We’ve been mostly locked inside, as most of you know, due to, variously, THE MOVE (boring), my ankle (ohsoboring) and now a ferocious cold (evenmoreboring).
So Sunday, safely harbored on the couch, I watched most of the 1985 film, awarded seven Oscars, Out of Africa. Its often idyllic scenes of Africa and its wildlife (and a young Robert Redford) reminded me that I went to South Africa and Zimbabwe several years ago, without Bob, but with a dear friend for whom her bucket list had Africa at its top.
Not me so much. I’d recently been spending a lot of time at our wonderful K.C. Zoo working on a project and basically thought, “Oh, I’ve seen all those animals, they’re cool, but . . .” But friend Jane really wanted me to go to keep her company so I said, as I often have, especially recently in the past four years, “Well, why not?”
So off we went, beginning with a 16 or 17 hour (but who’s counting?) plane trip. Africa was a revelation and far different from the movie portrayal of aristocracy, a coffee plantation, and a rather unusual love affair that ended badly. We did go on a safari, required of course, but also saw and experienced Soweto, the cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg, several museums and somewhere in Zimbabwe, a lovely lodge and free-range monkeys and huge waterfall. It was hard to realize that apartheid had only ended in 1994 officially but remnants certainly still existed while I was there.
Tours are entertaining and informative of course but we were also lucky to stay in Johannesburg with a former student and his wife and thought we got a very good picture of a more realistic South Africa. Their home was in a true gated (and guarded) community and we’re not talking mansions in there. Vince got a ticket while driving for a bogus non-violation which was a shakedown for a bribe. We had to pay people to watch our car when we went into a restaurant. There were few blacks dining with us in the nicer restaurants. .
We were there in October and the flowers were lovely and mostly unknown to me.
The people were gracious and helpful. Many seemed very poor in the cities and begged us for money; in Zimbabwe especially, as their money had inflated so that we were offered 1000s of dollars for five or ten American. The food was different enough to be entertaining with beautiful vegetables.
But the animals, oh the animals, In the wild, it turns out they are NOT the same as in the zoo. It may be the element of surprise coming upon them, it may be the scars and wounds and manginess you can see, it may be just viewing them in their true natural habitat that made every sighting a tiny miracle, even the large groups of the common antelopes or the farming of zebras. I took hundreds, no exaggeration, of pictures, most of which I see now were pretty bad. But they still managed to bring back memories of a glorious trip and I’ve provided you with just a few of the better ones in the quick slide show below – taken with a real Canon camera (now available at Goodwill) as a reminder that’s whatever is on YOUR travel bucket list (or your friend's), go now.
Now.
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