Free Footloose Scot by Jim Glendinning Page B

back and forth by their owners and watched by potential buyers with keen eyes.
    After three days I returned by bus to Gilgit. At the Pakistani frontier, one of the tourists, a young German woman, did not have a visa. She was worried about being sent back to Kashi. The Pakistani immigration official, a large man with an impressive handlebar moustache, gave a great laugh and said: "Do not let that worry you, young lady, I Mohammed will grant you a visa on the spot." He took a large rubber stamp and slammed in onto her passport, then with a flourish signed his name. It was nice to observe a personal touch in the normally bureaucratic world of passport inspection.

PART I, CHAPTER 4
SOLO TRAVELER
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1987
ROUND THE WORLD - AFRICA
    BURUNDI
    I arrived in Burundi by bus from its neighbor to the north, Rwanda. In those days, each country had yet to experience the trauma of the nineties. Burundi, a small, beautiful and mountainous country, is about the size of Maryland with a population of 7 million, of which Tutsis were 85% and Hutus 15%.
    The Burundi capital, Bujumbura, was a ramshackle place with a single traffic light which usually was not working. I found lodging at the home of an American missionary who made a habit of putting up backpackers. This good man arrived from the USA 40 years earlier after two days of flights, including a leg from Newfoundland to the Azores. In Burundi he devoted his life to spreading the word of Christianity, and healing the locals in body through his successful health clinic in Bujumbura.
    According to the missionary, the atmosphere in the capital was not easy and there was tension in the streets. He advised me not to get into any confrontation with the locals. I went to a dentist and also had a haircut. Both of these men were tall, slim Tutsis and neither was friendly. Since independence from Belgium in 1962 there had been one genocidal attack, and worse was to come in the 1990s. Even Nelson Mandela backed out of trying to solve the ingrained hatred between the two tribes despite the country's desperate poverty and low life expectancy (48.5 years). For the time being, however, the situation was safe and I had a plan which would take me into the country, far from the capital.
    The Burundi tourism authorities had built a small pyramid in the countryside, claiming it marked the source of the Nile. No one believed this but it was a source of interest because of its curiosity value. I decided to go and photograph the pyramid, then make a cross-country hike to Lake Tanganyika before catching a minibus back to the capital - a three day camping trip.
    I caught a minibus from Bujumbura which dropped me off at the pyramid. It was a fifteen foot high concrete structure, painted white. Like others before me I signed my name on its side. Checking my guidebook which had a map of the area, I headed off cross-country. I reckoned it was twenty miles or so from Lake Tanganyika. I followed dirt roads through upland countryside with occasional cultivated fields. In the distance I could see the highest peak, Mt. Kikizi (7,037 ft). I stopped at a water hole and joined some of the locals in the cool water. They didn't speak French but they smiled and nodded.
    Later I crossed a high plateau, intensively cultivated in small plots. The surprise was that there were very few people, either in the fields or on the road. I had read that the population density was the second highest in sub-Sahara Africa. The weather was dry and the temperature in the mid-eighties Fahrenheit. Later I found a good spot for a campsite next to a waterfall. I was completely alone; there were no houses or people nearby, and I felt quite safe.
    Next day I arrived at a village. I was surprised when a young white man suddenly came out of a house. Spotting me, he headed in my direction. He was a Peace Corps volunteer, a conservation specialist, he told me, and was assigned in Burundi to help them establish a national park in the area. I told him I hoped