I officially hate socks. I brought three
pairs of shoes: lightweight hiking boots for trekking with the chimps, a pair
of black sneakers for walking when I didn’t want to wear the boots, and my flip
flops to rest my feet, mostly inside the hotel. Traveling in a country with
malarial mosquitos, you pretty much have to wear your shoes all day. Which
means socks. Sometimes one, sometimes two pairs. I don’t know if this happens
to you, but when I peel the socks off at night my skin is unbearably itchy, and
there is a dent where the rim of the sock has cut off my circulation. I will be
happy if I never have to wear another sock again.
Right now, I’m sitting at the Arusha Airport, waiting for my flight to Kigoma and Gombe, where I’ll see the chimps. The flight is about 5 hours long, and the bush plane seats about 8. There are no cool hand towels, no hot meal service, or in-flight movie. The seats don’t recline. You have to hold your pee.
To picture the Arusha airport, think Montgomery Field (if you are in San Diego) with some tiny souvenir shops and a place to get some coffee or a quick sandwich. There is a TV in one of the waiting areas that has the same Nat Geo program on that my hotel plays daily: “When Animals Attack!” I can’t say this is the best choice for folks getting ready to fly to the Serengeti.
I’ve been trying to remember all of the animals we saw on our 3-day safari. There must have been 30-40 different species between the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is maybe as close to paradise on earth that I’ve ever seen. You climb a mountain and then descend into a 2.5 million year old extinct volcanic caldera filled with all the species of animals you ever dreamed about seeing when you were a kid. It’s like driving down into Jurassic Park, but without the scary dinosaurs. Just 32 square miles of flat, flat, flat land filled with grasses and a few trees that dot the landscape, ringed by a circle which is the crater rim. It’s so flat down below that a lioness can stalk her prey from miles and miles away. Did you know it’s the lioness who does the hunting? Women have to do everything, I swear.
I tried to write the animals’ names down as we were seeing them, but there were so many, and we didn’t always stop the jeep to look. There is no writing in a safari jeep while moving, just don’t even try. My strategy is if I don’t know the name for an animal, I just put “African” in front of it. Oh look, there’s an African stork, and an African gazelle, and that African smallish dog-fox… Works for me.
I jest about the smallish dog-fox, which I do actually know the name of. It is a jackal, which I’m convinced is my spirit animal. While I loved seeing the majestic, massive, wildly-colored, migrating, predatory, and graceful animals in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, somehow the jackal speaks to me. It’s small and fast, stealthy and cautious, and seems to me to have the best of all worlds in this incredibly sustainable ecosystem. The jackal doesn’t have the pressure of hunting – it’s a scavenger. Someone else does the dangerous work. Besides, it’s really cute. (Note to Maya and Liren: Looks like Ginger J)
I wanted to tell you about an experience that we had on our second day in the Serengeti. We were bumping along in our safari jeep (Land Cruiser, to be exact) and pulled up next to another Jeep. It’s common practice for the drivers to stop for a quick chat when they see another driver that they know. We were standing with our heads poking out of the roof canopy. In chatting briefly with the two girls poking their heads out of their canopy, we learned they had just seen a large herd of elephants (in Swahili: tembo) down the road. So our driver got the scoop from their driver, and we went off in search of the elephants.
A few minutes later, we see an immense herd of elephants, about 35 walking together. Luis and I can barely breathe. There are massive adults with long tusks and huge, wing-like ears, and tiny elephant calves running in and out of their mothers’ legs. The adults generally protect the calves by forming a barrier around them so it’s harder for them to get into trouble. Eli anticipates the direction in which they are moving, and hightails it around a corner a few minutes away. Suddenly, we are right there, face to face with the elephants. (I’m getting butterflies as I write this.)
The herd reaches their destination, which Eli has also anticipated. There’s a mud pool up ahead, and the elephants are clearly heading right for it. As each one arrives, it begins to blissfully bathe in the mud. There are massive trunks spraying mud under and over, babies rolling around in the mud, young ones tussling and trumpeting at each other as they play – basically a huge mud party. And we are right there.
For about 15 minutes we watched this content, extended family of elephants doing their elephant thing, without caring that the jeeps were there. I felt such a deep honor to be witnessing this mundane act of mud bathing. These are animals who once owned the land, before humans arrived, doing what elephants do. There are no walls or enclosures here, no keepers to feed them, no chains on their legs, no potential to become a circus act, no abuse. As the elephants finished their bath and we drove away, I burst into tears. It hit me all at once – the incredible opportunity to be in their presence, and the piercing loss of their way of life.
There have been a few times in my life in which I’ve become overwhelmed with emotion in moments that connect me to nature or culture. It has always been the result of traveling. Seeing the pristine walls of blue and white glaciers in Alaska, feeling the excitement and danger of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, witnessing both the poverty and the hope of young girls in India – all of these experiences have caused me to feel connected to humanity and to the Earth in ways that the daily routine never can. I guess this is why our house will never be “done” and our backyard will never be landscaped. If given the choice, and the resources are there, I’ll always opt to travel instead.
Right now, I’m sitting at the Arusha Airport, waiting for my flight to Kigoma and Gombe, where I’ll see the chimps. The flight is about 5 hours long, and the bush plane seats about 8. There are no cool hand towels, no hot meal service, or in-flight movie. The seats don’t recline. You have to hold your pee.
To picture the Arusha airport, think Montgomery Field (if you are in San Diego) with some tiny souvenir shops and a place to get some coffee or a quick sandwich. There is a TV in one of the waiting areas that has the same Nat Geo program on that my hotel plays daily: “When Animals Attack!” I can’t say this is the best choice for folks getting ready to fly to the Serengeti.
I’ve been trying to remember all of the animals we saw on our 3-day safari. There must have been 30-40 different species between the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is maybe as close to paradise on earth that I’ve ever seen. You climb a mountain and then descend into a 2.5 million year old extinct volcanic caldera filled with all the species of animals you ever dreamed about seeing when you were a kid. It’s like driving down into Jurassic Park, but without the scary dinosaurs. Just 32 square miles of flat, flat, flat land filled with grasses and a few trees that dot the landscape, ringed by a circle which is the crater rim. It’s so flat down below that a lioness can stalk her prey from miles and miles away. Did you know it’s the lioness who does the hunting? Women have to do everything, I swear.
I tried to write the animals’ names down as we were seeing them, but there were so many, and we didn’t always stop the jeep to look. There is no writing in a safari jeep while moving, just don’t even try. My strategy is if I don’t know the name for an animal, I just put “African” in front of it. Oh look, there’s an African stork, and an African gazelle, and that African smallish dog-fox… Works for me.
I jest about the smallish dog-fox, which I do actually know the name of. It is a jackal, which I’m convinced is my spirit animal. While I loved seeing the majestic, massive, wildly-colored, migrating, predatory, and graceful animals in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, somehow the jackal speaks to me. It’s small and fast, stealthy and cautious, and seems to me to have the best of all worlds in this incredibly sustainable ecosystem. The jackal doesn’t have the pressure of hunting – it’s a scavenger. Someone else does the dangerous work. Besides, it’s really cute. (Note to Maya and Liren: Looks like Ginger J)
I wanted to tell you about an experience that we had on our second day in the Serengeti. We were bumping along in our safari jeep (Land Cruiser, to be exact) and pulled up next to another Jeep. It’s common practice for the drivers to stop for a quick chat when they see another driver that they know. We were standing with our heads poking out of the roof canopy. In chatting briefly with the two girls poking their heads out of their canopy, we learned they had just seen a large herd of elephants (in Swahili: tembo) down the road. So our driver got the scoop from their driver, and we went off in search of the elephants.
A few minutes later, we see an immense herd of elephants, about 35 walking together. Luis and I can barely breathe. There are massive adults with long tusks and huge, wing-like ears, and tiny elephant calves running in and out of their mothers’ legs. The adults generally protect the calves by forming a barrier around them so it’s harder for them to get into trouble. Eli anticipates the direction in which they are moving, and hightails it around a corner a few minutes away. Suddenly, we are right there, face to face with the elephants. (I’m getting butterflies as I write this.)
The herd reaches their destination, which Eli has also anticipated. There’s a mud pool up ahead, and the elephants are clearly heading right for it. As each one arrives, it begins to blissfully bathe in the mud. There are massive trunks spraying mud under and over, babies rolling around in the mud, young ones tussling and trumpeting at each other as they play – basically a huge mud party. And we are right there.
For about 15 minutes we watched this content, extended family of elephants doing their elephant thing, without caring that the jeeps were there. I felt such a deep honor to be witnessing this mundane act of mud bathing. These are animals who once owned the land, before humans arrived, doing what elephants do. There are no walls or enclosures here, no keepers to feed them, no chains on their legs, no potential to become a circus act, no abuse. As the elephants finished their bath and we drove away, I burst into tears. It hit me all at once – the incredible opportunity to be in their presence, and the piercing loss of their way of life.
There have been a few times in my life in which I’ve become overwhelmed with emotion in moments that connect me to nature or culture. It has always been the result of traveling. Seeing the pristine walls of blue and white glaciers in Alaska, feeling the excitement and danger of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, witnessing both the poverty and the hope of young girls in India – all of these experiences have caused me to feel connected to humanity and to the Earth in ways that the daily routine never can. I guess this is why our house will never be “done” and our backyard will never be landscaped. If given the choice, and the resources are there, I’ll always opt to travel instead.
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