A Typical Day On Safari

A Typical Day on Safari
Southern Africa
July 2001
I spent the month of July in Southern Africa on safari. We traveled through South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. There were 20 of us, 15 from Europe, four from Australia and me, the lone American. Matt served as our guide and driver and Lucas was the cook. We had a beat up old truck and camping gear. We traveled over 3000 miles and at the end of the month that was still not enough for me. I wanted to see more.

The rhythm of our days were pretty similar. I was never sure when the day started because I didn’t have a watch and that made it difficult to determine when I should get up. I usually woke up sometime during the night but never knew it was 2 AM for 6 AM. That may not seem like a problem for others but it was for me. I always had to go to the bathroom and my decisions were different depending on what time of night was. Urgency also plays a factor as well. And the fact that the bathroom was never convenient just added to the stress of the situation. If It was 6 AM, I will try to hold it till 630 when I had to get up but 2 AM posed other problems, other decisions.

Each morning I would hear the “zip” of someone’s tent zipper and then I would say a little prayer that this was just somebody else what to get up to relieve themselves. If I heard just one zipper I made a huge effort to sleep as quickly as possible because I knew my time to sleep was limited.

However, if I heard multiple zips, I rolled over and complained to myself. The night had flown by too, too quickly once again. Frantz was one of the early risers. He always called to Eva, his wife. She would respond in German. Then I would hear the cook rattle some pots and pans. And I would be filled with morning dread. Everyone was up and starting their day. Then I would hear it. Someone would be outside my tent and ask the others, “did anybody wake Bridget yet?” That was going to be my first and only wake up call for the morning. So I had no other choice but to surrender to the harsh realities of the day and face the dark chilly morning.

This is the first trip I’ve taken that I really have to pay attention to my eyeglasses. So the first thing I did was feel around for my flashlight and then find my glasses. Every day I can’t find them right away and that sends me into a mild panic. I did eventually find them but after I ripped apart everything in its path.

Then I had to find my shoes and of course I had never had the energy to tie my shoelaces. So I wore them as slippers. I never had them on correctly so I stumbled over everything in my way in the tent. And it appeared to me as of the bottom of my tent door rose just a little bit each and every day and I tripped on my way out every morning.

Once all my junk was assembled and jammed into my ripped duffel bag, I threw everything outside the tent. I would then complain about having to disassemble my tent once again. I hated doing this. If I could’ve found some someone to take care of my tent, I think I would’ve been a happier camper. Breaking in the tent down wasn’t really a problem. Trying to stuff that damn tent back in its sack always proved to be a challenge. Everyone else’s tent seemed so nice and neat. I always had something protruding from the top. Matt frequently made fun of my efforts. But so what. I don’t really care.

Breakfast was nondescript but hurried. Because I was the last one up, I was always coming to breakfast at the tail end. By the time I got there, other were cleaning up so I had a quick cup of lukewarm tea and some sort of stale biscuits. While I was drinking my tea I attempted to help load up the camp equipment and then we were off.

Once the trunk was packed, we were on the road. We left the campsite by 7 AM when the sun was just beginning to emerge. And some places the stars still illuminated the skies as we took off. Most mornings a fiery sunrise entertained us as we settled into our morning drive.

At 7:30 AM I was wearing my blouse, my windbreaker, two fleece jackets, a neck gaiter, hood, gloves and some days, my blanket. By 10, I took the neck gaiter and top jacket off. By noon the second jacket came off and found its way somewhere on the floor of our filthy dirty truck. in the early afternoon the windbreaker came off. By four the windbreaker was back on. Around six the sun would begin to go down and the first fleece jacket came back on. By seven the other jacket was on. I was wearing the gloves and the neck gator. My wardrobe didn’t change much this month.

Midmorning we stopped somewhere and watched something of great amazement. We saw prehistoric trees or 600-year-old plants or cave drawings or birds or packs of wild animals. We would stop and take photos and move around the truck so everyone had the opportunity to get a good view. We stood in silence as we watched a herd of lions eat a zebra. We stretched our necks to see the minute bird off in the distant tree. We tried to count the hundreds of impalas running pass our truck. We looked everything up in the guide books I purchased along the way. We recorded everything we saw and everything we saw filled us with joy.

Lunch was around 1 PM. If we are on the road, Matt just pulled over to some nondescript place and open the side of truck and Lucas made lunch. Our menu was the same everyday: lunch meat, cabbage salad, stale bread and tomatoes. One day I heard Erica describer our lunch menu to some other travelers and the way she described it you would’ve thought we were eating from a high end restaurant. Nothing she said was incorrect or embellished but she spoke with so much enthusiasm and loyalty for travel company that I had to stand back and think if we were on the same trip. The food wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad either. That didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care about the food. I was just glad to be in Africa. But I didn’t think I’d ever talk about our food with enthusiasm. I had a moment of respect for Erica. Her enthusiasm was refresh.

We would get back on the truck and we would be off again. But now it was time for a little snooze. I’d sleep until it was just too bothersome to fight off the constant jarring sensation of my head falling off my makeshift head rest.

We would stop again in the afternoon and again see something magnificent. We were always in search of the big five: lions, elephants, rhino, leopard, and cape buffalo. We saw at least one of them each day. And no matter how many lions we saw, each one was a bonus.

We got to a camp site by five and set up our site. Once my tent was up, I liked to take a little nap to celebrate my efforts to get the damn tent up correctly.

Dinner was sometime after six. Matt cooked everything over an open fire and charred everything. At first I attempted to get my meat less charred, then I reconsidered, as I did not want to get food poisoning.
Before and after dinner we would all huddle together around the fire telling stories. We would recap the day and we will try to get Matt to tell us what to expect for the next day. Those of us who were native English speakers told more stories than the others. The quieter members of the group just listened and then encouraged us to keep talking.

Jill and Warren loved to entertain us. Sometimes they would sing. Sometimes they would bring out Erica’s guitar and they broke a string every time they played it. Sometimes they had us playing charades. Sometimes they would insist we share others whiskeys or wine. Whatever we did, we enjoyed each other’s company.

Around 9:30 the group would begin to disburse. Some went to their tents. If there was a bar at the campsite, some wandered over there. Others use this time to catch up on their journal writing. Others ran to the shower in hopes of finding warm water. By 11 o’clock all was quiet.

Once my lights went out, I’d love to lay in my sleeping bag and just listen. Our tent area sounded like the United Nations. When everyone retired to their tents, they returned to using their native language. I would hear all sorts of undistinguished sounds from the Germans and the Italians, the Danish and the French. Jenna and Christina would talk loudly and laugh heartily. I always wondered what they discussed. Lucas would talk Afrikaans to his fellow cooks. They would make a clicking sound with their tongues. I tried to make that sound but I could never master it. Sometimes I couldn’t distinguish one language from the other.
Animal sounds entertained me each night. Each sound seemed as if the animal was walking right outside my tent, just waiting to make me it’s next meal. Hippos could be heard many nights. And during the course of our trip we heard donkeys, baboons, monkeys, warthogs, dogs, hyenas and jackals. One night an elephant wandering around our site. I didn’t want to tangle with any of these animals. I tried to fall asleep in spite of my fears of all of this commotion going on outside. I had to get to sleep. The mornings came too early for my taste.