trying to see owls

With 12 days of annual leave still to use up (or lose) before the end of December, and international travel still being so difficult, it seemed like a good time to travel within Senegal - after all, there was a waterfall down south that I hadn't seen, and a few birds that had eluded me so far.  So I contacted the best-known birding guide in the country with a list of the birds I most wanted to see (plus the waterfall) and asked what he could do.

He responded very quickly with a suggested itinerary and price, which I accepted, so a few days later he turned up in the hired 4x4, and we set off on the long journey south.

The first stop was at the lodge in Wassadou on the River Gambia.  I spent a few days there on my own just over a year ago, and to be honest the guide didn't really show me anything that I didn't find myself last year, but still it is a nice place to spend a few days and this year the hippos were close to the lodge.

From there we went further south, via Kedougou to Dindefelo, a small village only 7km from the Guinea border, famous for its waterfall.  He told me that he might change the itinerary planned for the return, omitting the night in Kedougou.  I queried this, said I thought that was a known spot for one of the owls (top of the 'wanted' list I'd shared with him).  He wasn't aware of this, but admitted that he hadn't in any case brought a spotlight (without which you cannot see owls after nightfall, and clearly he didn't know of any daytime roosts).

By this time he was starting to complain about joint pain, grimacing as he tried to make certain movements.  He admitted to me that he had been suffering from some kind of arthritis-like affliction since April, for which he'd had numerous tests and tried various medicines, but so far without a diagnosis or anything to cure it.  He'd decided to take me on as a client so as to see whether he could guide a trip though the pain - and it was becoming apparent that he could not.

On the morning of the walk to the waterfall, for which a local guide (from the village) is compulsory, he backed out half-way there, telling me that the pain was too great and he could not continue.  For this particular walk it didn't matter so much - there may have been some Bar-breasted Firefinches around, I suppose, but probably no owls...

The waterfall was pretty, and I managed a quick swim in the pool (although I didn't stay in for long as the water was really cold!), and wandered slowly back to the village.

Late afternoon, the scheduled time for the next bird walk, the guide suggested that if we walked really slowly, he might be able to cope.  But to see the nightjars we should have been climbing up the escarpment, not meandering about near the lodge at a snail's pace.  Early the next morning he called my phone and told me to get up and meet him near the car as an owl was calling.  It was indeed calling, from high up in a tree, but without a spotlight we couldn't see it.

After breakfast he told me that we would have to abandon the trip as he could not continue - so we started the long (two-day) drive home.  He also told me not to worry about the money - that I would be reimbursed.  But when the conversation turned to the detail of the reimbursement, it was not an easy one.  He started by asking me how much money I thought I should get back.  I told him that the simplest way of calculating this seemed to me to be to use the number of days; I'd paid for 12 but would be back on day 8, therefore was owed for 4 days - one-third of my holiday and therefore I expected to get one-third of my money back (being $600).  Oh no!  The vehicle - by far the most expensive element of the trip - had been hired (and paid in advance) for the full trip, and he would not get any refund for that.  Plus he had miscalculated when he priced the trip originally and included nothing for himself.  He started to go into the specifics of the cost of different elements and I interrupted to ask him how much he thought I should be reimbursed.  $300, he said.

I had some really mixed reactions, as on the one hand he had been dishonest by not being upfront about his physical condition when I contacted him, not giving me the choice as to whether or not to take a risk on his health (which I wouldn't have - there's another guide I could have used), and I was also conscious of his failing to bring a spotlight for the owls.  But on the other hand, he was in a lot of pain with a condition that the doctors had so far been unable to properly diagnose and cure, and which might stop him from ever working again, at least in his specialist field.  He had also told me that with the virtual halt in tourism to Senegal resulting from the pandemic, he had not worked since March.  So I finally told him I'd take a refund of $200 - at which news he cried.  I wasn't sure whether he was crying in gratitude for my generosity or in frustration with my lack of generosity, and still have conflicting thoughts as to whether I should have held out for the $600 or let him off completely.