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Tim Temple's Newest NatGeo Expedition!
From National Geographic magazine, August 2011:
My Search For the Bunga-Bunga Tribe by Tim Temple
How It All Came To Pass
Apart from being a watch salesman on ShopNBC and a renowned side-man for various top-selling musical artists in Nashville, TN, USA, I'm also a world-traveler and very good photographer for numerous scientific and anthropoloical journals, some even better than NatGeo.
I've explored all five continents, always wearing my trusty G-Shock watch; I've been to Africa, Asia, and that real cold continent down south that I always mix up with the one at the top of the globe. I've also been to the Basel watch show at least ten times--one of which I paid for myself. At my last visit to Basel, where I've been, ten times, I was talking to renowned watchmaker and good buddy of mine, Kobold--his first name escapes me--and he was telling me about a tribe unknown to White Men in the deepest recesses of Africa, called the Bunga-Bunga.
"You should go and try to find them, Tim," Kobold told me at his three-story booth in the Hall of Dreams. "I sent that idiot Englishman who hangs around me, and he ended up in a stew-pot."
"It sounds very interesting," I said.
"Whatever," said Kobold. "Just go someplace and make yourself scarce. I've got an order-book to fill out here."
Well, the chance to Discover a Tribe Unknown to White Men was appealing to me; but I knew it was Dangerous, even to a world-traveler like me, so when I got back to Minneapolis I sought out a man I could Count On, a fellow who could have my back, so to speak, who was an ex-Navy SEAL and a world-renowned Martial Arts Expert.
"What the goddamn fuck do you want?" Mongo Kid said as he opened his sagging apartment door in the skid row area of St. Paul. He was dressed down, not like his normal TV self, in what some call a wife-beater shirt, stained with vomit, and a pair of appallingly stained jockey shorts. He had a bottle of Old Grand Dad in his hand, and I wasn't sure if he was going to drink from it or hit me upon the head with it.
"Come on, Michael, we're going to Africa! The Bunga-Bunga tribe awaits!"
"Go fuck yourself, asshole," said Turdling. "I have a show with Skip tomorrow at 3:00 AM, EST. Eyal would cornhole me like my last cellie if I missed another show."
I talked terms with Mongo Kid all afternoon, during which time he passed out several times and defecated on his third-hand sofa twice. I promised to get him a job at ShopNBC if and when Eyal finally fired him, sweeping the floors. I also promised him a goodly supply of hooch for the trip.
And two days later we were in darkest Africa!
Our Journey To the Bunga-Bunga
We found a second-hand Land Rover in the capital of Equatoria, Jismbad, and started out into the interior of the country. I drove, since Turdling had been hitting his hooch supply pretty hard. "Just the thing to ward off motherfucking malaria, if you will," he slurred. I prefer to go about my travels armed only with a Very Expensive Camera, but Turdling, being the ex-warrior he was, wanted a few weapons, such as a Barrett's .50 caliber Elephant Gun, as well as a small Czech-made automatic pistol as his carry piece, as he called it.
We were well-provisioned, with several crates of medicine for my continuous acid reflux. We also had several crates of freeze-dried fish sammiches and Beef Jerky to eat. I had brought several crates of water to drink, and naturally we carried with us 25 cases of Jim Beam for Turdling, who hoped this amount of hooch would get him through the week. We found room for some trinkets and baubles, as Larry Magen would say, to trade with the Bunga-Bunga, namely, broken Invicta watches and well as some Invicta Sand-Blaster sandals.
The Land Rover broke down a hundred kilometers--or "clicks," as Turdling would say--from the confluence of the Big Shitty and White Man's Death rivers. We made camp for the night and watched as the sun went down, almost with a loud crash, as sunsets do near the equator. I made a fire and prepared a nourishing dinner of fish sammatches while Turdling broke out his nightly ration of booze, which I insisted he limit to three fifths of Jim Beam.
We told old watch stories as the night fell and the savannah around us disappeared. I spoke of my time at ShopAtHome while Turdling drank an entire fifth of whiskey, the Barrett's across his knees. He told me of his time in the Navy SEALs when he saved porno star Bree Olson from the clutches of Papa Doc in Haiti.
"She blew me real good, too," said Turdling. "In an oral configuration, if you will. I know what Charlie Sheen saw in her. She was a nice girl, too. The kind you could take home to meet Ma. Especially my Ma."
Suddenly, a terrible scream came from the darkness. Turdling fell over backwards, defectated thunderously in his trekking shorts, and jumped up again.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he said, "what the fuck was that?"
"That," I said, "was the war cry of the Bunga-Bunga."
"War cry? Fuck this shit, I didn't sign on for this goddamn bullshit. Let's fucking go back to Jismbad!"
"Brace yourself, Michael," I said. "Drink some more of that hooch, and man up. We're miles from any hope of salvation. Our only hope of survival is to fascinate the Bunga-Bunga with our trinkets and baubles."
"Yeah, sure, Tim. You fucking give 'em some of Eyal's bullshit Sand-Blasters. I'm fucking bugging out."
Turdling picked up the Barrett's, holding it like a rank amateur, in my opinion, and prepared to let fly out in the darkness. Fortunately, he couldn't manage to work the safety in his inebriated state.
"They give me a rifle with six complications," he slurred, "and not one of them fucking work."
We Are Imprisoned By the Bunga-Bunga
The next day we found ourselves in the clutches of the Bunga-Bunga, who were, like most civilized people, unimpressed by the broken Invicta watches and Sand-Blaster sandals. We were tied up and forced to watch as the Bunga-Bunga ladies started a fire under a gigantic cooking pot. The men, splendid warriors each at least seven feet tall, stood around and looked at us with flashing eyes, licking their lips, no doubt day-dreaming about their first dinner of white men.
"We have to come up with a way to win them over, Michael," I whispered. "I know that there's going to be a total eclipse of the sun later this month in this area."
Turdling soiled himself again and blubbered, "Oh, yeah, Tim, that's just motherfucking great. We're gonna be packed in these jagoff's colons in twenty minutes, and you're talking about an eclipse next fucking month. Why'd I let myself get talked into this fucking shit? Fuck's sake, we're about to fucking die here, you stupid fucking cocksucker!"
Interestingly, it was the fish sammiches that saved us.
First one, then another, and then another of the Bunga-Bunga warriors started to eat them, for I suppose they were hungry and wanted a little appetizer before feasting on our White Flesh. Then, after they ate the sammiches, they started to look with great interest at the broken Invicta watches, and then tried on the Sand-Blaster sandals. They jabbered with great animation, and then proclaimed Eyal Lalo as their Heathen God.
"Eyal's come through again!" Turdling screamed. "We're fucking saved!"
But we weren't out of the woods yet; the headmen of the tribe said they wanted Bunga-Bunga, and took Turdling into one of their huts and did unspeakable things to him. Afterwards, Turdling came out of the hut, buckling his belt, looking refreshed and finally a bit sober.
"No big fucking deal there," he said. "It kinda reminded me of my days in the joint--err, I mean, in college."
Unfortunately, the Bunga-Bunga took my Very Expensive Camera, as well as the Land Rover's radio, before allowing us to go on our way. As we motored jauntily back to Jismbad, Turdling turned to me and said, "the next time you want to go on a fucking expedition, Tim, take Daniel Green with you."
And thus ended a wonderful adventure.
