Africa by Duffel Bag

We ran the gauntlet of silent auction offerings at the charity function, passing up spa days, nights in hotels, and baskets of booze. Seated at our table, we chatted with pals, sipped Chardonnay, and stuck a fork in organically caught fish. The main event, a live auction, cranked up. I nodded through Wyoming lodge stays, barge trips on the Douro, and New York theater weekends. Bid paddles popped up enthusiastically around us. My Life’s Editor’s paddle lay quiescent in her lap. So far, so good.

“How about an African safari?!” challenged the auctioneer. I smiled, home free. Herself was strictly a first-world enthusiast, favoring toilets that worked, old world charm, and cultures with a romance language. Plus, Africa had gigantic bugs, like the dung beetle, and mosquitoes that carried unpronounceable diseases.

The safari drew a crowd of paddle wavers. The auctioneer announced the winner. He then exclaimed, “Who would like the safari at the same price?!” There was a rustle at my side. A woman was standing, flailing her paddle in the air. It was my wife. A year and four months later we boarded a Delta flight from Atlanta to Cape Town, South Africa.

In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt and son Kermit headed for Africa. Along with them went a crowd of porters, naturalists, and guides. Our African entourage consisted of three: your scribe, My Life’s Editor, and her sister Lucy (better known as a singer in the Moxie San Diego Girl Band.) We carried our own bags and relied on Google to guide us to Ubers and the business class lounge. Teddy’s crew brought many guns, maybe as many as the average Proud Boy keeps in his garage. They killed 512 animals. We took at least that many photos. Roosevelt’s trip was partially sponsored by the Smithsonian, desiring TR to bring back beasts suitable for mounting, some of which no doubt still fester in exhibits today. We were not sponsored by the Smithsonian. We dug deep into our resources to cough up the necessary ducats, reducing the potential stash awaiting our kids upon our demise. Bad luck for them.

The waving paddle developed into a grand enterprise with many moving parts and terabytes of detail, too much for me, who still can’t remember to slip my phone into my pocket when I leave the apartment. It was as if I were waiting at a subway stop in New York and saw the express train fly by in a blur. In My Life’s Editor, I had married my mother, my mother the army wife, who could get all six family members and associated furniture and goods packed and ready to move in a week, immunizations thrown in.

The first order of business was to engage a travel agency. We had bought the safari experience for a week, but since we were flying all that way, why not throw in two more weeks of exploring? Vasco de Gama, Albert Schweitzer, and Ernest Hemingway went to Africa without a travel agency, didn’t have Tripadvisor.  On our own hook, I feared winding up at Camp Lions-R-Us, featuring running water on days beginning with a “T” and do-it-yourself excursions into carnivore country. We found Audley Travel, on whose virtual chest we would eventually pin 5-stars. I made it clear that we would not be renting cars. In South Africa, like Britain, they drive on the wrong side of the road. I still wake up in a cold sweat, picturing a lorry ripping off my side-view mirror as it passes me going the other way on a Cotswold road. Besides, with Lucy, I would have had to deal with two editors providing driving advice.

We went to the Florida Department of Health for a sit-down with an RN informing us on the ways we could die or become seriously ill in Africa. We learned mosquitos are the enemy, that a slathering of Deet and a burqa would about keep you safe, although not do much for deterring beasts of prey. Since we were going to Botswana as well as South Africa, malaria pills were necessary, plus polio and typhoid vaccinations. Yellow fever, measles, and rabies, though available elsewhere in Africa if you were interested, weren’t in the picture in Botswana. She drew a squiggly line through The Donald’s drug of choice, hydroxychloroquine. Malaria, as well as COVID-19, sneered at hydroxychloroquine. Before seeing us off, she gave us printed materials that warned us against eating certain things (bush meat?) and drinking certain things, with a final admonishment to wash our hands frequently and not touch our eyes, nose, or mouth. We crept out of the building in fear and dove for the hand sanitizer in the glove compartment.

Our side trip for a safari in Botswana in the Okavango Delta led Audley Travel to make the following comment:

While on safari, many camps and lodges are only accessible by light aircraft. …… All luggage must be packed in small, flexible, soft-sided bags in order to fit into the aircraft’s limited cargo pod … [with] a weight limit of 20 kg (44 lbs),including hand luggage.

Wait. You mean we would have to pack three weeks of clothes into a duffel bag and a backpack? Cape Town had 50-degree weather and Botswana, 1400 km away, had 80-degree weather. We needed bush gear to ride Toyota Land Cruisers and track elephants. We needed clothes to hang out in swank lodges and restaurants. Life is not all wildebeests and warthogs in South Africa. Plus, we needed iPads and assorted electronics to keep up with the Tampa Bay Rays for three weeks.

In the days leading up to Africa, My Life’s Editor inhaled every scary tale of misdirected and lost luggage. We resolved to not check our baggage on the way over. We tottered up to airways grumbling, tugging straps, casting envious eyes on passengers with roll-ons. Fellow business class travelers were dismayed by our sweaty struggles to stash duffels in overhead bins. “Who let these people on?”

Three weeks later homeward bound, Africa behind us, we handed our bags over to British Airways in Johannesburg. With any luck we would never see the bags again.