Go on an African safari

“The one that got me most was the driving. Nobody tells you that a full day safari can involve sitting in a vehicle for five to seven hours across terrain that would rattle the fillings out of your teeth(African Massage, the locals literally called it this.),and that finding the thing you drove two hours to see sometimes means sitting completely still and quiet for forty five minutes waiting for it to move into a viewable position. I was not mentally prepared for that level of patience being required and I think most first timers aren’t either. The Instagram version of safari is essentially a highlight reel of every sighting from every day compressed into one perfect afternoon. What that doesn’t show you is the long stretches of open plains with nothing moving, the mid morning lull when every animal has found shade and gone completely still, the drives where the most exciting thing you see is a secretary bird.”

“When I first found out that I was going on a safari, I asked my sister for her professional camera that has a 50X zoom. I imagined the animals would be far away from us. So it really surprised me to actually get to see them up-close. We stopped the vehicle next to the white rhinoceros and the guide explained the signs they give off if they don’t like our presence. At one point, a family of buffalos even walked right by us – as if we were not even there.”

“We started in the morning when it was quite cold outside, and we went on a convertible 4x4 vehicle, so we could see the animals. [...] She stopped the vehicle very close to the rhinoceroses and explained some things about them, why they are called white, even though they have the same color as the black ones, she pointed to their ears that were moving independently etc. At one point, one of the rhinoceroses that were laying on the ground had gotten up and everybody became a little frightened.”