Africa Calling

I realized this afternoon that—for the purposes of this blog, even—there’s more to travel than merely the trip itself. Any time one leaves home, heads out into the world, or the country, or even just across the state—any time one leaves the cocoon of day-to-day, the mundanity of schedule, planning is involved. While the amount and flavor of trip planning varies widely from traveler to traveler and trip to trip, the bare minimum—have I locked the door?—almost always applies.

Ian and I are currently planning a trip to Africa, to take place mid-year next year. The impetus—or impeti? there are several—are that Ian is scheduled to earn his PhD next spring, and so we have a reason to celebrate; we currently have no children, only Spackle who is as happy at Mama Liz and Papa Marsh’s place as he is with us (and they—thank you Mom and Marsh—don’t seem to mind); and we would like to share our Africa experiences pre-each other with each other. In our ideal world, we would have about three months for this trip. We would start in Kenya (where I spent 5 months during school at Lewis and Clark College), work our way slowly down the east coast through Tanzania, Malawi, and Mocambique, then head into Zambia and Zimbabwe (where Ian spent two years in the Peace Corps teaching math), and end in South Africa and Cape Town. For a variety of reasons, including political unrest, our trip is likely to be much shorter than this, and quite different.

That’s not why I’m writing, though. This morning, excited about the prospect of African travel, we started reading the Lonely Planet on-line guide. Within each country, there’s a link to “postcards,” which consist of unverified (by Lonely Planet) information emailed or sent to them by readers on vacation. Two in particular, from the Scams and Warnings section for Kenya, stuck with me; one for its naivety, one for its appalling paternalistic self-righteousness.

First, the innocent, a Tina Hall (home unknown), who took a cheap shuttle into Nairobi and was dropped off in a sketchy part of town—where the shuttle (matatu) stand is—writes “some kid tried to grab a gold necklace and run off (luckily he didn’t get it).” Duh. If you want to keep your gold jewelry, LEAVE IT AT HOME.

Second, the Lord of the World, one Kelly Buja (naturally from the USA), tells about a trip to the Maasai Mara, a large game reserve that shares wildlife, an ecosystem and a border with the Serengeti in Tanzania. Kelly and friend camped outside the reserve, thus keeping money from an organization struggling to save dwindling wildlife populations and catch poachers. Each of two days, their guide drove them onto reserve grounds the back way, thus protecting them from park fees yet again. But get this—the guide charged them each $30, on top of what they paid him for the trip from Nairobi and the drive through the reserve and the back entrance into the park, and failed to supply fresh, clean receipts, so “Anyways, we got him fired, but it is such a shame that the parks continue to get exploited.” First of all, how dare you—who can afford the $2000 plane ticket to Kenya—even try to get someone fired over $60! Second, why do you think you actually did “get him fired?” They know that you, an American, are way better set up—in every imaginable way—than your guide. Third, how is it that you came to be camping outside the park and sneaking in the back way? Because you were trying to get the cheapest possible deal on a safari? That’s the shame! That’s why the parks and reserves continue to be exploited! Get over your incredible selfish sense of entitlement and see if you can do some good somewhere, for a change.