling from his thin lips, his petroleum-soaked shirt hanging like crumpled newspaper on an emaciated frame. perfect kindling.

“do i have time for a quick smoke?”

i look at him in astonishment and then point across the ramp. “uhh....yeah, but over there please.”

a couple minutes later we're ready to fire up; eager to leave this miserable place far below. passing through the gulf of aden, tracking up the coast of eritrea over the red sea. trying to talk to men in small rooms with outdated radio equipment hundreds of miles away who speak minimal english. fruitless. yemen passes by on the right wing, then saudi arabia.

the idea of a country. it’s pointless to draw lines in the desert; shifting sands will only erase them anyways. from my lofty perch, djibouti is indistinguishable from eritrea; sudan from egypt. 4 hours after leaving the horn of africa, cairo center crackles through the audio on my headset:

“november alpha sierra, call luxor radar on 124.3, have a good landing.”


dudley keys his microphone and informs the new controller that we have information charlie. the frequency is quiet; the swiss miss has all the playroom she wants in the airspace. radar gives me vectors to the ils two zero as i slow to a safe and sane 250 miles per hour. banking over the jewel of the nile, that magic ribbon of water painting a fertile green swipe across the sahara's lifeless brown. life clings precariously to the nile's banks before surrendering to the inevitable endless drought in a hard frontier line.


one more left turn to join the localizer. i elect to continue the time-honored and highly-recommended practice of lowering the landing gear prior to touchdown. we taxi into a deserted ramp. i guess the arab spring has dried up tourism like the dessicated desert ouaddais of august.


we go check out the karnak temple. learn how only pharoah and his harem of priests were allowed inside the enormous stuctures built with slave labor. hear about the luxurious offerings left inside for the gods. and of course about the huge quantities of leftover meat and libations, which naturally went to the priests.

i think of our modern, enlightened world. pretty much the same today. the haves and have nots. the chosen ones and the untouchables. the capitalistic bastards, the wall street banking madmen, the washington power whores. the incredible narcissistic arrogance of elitists who honestly think their puny life is more valuable than another's.

back then, a brute, stone-age mentality; living in fear of unknown gods. now, we stamp our god in god we trust. the green-paper-age psychology.


grab some cheap street food, bartering to get a reasonable price. listen to the ghostly air-raid siren prayers issuing forth from the minarets. decline 23 different consecutive offers of horse-drawn carriage rides around town:

"my friend! welcome to alaska. you walk like egyptian. kalesh? very cheap price. and you know how much?"

head back to the hotel, another early day tomorrow.

from my 4th floor deck, looking out towards the west at a shimmering black nile. across at what the ancient egyptians called the shore for the dead. where the sun sets; the place all will go; the beginning of the next kingdom. the stars of the pharoahs twinkle overhead. chhhtttt. i open a stella lager, celebrating ramadan in my own special way.

looking out at the river, i recall putting my grandfather’s ashes into the waters 3,000 miles upstream at murchison falls a few years ago. a marvelous thought strikes me. what are the chances that grandpa is still on his journey, and that even a molecule or two of him are passing silently by me right now? drifting downwards through the good night; onwards to their inevitable reunion with the warm salty mediterranean. i smile and lift my can in salute to the quiet dark waters.

take a sip of my beer and regard the lights. the minarets and stars; the tombs and the temples.

religion. man trying to understand the inexplicable; a blind man grasping at the wind. i consider the temple ruins all around me, outdating all mosques by millenia. though islam has nothing to do with the ancient egyptians, every generation has their own way of trying to make sense of existence. of explaining to their children why the sun continues to rise each day; of explaining to themselves why all people will cross over to the west bank of the river. into the valley of the kings.

maybe religion is just like grandpa: forever flowing downstream, inevitably changing forms, but always trying to capture some kind of essential wonder and magic.


******

the next day, we launch again at sunrise; dudley at the helm. turning north towards cairo and the pyramids before a left turn to draw our trajectory across the med. i admire the nile fanning out, impressed by the quantity of croc and hippo shit fertilizing the delta.


passing over alexandria, the last sight of land slipping away for hundreds of miles. surrendering ourselves to the enormity of the sea below. i offer a small prayer up to our lady of pratt & whitney canada.

speaking of canadians, a few years ago a friend bought me a handmade necklace of the nyami nyami, the river god of the zambezi. his image, portrayed with a fish head and snaky whirlpool body, is supposed to protect you during difficult times. it’s all i have, since our company has refused our request for a life raft.

"i hope you brought your swimsuit, dudley. maybe you should do a quick mag check before we go feet wet."

there's an uncomfortable half hour period where, if the engine were to quit, we would be unable to glide to land. but the swiss miss cruises steady on without the smallest trace of a hiccup; only the smooth reassuring pull of 1200 horses carving the air just as they've done for over 1900 flight hours.

soon we are overhead crete's beaches, checking in with athena. then listening to kalamata approach control.


dudley somehow manages to find the airport in corfu. not a bad trick, i have to admit. that's twice now within two days. this kid can really fly. i hope i can duplicate the feat later myself.



we drain our bladders and replenish the missus' fuel before being ushered out by atc to make room for more important and bigger business jets. swap seats again. captain keelan will be bringing us up to the alps. he taxis out to great fanfare.


departing greece and climbing on high like zeus himself, i plug in the ipod. rock some big head todd and the monsters. fly up the boot of italy; the country that looks like a high-maintenance woman’s shoe.


a female center controller's voice instructs me to fly direct to vieste. she sounds hott. i unquestioningly comply as a wave of sweet-pickle anguish washes through my gonads. profound regrets of neglecting a certain young italian beauty that i never had time for when i lived in spain. too heartbroken over some dumb american girl to do anything about the home-made mozzarella milky mammaries that the universe had proffered as consolation.

what an idiot. still am, actually; but really balled that one up.


high over venice, the grand canal snaking through town, distributing the affluents' effluent equally on both sides of the bay. over austrian glaciers, wisps of cirro-stratus hiding secret waterfalls and fangs of alpine rock.


i feel the swiss miss welling with emotions in her captain's hands; so close to her birthplace for the first time in years. we let down into the land of chocolate.




******

dudley and i spend the next few days gorging ourselves on cheesy goodness, beers, mountains, and sunshine. admiring the stout and severe specimens of blonde and bronze frauleins. go hike some of the same routes i first did 10 years ago, on my pioneering summer abroad.





this is the valley of the kings.



if heaven isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, send me back to gimmelwald.






******

high on the western flanks of eiger, mönch, and jungfrau, a hidden secret. the trümmelbachfälle drains the massif's massive glaciers. huge amounts of meltwater gush in a series of waterfalls and climactic carved passageways just inside of the mountain. the rushing waters have scultpted the gneiss for eons; a timeless and perpetual creation.

i stare down into the void.


when the time comes for me to go home, i hope that a friend who loves mountains as much as i do will return here to spread my ashes on the snows of the eiger.

with any luck, after being locked away in the freeze-thaw cycle of eons, maybe one spring day it will be my turn. joining the meltwater, flowing down the sides of these great ancient mountains; disappearing under the scree of boulderfields and tunneling, down, always down, sure and steady towards that inevitable place of rebirth: emerging out through the deafening trümmelbach; arcing out into space and feeling the glory.

then slowly being recollected; gathered together with other waters in the spectacular valley of lauterbrunnen. joining creeks ever-increasing in size, then rivers; flowing like the free man i am, all the way out to the salt seas.

and maybe, just maybe, one of those same molecules of water that carry my remains will evaporate and fly around the planet... so that some summer day, a storm will build over the rocky mountains in colorado, and that molecule will fall onto another high peak; flow down into another stream... and carry the memory of my new adventures back to the place that formed me.


can such stories of magic and mystery be contained within an atom? like a whispering of mountain wind through a sweet young girl's hair, are they proof enough of immortality?

there is only one place to go.

home.


******

a day will come when we will be rejoined with all that has been taken from us. the extraneous will be cast away; the essential will slowly emerge. somewhere high above in the alpine snows; unsure, but at peace.


letting go, heading out to sea.