Like many of my friends, family holidays growing up involved staying in gites in France. Baguette, Patisserie, Discotheque, repeat. I have fond memories of these times, and more than a few stories of sleeping in car parks or 24 hour ferry delays. Aged 18, I felt the urge to explore further afield. Not one to do things by half (and much to my mother’s dismay) I set off alone to Johannesburg. After a few days exploring I joined an overland group camping tour with Acacia Africa through East Africa to Nairobi, and – without meaning to be too dramatic – this is really where it all began.
Overlanding is basically piling into a big old truck with 15-20 other adults from around the world, a driver, a tour guide and a batch of tents. You drive, you explore, you camp. If the truck breaks down, you pitch in to fix it. If the truck gets stuck in mud, you pitch in to pull it out. Everyone cooks together and socialises together and shares stories round a campfire. At the time, it was pretty affordable too.
Our route took us from Johannesburg north into Botswana, where we stayed at Elephant Sands - an amazing campsite where you could simultaneously cool your swollen feet in a swimming pool whist watching wild Elephants, giraffes and impala taking turns to drink from the watering hole. Here I encountered the first of the wide open bars of Africa - so called because they were dimensionally enormous, plentifully stocked and dangerously affordable. Shortly after enjoying said bar, I had my first vomiting experience on African soil. I’m still not sure whether it was the copious amounts of alcohol and dancing, the heat, or the cut on my knee which had become infected which caused the sickness but I remember not caring very much because I was having the time of my life.
We crossed into Zambia near Victoria Falls where I had my first flight in a helicopter. My first of the seven natural wonders of the world! Aside from this, my memories of Vic Falls revolve around Savannah Cider and writing postcards in the sun.
Following a few days exploring the falls, we continued diagonally through Zambia, stopping briefly in Lusaka along the way. The truck made overnight stops to camp at several different spots on the beaches of Lake Malawi, where I witnessed the most extraordinary sunrises and sunsets of my life. I had my first experiences of white sand and became very aware of so-called ‘poverty tourism’ after a private village tour. This is a topic I’d love to write about in more depth but feel in order to give an educated view it would be better saved for a dedicated post.
Tanzania was a country I don’t recall ever hearing of before arriving (like I said, the extent of my worldly experience was going just across the border into Northern Spain until this point) - but it’s a country I now think about regularly. If you are looking for the ‘Disney’ African experience, this is where you’ll find it. From the contrasts of open top safari’s to Robber’s beach in Dar Es Salaam (nicknamed thusly due to high crime rates) to the crystal waters of Zanzibar’s northern coast - Tanzania had it all.
One of the most profound moments of the trip, and one that in many ways shaped my academic path, was the day we visited Olduvai Gorge in the north of the country. It is here that is thought to be the birthplace of mankind and the location of the discovery of the oldest stone tools in the world. Until then, I don’t think I’d ever thought very much about what makes us human, but it became a bit of an obsession. So much so that I later went on to study a Masters in Anthropology, specialising in material and visual culture. I’m aware that this is pretty much every cliche that’s ever been written about gap year students going off to ‘find themselves’, but it’s exactly how it went for me - and I count myself very fortunate. It’s a wonder that I can write about it without making myself feel sick, maybe that’s why it’s taken me so long to reflect on it.
In Tanzania and Kenya I discovered another major passion of my life - wildlife, and birds in particular. Neither of my parents had ever had much interest in going on safari and I think I was first attracted to the exoticism of it. I was interested in photography before, and my life-long love affair with David Attenborough was in its infancy. Putting that together with the kind of wildlife you could see on tv really ignited a passion and when I came home I committed much more attention to the wildlife in my local area.
Five months after returning home I was back on an aeroplane with a round-the-world ticket to Australia, New Zealand and Central and South America. I’ve had ‘itchy feet’ ever since!
