I sat in a chair on the prairie, much like the prairie I live on, drinking a beer, with my legs crossed, enjoying my lunch on a fold out table, decorated with a plaid table cloth. Beneath the shade of an umbrella tree.
It was just like where I live.
But it wasn’t.
In the distance, on the horizon, were thousands of zebras. Wildebeests. Ostriches. And out of the blue, Pumbaa (a wort hog) would go trotting in front of us, off to find some food. On the ground were dung beetles doing their daily work.
So… it was just like home… only not so much.
What I got to see on the few days of safari was surreal. And of course catching it on camera the way I saw it was nearly impossible. No matter what kind of camera you have. No matter how good or fancy it is… it will never catch what you actually see. Though, being a portrait photographer, I was an ametuer on the Serengeti. But I sure didn’t care.
And like the rest of the trip, there were parts of safari that surprised me. I was surprised by my own emotions.
We traveled through Maasai country for a couple hours before we got to the Serengeti. It was beautiful and I felt like I was in a parade after waving at all the children along the road. We traveled through goats and cattle and green hills and forests full of umbrella trees. We jumped out of our seat at the first sight of a zebra, which our guide was nonchalant about. We couldn’t figure out why… I mean after all we just saw a ZEBRA! And then we saw, on the horizon giraffes. Off the road we went…to the horizon. And there they were. Tall and magnificent and slow and regal. 9 giraffes. I stood up out of the top of the vehicle and looked around, and in a 360 degree turn I was surrounded by more animals than I could ever count. Zebras. Gazelles. Wildebeests. Giraffes. The Serengeti was for lack of a better word…surreal. The first night we saw more than what I was expecting to see in the entire trip. Including a tortoise.
The thing about nature… it’s harsh. And I learned something about safari trips….. many people are there to watch the hunt. I learned quickly, and unexpectedly, that I cannot just watch animals chase and eat one another. It caught me off guard… my feelings. My head and heart were not prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared to see death in any form. And I saw it, in many forms. And while I realize and fully understand nature is nature, and that is the circle of life, seeing it on TV is one thing, seeing it in real life was something different to me…… it’s said, on the Serengeti, in the morning the gazelle wakes up and knows he must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. The lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. Either way, if you’re a lion or a gazelle, when you wake up in the morning, you must start running.
……….
The Serengeti lingers in my mind.
I think it will for some time to come.
The dust I was covered in at the end of the day. The warmth of the sun, even as it was going down.
How the animals would search for shade at high noon and cuddle together under the smallest of trees just to get out of the heat for a while.
In my mind I see a lion pacing at sundown.
I see an elephant’s slow stroll through the trees.
I see the giraffe stretching it’s gangly but elegant neck to the leaves.
The herds running. The sounds of the hippos as I ate dinner.
The trees unlike the ones at home.
All of it… throngs my imagination thoughts and dreams.
I want to hear about this adventure!