Letter from East Africa: In the Bush

One in a series

Standing in our idling bush vehicle — binoculars, photo zoom-lenses and smartphones at the ready — we admired the long, delicate lashes of doe-eyed giraffes calmly munching off the tops of acacia trees with a socialite’s stately grace. 

We watched a mother Cape Buffalo make a desperate charge to defend her calf from a hyena’s stealth attack, spied a pride of young lions dozing on the elongated limbs of a favorite tree, and faced off a bull elephant who didn’t quite know what to make of our intrusion into his territory, his manner suggesting he was ready to charge.

And we had to work pretty damned hard for every bit of it.

To truly experience wildest Africa, we couldn’t just stream the latest Discovery Channel animal documentary, enjoying Sir David Attenborough’s dulcet narration, watching dramatic closeup footage of predators and prey in their domain that no doubt took some indefatigable professional cameraman weeks and even months to capture.

Such exclusive access required interminably long international flights that veered far too close to a part of the world where war loomed, as we passed over the mosques of Istanbul to reach the teeming traffic of workaday world Nairobi. 

We boarded tiny propeller planes that for 40 bumpy minutes seemed to turn life into such a precarious leap of faith you could appreciate the last thoughts that might have passed through Buddy Holly’s mind.

Not just that, but we were prodded and jostled in third-world airports barely organized to handle bureaucracy on a good day, let alone the exhaustive paperwork required to negotiate the Age of Covid.

Then there were the rutted, bone-jarring, cavity-loosening muddy tracks that were our only roads into this animal kingdom, at times blocked by curious zebra who seemed like bouncers demanding to check our IDs for entrance into the club.

Each morning came the dreaded 5 a.m. wakeup calls so we would be out on the savanna at first light, the last good opportunity for the killers to pounce before the sleepiness of midday, our best chance to see the entire empire rise and shine and stretch graceful limbs that are still wild, still within the realm of preservation.

We weren't exactly 19th Century explorers but, then again, Joseph Conrad never had to land in Kilimanjaro Airport after midnight amid a frantic scrum of new arrivals who discovered they had to complete another complication form on the their smartphones right there on the runway tarmac, under the stars.

It was like being a Buffalo Bills football fan in January: To witness the game, to sit in that stadium close to your gridiron heroes, you had to endure all the snow and ice and misery nature can dish out.

And so we did.

Our game featured lions chasing down gazelles, leopards taking on the wildebeests and the hyenas stalking any opponent that moved. 

In the end, we got to see it all.

Not only that, we were privileged to meet the residents of both Kenya and Tanzania, especially the elegant Masai people, the safari staff who made it all happen.

They drove our vehicles, pointed out distant wildlife we would have never spotted with our own eyes and then went on to interpret what we were witnessing.

Back in camp, they cooked our meals and, spears in hand, led us to our bush tents at night to protect us against any marauding predators.

And we ain’t just talking about snakes in these grasses.

So this is a shout out to Julius and Simon, to Shadrack and the Big Man, who not only endured our antics but also protected our lives.

In the coming posts, I’ll write about the misadventures of John and Tom (aka Homer Simpson), two friends and veteran journalists whose humor can best be appreciated by eighth-grade miscreants caught smoking in the boys room.

And then there’s Chris, the grand dame of the entire escapade, an 82-year-old adventuress with the derring-do and pert modern haircut of a young Amelia Earhart, who happens to be Tom’s sister-in-law.

We were 13 in all, from different tribes and walks of life, but in the end, I think, we became fast friends, leaning on one another to cope with all that chaos that Mother Africa had to dish out.

Our guide was a crack Orange County photographer who’d grown up in East Africa and each year brought back tour groups to experience the wild wonders of his beloved homeland.

Seeing the Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater through Paul Renner’s veteran eyes was itself worth the price of admission.

I’m not quite sure what actually walked out of the Alaska Airlines arrival corridor at San Francisco International Airport that day.

It’s actually an image I have fought hard to repress since it first burned into my retinas several weeks ago — equal parts Crocodile Dundee and comedian John Candy on crack.

My old buddy Tom had arrived at the departure point for our two-week African adventure wearing a wide-brimmed hat, bush jacket and matching cargo pants, the entire buffoonish ensemble a pukey shade of green, his brown slip-on Sketchers shoes with the price tag still attached.

This was either a well-fed praying mantis or some whacked-out Captain Kangaroo lookalike who’d escaped from his TV set, or asylum. 

Ahhh, my friend, Tom, I thought.

Homer Simpson on Safari.

Why on earth had I agreed to accompany this Safari Man on his bucket list trip to Africa? But it was too late. I’d already forked over enough dough to finance a small house in Buffalo, gotten my Yellow Fever vaccine and was several pills into my malarial regimen.

Now, Tom has always been a right complex piece of work, a burly, hairy man the girls all call a big Teddy Bear, his schtick a playful and borderline obnoxious routine of getting into people's faces with a goofy grin that made him a top-notch interviewer. 

As a journalist, Tom compelled people to talk to him — if only to make him go away.

He was on his A-game from the get-go. At a Chinese restaurant the night before our takeoff, he harassed an innocent family minding their own business.

“Is that seat taken?” he asked, pointing. “Is that meat taken?”

“Oh!” he said when yanked away like a vaudeville comedian getting the hook. “Am I being naughty?”

The following day, receiving his first free drink in business class, he told the flight attendant he was opening a tab. When handed a complimentary toiletry bag, he gushed, “What a nice gift! But I have nothing to offer you!”

I settled into my seat, feeling the buzz of my first international trip in years, boozy from the red wine and the anticipation of what was to come. I watched the movie “Nomadland” on the inflight entertainment system, nodding at one character’s sage advice about seizing the day:

“Don’t die with that sailboat out in the driveway."

Just then, Homer leaned over. "Just so you know,” he slurred into my ear. “I am metaphorically in love with every flight attendant on this plane.”

In Istanbul’s gleaming new airport, Tom and Chris were whisked off by a pair of dashing young men piloting motorized wheelchairs, leaving me to huff and puff to keep up with my luggage.

At 82, Chris deserved both the convenience and the privilege. As for Homer, maybe one of the aides assessed his girth and felt sorry for him. 

Crowded into an elevator, I entertained the wheelchair boys by lifting Tom’s shirt to show off his hairy missing-link back. He scratched and grunted gorilla-like, as part of the act. 

Later, I would learn the Swahili name for my friend, Kumbili, which meant either ape, baboon or monkey, with Tom fitting the description of all three. He was so impressed with the men's bathroom in the Turkish Airlines lounge that he texted his wife that it was perfect for going both numbers 1 and 2.

Between all three of us — Tom, Chris and I — we were a trio of late-autumn chickens who had at best one full intact memory between us. At each document checkpoint, (and by the time we were done there seemed to be literally hundreds of them) we scrambled to locate forms and receipts we’d seemed to have safely clutched in hand only moments before.

Finally, sometime after 4 a.m., 24 hours after we’d started, we arrived in Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Passing last of several bureaucratic way stations, I looked back to see Chris right behind me in her wheelchair.

But where on earth was Homer?

Then I spotted him: kneeling on the floor, the contents of his luggage spread before him, frantically trying to locate his certificate confirming a negative Covid test.

At last, no doubt feeling sorry for him, the female attendant calmly patted him on the back and let him pass.

“Just go,” she said.

It was like a school teacher passing a hopelessly underachiever just so she’d seen the last of him.

Finally, we were on the ground in East Africa.