Having reached the highest point of our route according to plan, we discovered something the map had not told us It was impossible to climb down into the Kingo valley. The river lay deep between mountain sides that were almost vertical. We couldn't find any animal tracks, which usually show the best way across country, and the slopes were covered so thickly with bushes that we could not see the nature of the ground. We had somehow to break through to the river which would give us our direction out of the mountains into the inhabited lowlands.
Our guide cut a narrow path through the bushes with his long knife and we followed in single file. Progress was slow. Then, when we thought we had really reached the river, we found ourselves instead on the edge of a cliff with a straight drop of 1000 feet to the water below. We climbed back up the slope and began to look for another way down. We climbed, slipped, sweated and scratched our hands to pieces and finally arrived at the river. Happily we strode downhill along its bank without having to cut our way. However, after a few miles the river entered a steep -sided gap between rocks and suddenly dropped thirty - five feet over a waterfall. There was no path alongside it and no way round it.
Then one of the guides saw a way of overcoming the difficulty. There was a fallen tree lying upside down over the waterfall with its leafy top resting on the opposite bank below the falls. Without hesitation he climbed down the slippery trunk to show us how easy it was. Having got to the fork of the tree, he moved hand over hand along
a branch for four or five feet with his legs hanging in space, then he dropped onto the flat bank on the other side, throwing his arms in the air like a footballer who has scored a goal, and cheerfully waving us on.