— Patti Schatz
The phrase “African Photo Safari” evokes exotic images for me. Nearly four decades ago, when we went, it was even more intriguing.
My sister, my husband and our three-year-old daughter and I took the required shots. We had to take quinine tablets for weeks before, during the trip, and weeks after our return. Adults had only to swallow a coated tablet. Kimberly had to take a smaller dose; we had to cut the tablets in half. Since she would not swallow them, she had to chew them up. I allowed her to eat all the M&Ms she wanted after she took the pill. She confessed to me years later that the pills were so bitter that she did not eat M&Ms for years.
We spent our first night in a luxury hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, similar to a luxury hotel in the US or Europe.
We spent our first day after Nairobi in a special safari van. Open windows were our climate control system as we bumped along on a series of potholes held together with ruts.
Finally our guide announced a welcome rest stop. It consisted of a rough wooden six-foot fence, surrounding….. a hole in the ground. On this hot, still, sunny day, it was not “spring-time-fresh”. Kimberly thought it was great fun, however.
Our accommodations on the safari differed greatly from stop to stop. The first night out was at Tree Tops, literally a large tree house filled with tiny bedrooms with a bathroom at the end of the hall. The guide told us not to worry, because we would not want to sleep. We would be up all night watching the wildlife as they visited the lighted waterhole. Indeed, we did doze a little, but most of the night we watched and photographed animals, including elephants. There seemed to be unwritten rules about which animals visited in what order. We saw some trepidation between species, but no violence. We did take some lovely photos.
We spent our next few days at Mount Kenya Safari Club. It was a significant contrast to Tree Tops. In recent years, it was a favorite destination of the rich and famous. In fact, it was featured on a TV show called “The Lives of the Rich and Famous”. It was very elegant and featured a very formal dinner every night. The private cottages spread across the manicured grounds featured large bedrooms and a gigantic fireplace which was lighted every night for us.
We spent a few more days in a camp, in tents. It was canvas stretched over a large wooden frame and included a full bathroom. We were warned not to leave our tents after dark. We could hear the lions wandering on the other side of the chain-link fence which surrounded our camp. In this case, we were caged and the lions roamed free.
In these latter two locations, we generally had two game runs a day, one at dawn, one late in the afternoon. During the day, we often had trips to sites such as Mt. Kenya and the Great Rift Valley. We visited a Massai village. All of the men (warriors) left the village when the tourists visited. We saw them leaving, dressed in their deep red robes, as we arrived. Our host was the senior wife of the chief. The children and goats roamed freely around the village, including into the huts. We were invited to enter the huts if we wished. They were very low, hot, dark and smoky, and the dirt floor was covered with goat droppings. I decided to remain outside.
A couple of the chief’s wives were as interested in us as we were in them. My sister wore metal braces on her teeth. It seemed as if the wives thought Carol had interesting jewelry in her mouth, and they wanted to touch her braces. Carol declined. I carried fair-skinned, blonde-haired Kimberly. The chief’s wife wanted to hold her. Kimberly was a little shy and clung to me. The chief’s wife brought over a baby goat as further enticement, but Kimberly was not lured into her arms. I was rather glad of that.
Our main goal of the trip was photography. My husband and I each had a Canon SLR with multiple lenses. My sister kept an eye on Kimberly. She also took rolls of exposed film from us, marked them, and handed us new ones. We took about sixty rolls of thirty-six exposure rolls. This was before digital cameras, so we did not know how the shots turned out until our return. By our last day, we had “shot” elegant elephants, graceful giraffes, a pregnant cheetah, zebras, many varieties of antelopes, and warthogs. We visited a pride of lions after a kill. We had not seen a rhino. The same guide had been with us every day, and he was determined to keep us happy. We begged him to show us a rhino.
After bumping along the rough grassy savannah, we saw one in the distance, with Mt. Kenya in the background. All we could see was the top of his back. We begged the guide to get closer. He guided the driver, and we travelled parallel to the path of the rhino, edging closer. At last, he broke into a clearing, and we snapped photos like crazy. He watched us for a while, but he apparently had had enough. He charged us.
A rhino can run about 25 to 30 miles per hour for short bursts. Fortunately, our driver could go slightly faster. We were careening across grassy, very bumpy terrain. While taking photos, one is standing at the windows of the safari vehicle. Since we had no warning, we spent a few frantic moments grabbing our daughter, our gear, and the hand rails. I don’t remember being frightened, just very excited. In only a couple minutes, the rhino had made his point, and he trotted away. That was certainly an exciting conclusion to our last game run.
It was a week or so before we got out photos developed. Fortunately, we had many very nice shots. I have considered going back for another safari. I doubt that it could ever be as exciting as our first one.
Patti Schatz grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. She graduated from Mansfield College with a degree in math, and taught senior high school college prep math for two years. She joined IBM during the infancy of the computer industry as a Systems Engineer, a technical career which spanned 49 years. In retirement she has pursued many hobbies, among them photography, quilt design and construction, and baking, especially cookies for the holiday season. Her butterfly garden is flourishing. She is a member of OLLI, and participates in both the German language and French language SIGs.
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