African Tour:Lake Nakuru National Park

From Amboseli, Edgar drove me north to Lake Nakuru National Park. This was our single longest drive together outside of any park. The distance between the two is over 350km. It took a little over six hours. For the first half of the drive, I stretched out in the back of the van. During the second half, I stuck my head out the roof. This was also the closest I came to the equator. Lake Nakuru is just over 30km from the equator. Everything else in Kenya was at least 150km south of Lake Nakuru, and South Africa is nowhere near the equator.

The Great Rift Valley cuts all the way through Kenya. At Amboseli, and even Nairobi, the roads are more or less flat. The highest peak in Amboseli is 30 meters, which is a little ironic when you consider that most people associate the park with Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. If you drive west of Nairobi, you hit the Great Rift Valley and the scenery gets a lot more interesting.

During the drive, we took a break on the side of a cliff. Edgar said it was so I could admire the scenery. I think he just needed a break from driving. We sat on rocks in silence while I stared at the valley with an ice cold Pepsi. It was a short break and nothing happened, but it was one of those nice little moments in life.

Lake Nakuru National Park was the smallest park I went to, maybe even the smallest national park in Kenya. While every other park or reserve was out in the wilderness, Lake Nakuru is practically a suburb of Nairobi, completely surrounded by civilization. If it were not a protected national park, all the animals would be gone and the lake would probably be dry by now. The lake itself is about the same size as Pelican Lake in Northern Minnesota. The park is a small ring around the lake. Since no rivers touch the lake, its size depends on how much rain it gets.

The main attraction at Lake Nakuru are the million flamingos that migrate for the algae. It is also one of the easiest places to spot rhinos. Lake Nakuru has 70 white and 25 black rhinos. Kruger has larger numbers, but they are spread out over a much larger area. Lake Nakuru's rhinos graze out in the open. If you drive around the lake, you are going to see rhinos.

I spent two nights at Lake Nakuru Lodge. That did not sound like enough time to me at first, but Lake Nakuru is pretty small. You can easily drive around the entire park in a day. An extra day is good to make more stops, and when you include the beginning of the day before you arrive and the end of the day after you leave, one day would not be enough.

Lake Nakuru Lodge was more or less the same as Ol Tukai, only much smaller and cheaper looking. The main building, lobby, and restaurant were smaller, though the gift shop was larger. It was harder to tell where most of the guest rooms were, but I really did not care. Once again, I was in a small cottage away from the main building. Instead of a front patio, these cottages had tiny balconies in the back. The views were not as good, but at least they faced the park. The Ol Tukai cottage was larger and nicer, but I spent most of my time awake and out of the room anyway. The one thing the Lake Nakuru Lodge had over Ol Tukai was the swimming pool. Lake Nakuru Lodge's swimming pool was bigger and better. More importantly, it has a jacuzzi. Relaxing in bubbling water is always a good idea after a long day of driving around, no matter where in the world you are.

Everyone goes to Lake Nakuru for the flamingos, and there are plenty of them. The lake also attracts thousands of pelicans, storks, and other birds. As the only real source of water in the park, all the animals go to the lake. Compared to other national parks and reserves in Kenya, Lake Nakuru is a little unimpressive. But it is the easiest place to see a wide variety of animals all gathered together in one place. Everyone spreads out in the larger parks. At Lake Nakuru, they are all at the same lake.

The most unusual thing that happened at Lake Nakuru was when a cop asked us for a bribe. We were driving away from the lake when a park ranger stopped us. The ranger got out of his jeep, came up to the van, and looked at me for a while. He never asked me for ID or even spoke to me at all. He wrote something in his notepad and told Edgar to get out of the van. It was almost like a traffic stop, except we were driving slowly on a dirt road in the middle of a national park with absolutely no traffic whatsoever.

Edgar and the ranger had a conversation well out of my earshot. Not that I would have understood their language anyway. When Edgar came back to the van, we drove away as if nothing had happened. When I asked him what that was all about, he calmly told me that the ranger wanted a bribe. The way he said it was more than a little sad. It was just another day at the office to Edgar. I wondered if Edgar's company budgeted for such things or if he had to pay out of his own pocket. I also wondered if such a thing was as common as I suspected. I never asked Edgar about it because I did not want to embarrass him. This was his country and these were his people. I also know that my country is a glass house, so maybe I should not throw any stones.

Lake Nakuru is worth a visit, but it really is more of a bird lover's paradise than anything else. I have nothing against birds, but I am not especially interested in them either. Phil and Margi, the owners of the Blue Jay Lodge in Hazyview were big bird fans. Maybe not Big Bird fans, but bird enthusiasts. They were always trying to tell us the best places to spot this or that bird. I think they would love Lake Nakuru.

African Tour:Amboseli National Park

Four hours south of Nairobi, our first stop was Amboseli National Park. About the size of Denver, Amboseli is pretty small compared to other national parks. Kruger National Park is more than fifty times larger. But Amboseli has something Kruger and Denver never will. Not only is it one of the best places in the world to see a couple thousand elephants in the wild, it also has the best views of Mount Kilimanjaro. The mountain is in Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania, but the view from that side looks nothing like the famous view from Amboseli.

Since Mount Kilimanjaro is a volcano, it is flanked by volcanic rock that has been feeding the ample vegetation that feeds all the animals in the area. The ice cap also provides an almost endless supply of fresh water. Lake Amboseli only has water during the rainy season, but the entire park is pretty much a swamp. Animals need not gather at one place to drink, which is much safer for most of them.

I spent four nights at the Ol Tukai Lodge. The main building had a lobby, gift shop, and a large two story restaurant with scenic views from any seat around the outer edge. There were some standard hotel rooms near the main building. I stayed in one of the small cottages on the outskirts of the property. From the cottage patio, I could sit and watch the elephants walk along the fence line. There was an electric fence around the perimeter of the lodge that, while practically invisible, kept out the elephants and most mammals. Except baboons. They do whatever they want to do. The lodge also had a swimming pool that was not all that impressive. I never really had time for a swim anyway. The lodge was not exactly in the middle of the park, but Amboseli was small enough that driving from one end to the other did not take long.

My first day at Amboseli was short since we had to drive in from Nairobi. Edgar drove me to the lodge and helped me check in, which was unnecessary. Everyone who worked at Ol Tukai spoke English. Then he disappeared for a while so I could settle in and have lunch. I never asked him where he went when he was gone. That was none of my business. Right on time, he picked me up and we went out for an afternoon drive.

Like most game parks, mornings and evenings were the best times at Amboseli. Afternoons were best spent taking a break at the lodge. But I had only just arrived. I wanted to experience this new environment. Edgar seemed just as excited to show me everything as I was to see it. Up to this point, I only knew him as a driver. He wanted to show off his animal tracking skills.

Since Amboseli is the premier site to see elephants, it was only appropriate that my first dramatic animal encounter was with an elephant. We were in the van watching a group of gazelles when Edgar noticed two rather large male elephants walking toward our general direction. They were more than a few yards away and we were not directly in their path, but Edgar decided to back the van up a little just to give them plenty of space. As soon as we moved, the elephant in the front turned so that we would be directly in their path. He was not moving quickly or displaying any aggression, but he clearly altered his path on purpose. When Edgar backed up even further, the elephant changed course again. Edgar thought he wanted to show us who was boss. What the elephant never knew was that we had no intention of challenging him. Edgar was prepared to back that van up as far as it took. Wherever we were, that was where he wanted to be. When the giant elephant got close enough to charge us, Edgar simply drove away. As long as we were parked, we would always be in his way. By leaving, we let him know he won.

Finding elephants was easy. They were everywhere. I could look out the window of my cottage and sooner or later a group of elephants would walk past. I wanted to see a leopard. I have no particular interest in leopards, but I saw the rest of the Big Five at Kruger. Edgar's mission was to find me a leopard, though he warned me that afternoon was the worst possible time. We would be more likely to see one the next morning or maybe later that evening.

While we saw no leopards that afternoon, we came across a few prides of lions, a gang of buffalo, a cackle of hyenas, a confusion of wildebeest, a couple coalitions of cheetahs, a few herds of impalas, several towers of giraffes, multiple zeals of zebras, and more elephants than I could count. The predators were mostly napping, so the herbivores used the afternoon lull to go about their business.

Near the beginning of my leopard quest, we were driving around the savannah when Edgar said he might have spotted a leopard lying in the tall grass under a tree on the ridge over in the distance. He pointed and I could barely see the tree. I thought he was just trying to make himself look good. There was no way he could see anything that far away. We drove to the ridge and the tree became more obvious. It was still impossible to see if anything was in the grass. He slowed down when we got close and told me that the leopard must have run away. Yeah, right. The camouflaged leopard that he magically saw lying down just happened to leave right before we got there. Then he pointed out how the grass under the tree was flattened, as if something had been lying there. He also showed me the fresh claw marks on the tree. I got less skeptical pretty quickly. Obviously, something had been there. Maybe not a leopard, but whatever it was, Edgar saw it from a respectable distance.

In addition to his excellent eyesight, Edgar used his phone to keep in contact with other guides throughout the park. They all let each other know where to find something interesting, right after they showed their customers first.

One of the benefits to sleeping in the park was that I could be there before the gates opened in the morning and after they closed at night. We would take full advantage of that on other days, but Edgar thought we should take it easy on the first day. I had flown in from Dar es Salaam, which is not all that far, and we had driven from Nairobi. It was a bit of a long day. He was also mindful of how much and how often my people like to eat. I tried to explain that I do not need three jumbo meals each day, but he knew that I was American. He wanted to make sure I was back at the lodge before they stopped serving dinner.

The Ol Tukai Lodge was also used to dealing with western foreigners. There was always more than enough food for everyone. Though in the heart of East Africa, the menu was more intercontinental than anything else, with nothing too unfamiliar to North Americans and Western Europeans. They had a wide array of alcohol available at the small bar that could be taken or delivered anywhere on the property, and more than a few signs warning guests not to feed the monkeys.

That first night at Amboseli was the first time I really noticed the night sky. I had been in the Southern Hemisphere ever since we landed in Johannesburg, but most of that time was spent in cities. Even at Kruger, we were generally indoors and asleep by the time it got truly dark. After dinner at Amboseli, I sat with a drink on my cottage patio and looked up at the stars. There was little point in looking out to the savannah since it was pitch dark. There were elephants out there. I could hear them. But I could not even see the fence line, let alone all the animals on the other side, The sky was the only thing visible beyond the lodge lights. I have never been much of an expert when it comes to astronomy, but I could always find the Big Dipper. Until this night. There was also no North Star, though the Southern Cross was clear as day. Or night. It occurred to me that I did not even know the names of any Southern Hemisphere constellations. Everything I have ever heard about the constellations has always been about what is visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

Our first full day at Amboseli started early in the morning. That was fine with me. Edgar seemed to be as much of a morning person as I was. Or at least he faked it well when he was on the clock. While driving around, he got a call from one of his guide friends that some lions were hunting a wildebeest. This was exactly the sort of thing you could only see in the early morning and evening hours, and what most visitors wanted to see. I never really understood that part. I was there to see the animals as much as the next person, but I had no particular interest in watching them eat each other. Lions frolicking in nature were always more interesting to me than lions gorging on breakfast.

Edgar rushed us to the hunt site. By the time we got there, the money shot was over. I saw a pride of lions feast on a wildebeest carcass. Edgar was a little confused when I did not take any pictures. Next to a dramatic kill shot, this was what the tourists wanted to see. I told him that I wanted to experience the environment, not any specific event. He suddenly realized that his job just got a lot easier. If only he could find a leopard.

By lunchtime, we were nowhere near the lodge. Edgar gave me two options. He could drive me back to the lodge for lunch, where I could take a break from the afternoon heat, or we could have a bit of a picnic and make it a full day. I was out and about and saw no reason to stop, so we ate lunch under an acacia tree. He kept a cooler in the van, from which we ate yogurt and cheese. He also had a bag of bread and other snacks. The highlight of lunch was an ice cold Pepsi. He had Pepsi in the cooler because I bought myself one when we stopped at a local grocery store on the drive from Nairobi to Amboseli. I am not a big Pepsi fan, but the store's selection was limited. They only had a few drinks and even fewer were chilled. I wanted a cold drink. A bottle of Pepsi was the easiest option. From that moment on, Edgar made sure to keep ice cold Pepsi on hand.

The ice cold part is important. It got a little warm on the savannah in the middle of the day. Several people warned me that it would be hot at Amboseli and all the other game parks during the rainy season. Since it was the rainy season, it might also be a little humid, though it was never going to rain every day. But I live in Taiwan. Kenya humidity is nothing by comparison, and the temperature never went above 30 degrees. The biggest adjustment was how much it dropped at night. In Taiwan, hot days lead to warm nights. In Kenya, cold nights were more than possible.

Photograph by Diana Robinson
As much as I liked Kruger, Amboseli quickly became my favorite national park. Having a professional guide made all the difference, as did sleeping inside the park. After the gates closed, we could still drive around. Spotting animals is far more difficult at night, but the park itself is beautiful during and right after the sun sets. After Edgar went home for the day, the lodge was large enough for a nighttime walk. I have no idea what Kruger sounds like in the middle of the night, but I can tell you that the animals of Amboseli never close. It was almost like camping, only with elephants and lions instead of crickets and owls.

African Tour:Nairobi Again

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Nairobi, Kenya
Dar es Salaam was the final leg of our big African Tour. Once finished, we all flew back to Nairobi. From Nairobi, everyone else flew out of Africa and slowly made their way east. I had other plans.

Kruger National Park was great, but it felt unfinished. Driving around on our own, we only saw bits and pieces. I knew right away that a trained professional could have shown us far more. Under most circumstances, I will always choose to go exploring rather than to take a guided tour. Where I live, tour guides spend more time at the gift shops than at whatever everyone is there to see. Most sights will never give a tour guide a percentage of sales. Plenty of nearby shops will.

Kenya has more than its fair share of national parks. It also has hundreds of registered companies that can show you around. Finding the right one probably takes a great deal of research. Unless you meet someone in Cape Town whose cousin is a safari guide licensed by the Kenya Wildlife Service. It only took one phone call for me to know this was the right guy. He knew what he was talking about and did not hesitate to tell me when my plans were unrealistic.

I had a list of places I wanted to see, including the Serengeti, the Maasai Mara, Tsavo East National Park, Amboseli National Park, Mount Kenya, and Lake Victoria. Edgar pointed out that seeing all of those places in one trip would take considerably more time than I had. He explained the travel times, how long I should stay at each place, and what I would see where.

We created a more realistic itinerary: Amboseli, Lake Nakuru, the Massai Mara, and Serengeti. From Nairobi, Amboseli is south, Lake Nakuru is north, the Massai Mara is west, and the Serengeti is southwest. The most logical course would be to drive in a big circle, but you have to take into consideration the best times to visit each park and how crowded they are going to be. Looking at a map, I would say it makes sense to go clockwise from Nairobi. That would make Lake Nakuru the last stop. Wisely, Edgar wanted the Serengeti to be the last park I saw. I also realized after the fact that making Amboseli the first stop was a brilliant move.

Edgar picked me up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport just after five in the morning. My flight got in extra early because everyone else was taking another flight to Doha. He did not seem to mind the early hour. In fact, most of our time together would be spent earlier in the day rather than later. We were going to national parks. Just like Kruger, they all opened their gates around sunrise and closed at sunset. The difference this time was that I would be sleeping inside the parks. Edgar picked me up in the morning, drove me around all day, and dropped me off in the evening.

When we loaded my bags into his van, I wondered where everyone else was. In general, safari companies like to cram in as many people as possible, unless you pay extra for a private tour. I did not. But I got one anyway. That was my bonus for knowing his cousin. I loved the idea of not being in a crowd, but wondered if this was the kind of thing I should be doing alone. More often than not, I prefer to share life's more interesting experiences with other people. On the other hand, my travel companions at Kruger were kind of a pain in the ass. There are advantages to not wasting time doing something someone else wants to do or following their bathroom schedule. Since this turned out to be a private safari, I could do whatever I wanted, pending Edgar's advice.

I also wondered why we were in a van. I was expecting a jeep. Whenever you see pictures of people on safari, they are in a big, open jeep. Edgar took me everywhere in a white Toyota Hi Ace van. That turned out to be pretty convenient. It had a roof that popped up like a camper van, without the tent, so I could stand and get unobstructed views of everything. I could also stand and sing “Born To Be Wild” while driving through the savannah. Some of the drives between parks were a little long, but as the only passenger in a nine seat van, I had plenty of room to stretch out. The van also had more room than a jeep for my luggage. Unlike most people that Edgar picked up from the airport in Nairobi, I had just come from several other cities in Kenya and South Africa. I left as much of my luggage with the company as I could, but I still had more than I needed.

African Tour:Mombasa

Moi International Airport
Mombasa, Kenya
After barely any time in Nairobi, we flew from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Moi International Airport in Mombasa. Moi just might be the least interesting airport I have ever seen. It looks like an old roadside motel on the outside and a bus station on the inside. The drive from the airport lacked any scenery, despite crossing two bridges and driving over an island.

We all stayed in several apartments relatively close to each other in the Nyali neighborhood of Kisauni. Nyali is generally considered one of the better neighborhoods in Mombasa with the best beaches. Our apartment was largely forgettable. One of the reasons I prefer to stay in houses and apartments is because they usually have more charm than some generic hotel room. This apartment disproved that theory.

As with Nairobi, we worked every day in Mombasa. There was little time for sightseeing. I think I left Mombasa with even less of an impression than I got from Nairobi. At least in Nairobi I had some interesting interactions with the locals. Everyone in Mombasa pretty much stayed away from us.

We saw a few sights. Everyone who goes to Mombasa visits Fort Jesus on Mvita Island. Fort Jesus was built by the Portuguese 400 years ago and was controlled by everyone from the Portuguese to the British to various Arab sultans. As forts go, it is not particularly big, which might be one reason it was so easily captured over the years.

Old Town
My most interesting tourist adventure in Mombasa was walking along the narrow streets in Old Town. Nothing eventful happened, but I always like to see how people live in a place I have never been, especially if I am staying in a building or neighborhood most of them could never afford. The fancier your hotel, the farther removed you are from the real world around you. Mombasa reminded me of Bali in that regard. Not that the two places felt anything alike, but we stayed in a private villa on Bali that the people who cleaned would have to save up to afford. I have no idea how much the apartment in Mombasa cost. Hopefully less than the villa on Bali by the look of it. But it was probably more expensive than most of the houses I saw in Old Town.

Nyali Beach
Like all the foreigners in Mombasa, we went to the beach. Nyali Beach is generally considered the nicest in Mombasa. There was certainly nothing wrong with it. But after the beaches in Cape Town, it was nothing special. It was like going to the Hong Kong Museum of Art right after the Louvre. Something Nyali had that I do not recall ever seeing on any previous beach were camels. More than a few enterprising capitalists brought their camels to the beach so tourists could ride them. This is more common in Kenya than I would have expected. One of my favorite afternoons in Cape Town was riding a horse in Kommetjie. Oddly enough, none of us were as interested in riding a camel.

African Tour:Nairobi

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Nairobi, Kenya
After a few days at Kruger National Park and driving around the Mpumalanga countryside, Nairobi was like a different world. Not only is it by far the largest city in Kenya, it is also the gateway to all of the country's national parks and reserves. Everyone who goes to Kenya goes through Nairobi. The mix of international tourists and more locals than any other city in Kenya makes for an interesting, and a little tense, atmosphere.

The entire company stayed at the Sarova Stanley Hotel in the Central Business District. I always preferred houses and apartments, but this was not a bad hotel. It was a little less generic than typical business hotels and it was smack dab in the middle of the CBD. The hotel had a swimming pool that I never got a chance to use, a restaurant that I only saw at breakfast, and a tiny gym that most of us ignored because it was pretty much useless.

Nairobi at its best.
Just outside the hotel was the Jamia Mosque, Kenya National Archives, and Memorial Peace Museum. A little farther away was the Nairobi National Museum. As with most mosques, heathens are not allowed inside the Jamia Mosque. The outside was surprisingly unimpressive. The Kenya National Archives houses the “largest Pan-African art gallery in Africa”. The Memorial Peace Museum is a small memorial to those who died when the American embassy was blown up in 1998. The Nairobi National Museum is a larger than expected natural history museum that focuses exclusively on Sub-Saharan Africa. Between the hotel and the museum was the Maasai Market on the banks of the Nairobi River. It was like any other handmade tourist crap market, but it felt more authentic, for some reason.

We were only in Nairobi for a few days and we worked on all of them. That left little time for exploring, except late at night and early in the morning. The hotel staff told us not to go out after 22:00. They were not even subtle about it. They just came out and said it was too dangerous for foreigners. The CBD is supposed to be the safest part of the city. The hotel staff disagreed.

Not that any of us were going to get murdered if we walked outside the hotel at night. Probably just robbed. Scams are exceptionally popular in Nairobi. We were warned about fake police wanting to check our passports, strangers claiming this ATM is broken and we should use that one over there, good samaritans telling us some tourist sight is closed that day and offering an alternative, friendly people trying to start conversations while their accomplice picks our pockets, and the old international favorite, shady taxi drivers who take you some place you really do not want to go.

One of my favorite scams was one none of us had to worry about. Apparently, some children in Nairobi will approach strange men and loudly claim to be the child they abandoned. The goal is to embarrass the “father” enough to give them some money to go away. Since we were all women, and did not look at all like any of the children, none of us saw that one first hand.

Having already traveled a bit before we reached Nairobi, I was not unfamiliar with the concept of nefarious locals who prey on naive tourists. I met a few taxi drivers in Bangkok who were not entirely honest and was told by a local that the Grand Palace was closed while I was walking away from just visiting the Grand Palace. Stealing my passport is difficult in any country since I never take it with me when I wander around a city, I only use secure ATMs, and I have spent enough time in New York to know how to defend against pickpockets.

Even so, I encountered two obvious scammers in my brief time in Nairobi. One was a middle age man claiming to be an undercover police officer. He never asked to see my passport, but he showed me his badge for about a tenth of a second. From what little I saw, it looked homemade. I know nothing about Kenyan police, but there was nothing about this guy that made me believe he was legitimate. His cheap suit was too large and the way he carried himself looked like someone who had never gone through any military or self-defense training.

Our conversation went something like this:

Scammer: Are you lost?

Me: Not yet.

Scammer: It is not safe in the street.

This was in broad daylight on a reasonably crowded road.

Scammer: I can help you find the way.

Me: To San Jose? Do you know Burt?

Scammer (completely ignoring everything I say): The American embassy is moved. (pointing) It is now that way.

I never said anything about going to any embassy or that I was American. But to a lot of people, if you are white, you must be American.

Scammer: My car can take you.

Me: Pass.

I turned around and walked away. The entire exchange happened too quickly for me to fully realize that he was trying to get me into his car. I prefer not to think about why.

I looked it up later and they did move the American embassy. In 2003. We were relatively close to the old site, which is now a monument to the 1998 bombing.

The second scammer was a longer conversation, but one I still do not understand. I was maybe half a kilometer east of the hotel when a man roughly my age told me he worked at my hotel. He never mentioned the name. He only called it “your hotel” or “the hotel”. He said he worked in the kitchen and was getting ready to make my breakfast. It all sounded completely innocuous at first, other than his refusal to use the hotel's name. I talked to him for a while because, in the highly unlikely event he actually did work for the hotel, he might have some good stories to tell. The people who work behind the scenes are usually the most interesting. Unfortunately, when I asked him for directions back to the hotel, he pointed south.

After some small talk, he asked me if I could help him move some boxes. This really caught me off guard. He said it was for my breakfast, so it was only fair that I helped. I wondered if he had ever met an American tourist before. The more I declined his offer, the more upset he got. He really wanted help moving those boxes. In the end, I walked away, just as I had with the undercover police officer. The good news about Nairobi scammers is that they take no for an answer.

I understand what the fake cop was after. He wanted me to get into his car. I have no idea what the fake hotel employee wanted. Unless he legitimately wanted me to help him move boxes.

Nairobi on any given day.

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.