I love to travel, anywhere. I had a college Professor that used to tell us, “Just go somewhere, even if it is 30 minutes away from your home. Get out, fill up your lungs, look around, learn something.” (He also said,”Carry a dictionary wherever you go,” but that is an entirely different post.)
My childhood was filled with adventures of this kind. My dad would pile us in his white 1966 Ford pick-up named “Cloudy” every weekend. Radio on, we listened to Willie Nelson, England Dan & John Ford Coley, the Bellamy Brothers. We were off hiking, fishing, or searching for arrowheads.
When I was in high school in 1984 my dad spent several months in Africa conducting training in wildfire fighting and prevention. He came home with incredible stories and pictures of his adventures. He was made an honorary member of the Ashanti Tribe. His experience in Africa left its mark on me.
At that time, I gobbled up books such as “West with the Night” by Beryl Markham, “Out of Africa” by Karen Blixen, and “Green Hills of Africa” by Ernest Hemingway, and all of Joy Adamson’s books.
I knew one day, I would go to Africa.
“If your hunch proves a good one, you were inspired; if it proves bad, you are guilty of yielding to thoughtless impulse.” – Beryl Markham
Fast forward to 2005.
I began saving up and planning for this trip in 2004. My husband was hesitant. He is incredibly well-traveled, but had never been to Africa. I just said,”I am taking us.”
So here we go. Please note that while I am carefully packing for us, I am also choosing the music. This has always been a part of my life. It started with the white Ford pick-up and Willie Nelson and it just never quit.
I must admit a deep love for the movie “Out of Africa” and the incredible soundtrack by John Berry. That soundtrack was part of it, absolutely. But then I had The Tokens, Toto, and Enya ….
We landed in Nairobi at sunrise. The smell of Africa at 6am was incredible. While we were being transported to Ngong House in Karen, we watched the daily commute of the Nairobi Kenyans going to work. It is not by car, no, no, by foot, many without shoes. First, incredible lesson, first thing in the morning, BAM, right there.
Dad told me to look to learn and understand. Remember everything you are seeing. Can you, will you, make a difference?
Our trip lasted 24 magical days and it did change both of us forever.
Some of the highlights included our six-day stay at Elsa’s Kopje, in the Meru National Park. This is the real Born Free location made famous by Joy and George Adamson’s original camp where they raised and released orphan lions. It is thousands of acres of pristine beautiful, wild and remote bush. We had this amazing guide named Joel who gave us our personal view of lions, leopards, cheetahs, buffalo, waterbuck, hippo and eland. Beautiful wild free animals, at least for now.
In Il N’gwesi in Northern Kenya we spent several days with the beautiful Maasai. We learned about land and wildlife conservation, food security, water, and women empowerment. Yes, we were learning, and some of the learning was hard — gut wrenching hard — but we understood the importance. We were not just reading about it now, we were seeing it, feeling it, living it, and it was affecting us deeply.
At Il N’gwesi, we ate dinner in the African bush with a million stars overhead while we dined with the Maasai. A wood fire was our only light. We learned more about poaching. Do you know that one elephant is killed every 15 minutes? Or that rhino poaching is at a crisis point? In 2015, 1,338 rhinos were killed across Africa, according to data compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s African Rhino Specialist Group (AFRSG). Let those facts sit with you for a minute.
Each day, we had incredible experiences filled with laughter, but there were also tears, the kind that are hard to hide or even stop. Such evil, and yet sitting with the Maasai next to the fire, such incredible kindness.
“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.” – Karen Blixen.
Each night we went to bed listening to sounds we had never heard before. It kept us awake most nights. “What was that? What could it be?”
The beautiful and frightening bush orchestra.
One night while in a tent in the Maasai Mara, where we had come to witness the Great Migration, we heard a loud snap of trees. We both immediately sat up in our bed. My brave husband quietly went to our tent window and slowly rolled it up. Outside stood an enormous bull elephant with huge ivory tusks gleaming in the moonlight. He quite literally could have stepped on our tent. Robert tip-toed back into bed where we both covered up our heads with the blankets. We were petrified and also were completely astonished. Here, again, is the real Africa we had traveled so far to see.
The bush orchestra, snaps of trees, a hyena’s laugh, lions roar, call of a jackal and the lovely morning birdsong. There is nothing quite like it. It is also the voices of the Maasai, hypnotizing and magical.
Sometimes, if I am feeling sad, I will remember a plane ride. It was a small 4-seater Cessna taking us from Northern Kenya to the Mara. The pilot had an enormous smile. We climb in and he asks “May I play you some music? It takes about 2 hours and you will see some unforgettable sights and animals. Music will make it even better, I promise.” He had the right passengers that day. It was Enya. Let me just tell you, the sounds of mesmerizing Enya can not get much better than listening to it while gazing upon wildebeest, zebra and giraffes running on the plain below.
I look forward to returning one day.
“Where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.” -Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa.
In the meantime, I remember. We do what we can for the elephants, the rhinos and the Maasai. They left their undeniable marks on our souls. Yes, dear Beryl Markham, my hunch was a good one.
Now some Enya for you and a little bit of Africa.