That Trip To Africa

Written A Long Time Ago, Posted from Cambodia

Just over a month ago, I took a two-week trip to Africa with my dad and brother. I took over 650 pictures on that trip and was eager to share them all with you. I even made promises. But between packing up our apartment, moving our possessions into storage, and flying halfway around the world (again, in my case), it took me the better part of a month to tag all of the pictures so that you at least know what you're looking at. But the task is finally done, and Matt painstakingly uploaded them to flickr, so here they are at last, in all their glory.

What I've included here in the slideshow is but a subset of the whole album. It includes my favorite pictures from the trip. As with most favorites, sometimes I picked the picture because of the picture itself, and sometimes I picked the picture because of how I felt when I was taking it, or the memory it evokes for me. You're totally entitled to have other favorites. I promise that I'm cool with that.

Those of you who are gluttons for punishment and plan to head over to the flickr gallery to look at the whole set, I want to give you a brief warning. On our safari trip, we were lucky enough to see a "kill." Before I went to South Africa, I thought that the kill was the act of actually KILLING an animal. But while I was there I learned that the kill refers to that actual killing, as well as the dead animal that's being eaten. I have pictures of the latter, and some of them are quite gruesome. The pride of lions currently living in Sabi Sands, all 18 of them (minus the two males, who don't really hunt), took down an enormous male Cape Buffalo. Over the two days that followed, they devoured every inch they deemed edible (they leave the skin, bones, and teeth for the hyenas, who will eat anything). It was an amazing thing to see and hear and experience, and I couldn't stop taking pictures of it. But I recognize that some of you log onto this site first thing in the morning, and you may or may not want to be greeted by images of a masticated buffalo. I get that, so I didn't include any of the dead buffalo pictures in my favorites set. So if you just NEED to get your dead buffalo fix, you're going to have to mosey on over to flickr.

And with that I bring you my trip to Africa, in pictures:



If you haven't figured it out yet, it was an amazing trip. I can't wait to go back to Africa to do safari with Matt someday. And our kids. Because once you go to visit animals in their own home, it seems strange to go to the zoo to see them trapped in a home that we built for them. Getting the chance to see them this way was definitiely worth both the money and the long flight. If you're not getting the message, I'll spell it out for you now: GO TO AFRICA!

A Long Hello From Africa

Tonight as we were driving through the game reserve ("game reserve" being a euphemism for "the bush" which is what it's really called around here, but I can't write "driving through the bush" without overwhelming my inner fifteen-year-old), bugs came flying out the ground. The bugs were flying termites (yes, I said flying termites) and they were fleeing their underground homes because it was too hot and humid under there. Or at least, that's what our guide explained to us. Why they were flying out of the ground towards the owls that eat them is beyond me, but I'm not really one to talk, as I've spent the better part of this week driving TOWARDS things like lions and rhinos myself.

Anyway, the termites. They came flying out of the ground in swarms. Hundreds, thousands, millions of bugs, all flying around. We were sitting atop an open-air Jeep, driving towards them. At least, it certainly felt like they were driving towards them, because they were definitely flying towards us. In an open-air Jeep, there's obviously no windshield. Unless you count the three of us: me, my dad, and my brother, sitting shoulder to shoulder, acting as a human windshield. Those of you who have driven through the south in the middle of a summer night know how disgusting a prospect this is. That smack, smack, smack of bugs hitting your windshield? That sound was made by my body as I frantically tried to swat them away.

It sounds gross, and I guess it was, but, mouth closed to avoid swallowing any of the termites, I was laughing.

"They're going to nest in my hair!" I declared, through clenched teeth. My dad and brother laughed. My hair, for all of my attempts to calm it down, has been out of control here. Truly wild and chaotic. I look like a crazed woman.

"THIS is one of the ten plagues!" I said. "This is what the bible meant by locusts. It wasn't locusts. It was flying termites!"

More laughter from my peanut gallery.

"This is God smiting us," I continued, as I bent myself in half, and swatted away the termites from my head, neck, and shoulders.

"It's slowing down," Andy said, and he was right. I looked up into an impossibly dark sky full of stars that I'd never seen before and smiled, open-mouthed. But while my head was still taking in the enormity of the night sky, my dad pointed towards the beams of light that our jeep threw onto the road.

"Frogs!" he said. And we all laughed, another plague upon us.

Of course, it wasn't a plague. But I'll be honest here for a moment and tell you that God is somewhere around here. I don't talk much about God, particularly because my own opinions on the subject are pretty unconventional. But I believe in something, and whatever that something is, it's here and I can feel it. Which I didn't expect at all, but it's actually pretty great. I think it has something to do with seeing nature in action, all up close and personal like. Whatever the reason, some kind of holy work is playing itself out on large and small scales here in the bush. There. I said it!

If I'd had the chance to write a post while we were still in Cape Town, I would have dwelled on entirely different things. I certainly wouldn't have talked about God. I would have written about the beautiful city and the lovely people. I would have written a lot about how cool it was to be at the Cape of Good Hope, standing high above two oceans and countless shipwrecks. I would have told you about the penguins we saw (yes, penguins) and about the fact that while other tourists stood around remarking that this was the closest they'd get to the South Pole, I closed my eyes and sent a silent message to Matt, thinking "not me. This isn't the closest I'll get to the South Pole."

But now that I'm here in the middle of nowhere, I'm thinking about other, loftier things. Or something. I'm thinking about different things, that's for sure.

A few days ago I remarked to my dad that whenever I visit a new place, I'm torn between thoughts that I could move there and thoughts that there are so many other places in the world I want to see. But here in this part of the world, I know that I can't live here and I don't want to. I also know that for the next few days, this is the part of the world that I want to be seeing. It's the part with a measurable amount of divinity, and it's pretty spectacular.

I'm sure you're all looking forward to the many pictures (all 634 of them! You know you can't wait to see them.) but because I don't have a way to get them to you, I'll leave you with a sleep-deprived Haiku written by my brother:

Water buffalo
Mauled by six lionesses;
it rots silently.

People, this is what happens when you wake up at 5am every day to get in an open-air Jeep and chase after lions. Haikus. About dead water buffalo. Of course, those of you who know Andy know that he could make up something like that when he's nowhere near Africa, but it's definitely more amusing in these parts.

Pictures to follow in a few days! Happy trails.

Africa or Bust

Did I forget to tell you guys that I'm going to Africa? See, I might have. Well then, here it is: I'm taking a 13-day trip to South Africa with my dad and brother. Right now. As in, I'm leaving in about an hour for the airport. And after 26 hours of traveling (with a long layover in London), I'll arrive in Cape Town, South Africa.

I've kept the trip under the radar screen for no good reason. Partly because it feels so separate from this other journey I'm about to embark upon, and partly because it was put together kind of quickly, and I wanted to make sure that all of the pieces were in place. And also because up until I arrived in Philadelphia today, I sort of didn't really believe that I was going. But my dad's putting the rest of his stuff in his bag as I type this, and I've packed enough DEET to eradicate the entire mosquito population of Africa, so it seems like I am actually going. Today.

A brief outline of our trip: we're flying to Cape Town and will spend about 5 days there, checking out the city, hopefully learning more about South Africa than I currently know (which is, I'm ashamed to admit, precious little). Then we're going on safari for a few days in Kruger National Park. And then we're flying home. I'll have about 10 days between the time I get back from Africa and the day I leave for Thailand. Luckily, my bags for Thailand will already be packed, and, as Matt said in that last post, we don't have much left to do. Of course, there IS that pesky little task of packing up all of our worldly possessions and moving them to a storage unit, but seriously, we're pros at that. Rather, MATT is a pro at that and he assures me that he doesn't mind the work.

So there you have it. Africa or bust. I'll be taking the camera with me (of course!) but I won't be posting pictures until after I get back (because I'm sadly not taking Matt with me, and among other things, that boy knows his way around a computer and a camera). I've heard that my pictures will be incredible. So stay tuned. And stay tuned anyway, since I'm hoping to post from the Southern Hemisphere while I'm down there.

I hope you all had a tremendous and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I do know how very much I have to be thankful for. My cup overfloweth.

And yes, all you worriers, I promise I'll be safe and I won't feed the animals.