What I have realized with this whole safari trip is that it's completely different than anything else I've ever done, even in terms of waiting. Ordinarily, my pre-trip waiting would be filled by scoping out cities I'll be visiting and learning the transportation system, finding the restaurants and museums and things I'd want to do and see. Not so safari. I have nothing to organize and plan, no restaurants to find, no walking tours to find. All the work's been done for me. Other than packing (which admittedly, could be a pain) it's all over but one yellow fever shot, a malaria prescription and the trip itself! Yikes!
We're under 90 days now, which is sort of stunning. A trip of this magnitude, with this much expectation around it, is under three months away. And with six weeks of holiday season coming up, a lot of that will fly by. It's unreal.
So my immediate concerns are to find a large duffle (no wheels) and hiking shoes that are waterproof. I think I've found some, so it's a matter of following up on that.
I watched a great documentary called Milking the Rhino which gets into how the Maasai tribes in Africa have embraced the commercialism that tourism brings, and have gone so far as having stopped killing the wildlife that tourists come on safari to see, sustain the wilderness that wildlife lives in and even have started their own safari lodges. It was actually pretty interesting, but also sobering in that it shows how they live, how rudimentary life is for them there, but also how vast and insanely gorgeous that land is.
And yes, I guess you could say, I'm a little excited!
