African Tour

My dance company is going on tour in Africa. That is something I never really expected to say, but always wanted to. That is also an incredibly vague thing to say, like “Let's eat Asian food”. Africa is an enormous continent with at least 54 countries, thousands of different cultures, more than one thousand languages, and hundreds of religions. I will see almost none of it. We are scheduled to perform in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Dar es Salaam. Three countries out of 54, in the far east and deep south. Calling it an African tour sounds disingenuous, like when rock stars go on a “world tour” to the United States, a few cities in Western Europe, and Tokyo.

The people planning this tour have been planning it for years. It would have happened earlier if not for a plague that killed some travel plans in North America and Europe. Fortunately, this was the one plague that was relatively kind to Africa. The total deaths in Kenya are about the same as Idaho. It barely touched Tanzania at all.

We leave on Tuesday. Despite how much I enjoy going to other places, especially places I have never been, and despite how much I have wanted to see bits of Africa for a long time, I am not looking forward to Tuesday. We have a four hour flight from Taipei to Bangkok, which is not so bad. But then we get on a different airline and fly Bangkok to Doha for seven hours. Extra airlines means extra people handling your luggage. The more it changes hands, the more likely it will get lost. We are bringing costumes, sets, and props. Losing those would ruin the entire trip. From Doha, we have an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg. Getting from here to there should take a little over 24 hours. After a night off, we get to work.

The tour ends in Dar es Salaam, but we have to fly back to Nairobi, from which we will fly five and a half hours to Doha, six and a half hours to Bangkok, and three and a half hours to Taipei. It is practically the same route back, except we arrive on the continent in Johannesburg and depart from Nairobi. Despite all the different airports in different countries, my only real concern is that I have an Israeli work visa in my passport and I have to fly through Qatar. They are not exactly best friends, though Qatar has less of a death to Israel stance than some of its neighbors.

According to the schedule, we will have some free time in Cape Town. I need to figure out if there is enough time to visit Kruger National Park. It is on the opposite side of the country from Cape Town, but it is one of the top places on my list. We will not have nearly as much free time in Johannesburg or Durban, which are much closer. Dar es Salaam is right next to Zanzibar, which I would love to go to, but there is probably not enough time. The trickiest part will be trying to extend my stay and hitting a national park or two in Kenya while everyone else flies home. If at all possible, I would really like to see the Serengeti in Tanzania, which is not unrealistically far from Nairobi. Cape Town to Kruger is more of a pipe dream than Nairobi to the Serengeti.

Whatever happens, I predict this will be an exceptional trip. We are cramming far too many places into far too short a time, so who knows how much I will really learn about anything, but it should be a unique experience. If nothing else, I should discover which places I need to go back to off the clock.