I’m writing this on a coffee-stained tray table, where one of the shapes looks like a tiny white blood cell, perfectly outlined and dotted inside with the consistency of a fine-line tattoo. A silvery Sun bakes the plane I’m on, answering why the wing outside looks like crocodile scales, speckles of paint flaking off.
My parents are beside me and they’re both journaling, reflecting on the fortnight we shared camping across the South of Africa.
There’s a sweet joy to know you have many hours of travel left, allowing you the space to unfold, relax, reflect, and do the tasks you’ve set out yourself. It’s often in moments of transit like this, when the world is rushing past, where I like to be still, and write.
Over the past 15 days we’ve travelled over 5220 kilometres, passing through elevations of over 2000m (only realised by looking outside and seeing endless flat, cold plains and hearing your ears pop), and valleys where the dew and humidity grew tropical trees. Passing through three countries, journeying from South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, peering at the same Milky Way, the night sky a velvety cloth sparkling with endless stars.
What brought me to Africa was the strange idea that Zebras didn’t exist. Obviously, I had seen them in nature documentaries, and once or twice at the zoo, but it just felt a bit too fleeting, a bit too picture-perfect, and before I knew it the seeds of doubt made me feel like these animals weren’t real. Perhaps they were horses, painted with stripes night after night, once the crowds had disappeared. With that, I vowed to find out the truth and expose it all.
My investigative journalism yielded an answer.
I saw them. I didn’t count the first one, flitting past like a stitched frame in a movie, a blur of black and white. But then, I started seeing more, and more, until they were a common feature of the landscape. I saw them engaged in all kinds of acts; curiously observing us, pairs with their heads resting on each other’s backs, and even crossing roads (a real life zebra crossing anyone?!).
I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that these creatures were otherworldly. Seeing them in the brown grass felt like an optical illusion - which in a way they were, since the stripes confuse mosquitos and also act as a natural sunscreen.
They are strange, yet so beautiful. Horse-like, but not. Their eyelashes are long, and mohawk thin, lining their heads to their backs. And their stripes, curving around their body and ending in a sharp point.
One of the most interesting things about being on a safari, is witnessing predators and prey within a few minutes. We’re able to peer into the circle of life at a dizzying pace, as if being introduced to characters at the start of a play. The play itself is a dazzling million-generational tale, all existing in the grand theatre I found myself in.
I ponder whether history is shaped by the amount of activity that happens there, as opposed to the amount of time passing. I see on these plains, countless stories of heroes and villains, mothers losing their daughters, friends banding together, vast long loves spanning lifetimes - each creating their own shared history.
At one point, I witnessed a hunt. A lion pride came across a mother elephant and her calf, separated from their wider herd. I saw how they crept in the tall grass, to the ignorance of the elephants, until they got closer. Then, a blood-curdling scream from the mother elephant, as she saw a future in which her calf was dragged away, precariously hanging between life and death. Luckily for them, they ran as fast as they could to the wider herd, and safety. The landscape is pregnant with stories like this, one simply has to look at the magnificent skulls hidden in plain sight.
I became part of this story, as we stopped for a bushy-bushy (a colloquial term for toilet break in the bush). After watering a tree of my liking, I was about to head back to my group when I was assaulted by the sweet thorn tree. These trees are no joke, they have razor sharp knives kitted out on their branches slightly taller than their leaves to deter herbivores. Unfortunately, for me it pierced my t-shirt (adding to my graveyard of lost and broken things), and drew blood on my finger.
I thought of how nature doesn’t seem too kind, but maybe that is a paradox, because perhaps the concept of kindness is human (a single facet of life), and nature operates on a mechanism that we can’t fathom (a diamond holding all these individual facets). Either way, for us humans, the bush is harsh if you’re not careful, stark reminders of that exist everywhere from sun bleached bones, to the thorns on the side of trees, to the little snakes I’ve seen, and the lions that are not afraid of you.
I like pushing myself into discomfort, stretching what I imagined myself doing or feeling okay with.
Some of these this year have included:
Now, I still can’t shake off the feeling that my family and I set up tents in the freezing deserts, valleys, and untamed grasslands of Africa, each day having to constantly pack and unpack our own belongings, and then load and unload everyone’s bags, tents, sleeping mattresses, chairs, cooking equipment, tables back into the bus.
We all were put into groups and had a roster system, some people in charge of cleaning kitchen utensils, others sweeping the bus, and some setting up the chairs. The benefit of this is that travel felt pretty sustainable - sometimes I feel this sense that you have to rough things out for a short period of time before the coveted hotel arrives and you can relax. There were definitely moments of difficulty, sometimes the simplest of mishaps spelling abject disaster - such as dropping my wet towel on the dusty red dirt.
One untold boon of doing things like this is developing a sense of ‘we’re in it together’: helping others when it isn’t asked of you, kindness on display. I can honestly say, as we had our final dinner with our group of 18 that I felt part of a larger family. We exchanged contact details, hugged, and promised each other that we’d visit each other (I now have a big reason to visit Bern, Vienna, Winnipeg, Luxembourg and Oxford).
Travelling sometimes feels like a map in a game where it starts off greyed out as places have no connection to you, and then gets progressively more colourful as strands of connection tie you to those places. But not only that, the map itself gets bigger, revealing just how much more there is to explore. That is a reason in and of itself for me.
I highly recommend writing a list of your personal experiences, helping serve as a reminder that no matter if things get tough in the moment, that you’ve made it out the other side of discomfort.
Ending my time in South Africa, I took my family on a road trip of a lifetime. We walked into an AVIS rental in the city centre of Cape Town at 9:30am. People had spoken about the Cape of Good Hope as a must see destination - only a 1h 30m drive, and I for some reason thought that meant the southernmost tip of the continent. Before embarking at around 10:30am, I realised that wasn’t the case - that title belonged to Cape Agulhas, more than 3 hours away one way. Not missing a beat, I mentioned this fact to my parents, and they took it in stride. Not only that, I really wished to see Boulders Beach within the iconic Table Mountain national park - one of the best places to see African Penguins - which would add an extra hour.
It was a long day, but we got to see these penguins sun baking, all facing different directions near the beach. We stopped for lunch and wandered into this cozy sea facing restaurant called Fran’s Place, housing the most delicious prawns I’ve had - garlic and buttery, overlooking a view rivalling Italy’s Positano.
The Cape Town region is magical, this road trip perhaps now my favourite of all time - landscapes shifting from Australian (with eucalyptus trees everywhere), coastal European (with the bright coloured architecture), New Zealand (with the rolling hills and sheep), and Canadian (with mountains surrounding us).
I drove over 4h and we arrived with warm, instant coffees in hand to the place where two oceans meet, right as the sun was about to set. Indian to our lift, and Atlantic to our right, a cool sea breeze blowing making my hands sticky with salt. Sitting on the bench I felt a bubbling up of gratitude that I got to share this with my parents. My dad kindly drove us back home.
As we get older, it’s no surprise that life changes. Knowing this, I thought I was in a unique position where my parents were adventurous enough to sign up for this trip, and also that I had the space in my life for this.
There is a strange feeling that happens when you travel through new places with family, which is having worlds collide. When you grow up, your family is often the extent of your world, and then, seeing them interact as human beings externally, you slip between the superstructure of the world and the micro-structure of the family unit.
It’s a feeling which generates more warmth.
Morning! Sleep was good, slept earlier at around 10 but it was so cold during the night. I think it’s time to double layer socks. Packing the tent in the morning is too cold, I think gloves are a necessity.
Next tip, just get up in the morning - earlier preferable. Sleeping in and lounging around feels colder than getting up and moving around.
In Chobe tonight. The moon is full today and bright, despite the sun not being up. It is slightly warmer here since we’re further from the Kalahari.
Packing up and setting up everyday is a bit tiring but getting more used to it, but it definitely isn’t “comfortable” - taking showers means balancing on ledges, conserving the small bottle of body wash, ensuring your clothes fit on the tiny hooks.
At the edge of Chobe river, I see buildings. So interesting that these animals live their whole lives with human signs if they choose to look - do they think it’s another land form or do they know it’s something else with their primordial knowledge.
Most tourists here are white.
Not everyone is patient, I sometimes think with age comes acceptance and patience but that is not the case. Tantrums are not unique to babies.
Why the hell is there no shade at the border crossing between Botswana & Zimbabwe. We were getting cooked in the sun, but I still saw some locals wearing puffer jackets.
First time seeing African women balance things on their head as they walked.
Tried an Ostrich Parmigiana, it was juicy and tender and like a normal steak but much more rare (perhaps to combat the toughness of the meat). Kudu steak on the other hand was delicious, slightly gamey but the one I had was tender.
Wandering in antique book stores fills me with a strange feeling - perhaps a new word to be coined here, people laboured for hours, months, or maybe years to publish something, which now sits dusty and forgotten in a tiny nook.
Passing by a tiny village near sunrise, I see lots of people running on the road - I wonder if the next Olympian might be among them.
I think it’s a beautiful thing when people share their thoughts or when things bubble up and they say things - it could have been silence.
On that point above, at a cafe, and the person at the counter noticed my earphones and asked what they were because they’re a music artist and want something for the stage, we started talking and I found out he’s on Spotify! Life is lovely when you talk to people.
Termite mounds dot the landscape, pillars of earth rising up to reach the sky, but always abandoned a few metres in the air.
Task orientation: Right now my task is to carry this coffee (and not spill it) for my mum and next is to sit on a bus for six hours. That is all.
Villages seen without electricity and thatched roofs mud brick. I see children standing at the side of the road and I wonder what they’re doing, and in between my thoughts, they wave, I wave back.
At the Zimbabwe and South Africa border crossing. I see a pedestrian bridge, where you’d meant to officially move across the countries. However, there are wires underneath which if you pay right person can cross without documents. The river below has crocodiles lining the banks.
It’s 10:34 finished a bushy-bushy at the side of the road, and it was exquisite feeling the cool breeze, perfect temperate for wearing a t-shirt. I saw sap on a tree that looked like candy, dripping like honey, but red. Rooibos coloured.
What a pinch me moment to be lulled to sleep by the gentle toss of the car under the midday sun in the Kruger National Park, passing by countless animals.
If the sprouting roots connecting us to people turn to tree trunks, we may feel claustrophobic, yet at the other end, if they remain spiderweb-thin, a breath of sharp air can sever them - suddenly falling into a vortex where up isn’t separated by down. It’s people, and nature that connect us to the moment of here and now. Without them we’re vagabonds.
11:33am at police stop. A man in a blue shirt and big belly enters the bus and says I’ll be giving a fine for not registering your passengers, and asks for 30 US. Our driver Jerry says this is too much.
All of us start writing our details on a piece of paper.
Suddenly, I hear laughter from the man, and the bus starting as we set off.
Jerry said we didn’t end paying, we just gave him an ice-cold Coca Cola and were let through.
As usual, the graveyard of lost and broken things continues to increase. This time, I’ve dropped my camera again and luckily only broken my lens protector (phew!). I’ve mentioned above my t-shirt was ripped by the thorn bush already.
This made me think, what if each person has a maximum capacity of items in their possession. And as soon as you get past that threshold, you begin to trade or lose others. What would go first? Would it be a first in, first out, or a last in first out. How would the world look?
Why do we describe things as surreal when they are real? Looking at a magnificent, bulging full moon hanging over the horizon, I could almost reach for it.
Is it because it is so far away from our normal routine and conception of reality?
Let me describe another common occurrence with me. We had booked a local theatre performance at Victoria Falls, and were running out of time to grab a bite to eat. We stopped by a restaurant and explained our predicament, to which the waiter assured us that he would fast-track our order. African Time struck again and delivered us our food perhaps 15 minutes before the beginning of the performance, so we had to wolf down our meal and hurriedly flag the waiter down to pay. Upon getting up to go, I swung my jumper over me and felt a thousand cashew nuts clatter down onto the ground (I forgot I had an open packet of nuts in my jumper pocket). I clambered out of the crime scene.
I was ruminating on the concept of bringing your belongings to places while you travel, and how it imbues these items with their own history. Who would’ve thought that this All the Women I Think About at Night book, work issued bag, Letshuoer earphones, Dickies socks and Peter Alexander eye mask would make it here.
Similar to this are soundtracks. Isn’t it so interesting that the value of memories increase with time? Listening to a new song now can yield a new joy, but listening to it repeatedly for years and revisiting it a decade later is a different kind of joy; a rush of moments throughout your life accompanying you.
To this end, I would say it’s important to listen to more, and balance listening to old soundtracks. For that purpose I actually download my music old school, because I’ve found that Spotify and YouTube means that certain songs can disappear forever without my knowledge. Having it stored yourself is a bit like collecting vinyls, or CD’s. I use the streaming platforms for discovery and breaking music in, and downloading for evergreen music.
Bringing your items, and music along with you can create something I dub the lifetrack.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had lots of conversations with people from this part of the world, and I’ve asked some tough questions.
One thing I’ve learnt is any conception you have from the outset is wrong, because things are very complex. It’s difficult to have a clear black or white.
Colonisation changed Africa forever, nations were carved up and claimed by Europe, and some were straight up bought by an individual called Cecil Rhodes. But even before that, traditional nomadic indigenous people were displaced by agrarian tribes from Central and North Africa. More on that below.
Racism is still well and truly here, it’s difficult to imagine but apartheid in South Africa existed only a couple of decades ago. It was my first time absorbing what this meant - legalised segregation punishable by law, where every single person was given a colour of white or black (tests like how fast a comb fell from your hair, since black people had curlier hair), where even within families people were classified differently and separated off to live very different lives.
I chatted with Cosmo who was our guide in Victoria Falls, as he said it’s about choosing which devil is better in regards to China and how it is increasing its presence in Africa. He mentioned that older colonial powers invested money and infrastructure into the country to develop a partly symbiotic relationship, but currently it feels like Africa as a whole is getting the short end of the stick. He mentioned how Zimbabwe in the 1990’s in effect threw the whites out by forcibly taking over white-owned farms, versus a place like India who metaphorically kept the whites and now is a global super power. Some food for thought for sure. We discussed how in this neocolonialism era we’re in (neoliberalism to be exact), its a tricky conversation to have because discussing this might turn tourists away (as we see the hate of the Woke left).
Then, I met a proud self-proclaiming colonialist called Ian. He spoke about Cecil Rhodes as this mythical figure who brought technology and development to places like Zimbabwe. Never mind the insane amount of human suffering caused, he stated that without colonisation things would’ve stayed primitive, highlighting the insidious social Darwinism apparent with early European settlers, who say that progress is linear and upward, and that mud huts are worse than concrete buildings. He mentioned that throughout history people have stolen land and that’s how societies have developed. There were hints to truth, interspersed with racist rhetoric that was enlightening to observe. It was a perspective I never got the chance to listen to before.
The worldviews connecting these two people seem irreparable, and I witnessed the complexity of this kind of discussion. There’s lots more to learn here.
In the ancient granite rocks of Matobo, I saw cave paintings from a people that I learnt were the original ancestors of all humans - called the Bushmen or the San people. We apparently can trace all modern humans to this group over 200,000 years ago. Their civilisation was nomadic, egalitarian and they were the original indigenous people, far older than the Aboriginals in Australia. Conversations about colonialism get infinitely more complex when you consider that before the Europeans, the Bushmen were displaced by African farmer tribes. Who owns what? Is this all a prize that’s changing hands?
One thing I learnt as we moved through these national parks is that these areas we’ve decreed collectively as humans as “national parks” are wholly unnatural. Before this demarcation, animals were free to migrate to where there was more food and water. By penning these creatures in a boundary; either by “national park” status or by creating a perimeter of farms, we’ve disrupted the natural process.
To this end, it means that certain animal populations grow too quickly for the ecosystem to support them, and we saw this first hand with elephants. I didn’t realise, but they are very destructive - vast plains decimated by their trunks. They verge on overpopulation in certain regions, and authorities have created programs where they issue hunting permits - with hunters paying lots of money sometimes - to cull these animals, allowing the money to go back into conservation.
Another grey area here is the concept of sacrificial zones. Lion bones are used in traditional Asian medicine, and result in devastating outcomes for these big cats by poaching. To combat this, South Africa lobbied CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) to legalise the trade of bones via the commercial farming of lions. I couldn’t comprehend that, but there are lion farms where lions are bred to be slaughtered, so that their bones can be exported. This stunned me. It sounded horrific at first, but it dramatically reduced the number of wild lions being poached.
The same concept goes for Rhino horns (they have an advantage here, given the Rhino doesn’t need to die since horns are actually just made out of keratin - the same substance as our fingernails), also used in traditional Asian medicine and increasingly as a status symbol (snorting Rhino horn instead of cocaine is not a joke!). Poachers look for these horns, and kill the animal as the quickest way to obtain these.
Zimbabwe and Botswana both have shoot to kill directives for poachers, but South Africa doesn’t. Poachers typically are poor farmers who are given the opportunity of a better life by killing these majestic animals, or simply hunt for the meat because they need to feed their families. It’s a systemic issue.
When we visited Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe, our guides mentioned that they’re disincentivising rhino poaching by proactively taking their horns. This has led interestingly to a stockpile of rhino horns, which is still deemed illegal by CITES for trade but could very well solve the Rhino crisis. Our guides implored us to chat to our local CITES representative (each country has one), to ask if rhinos horns can be regulated as lion bones are.
This reminds me of argument pro-drug legalisation, and the complexity involved at all stages from production, transport and consumption, and all the players involved. Sometimes, people don’t want change because it threatens their livelihoods.
It’s still causing my head to whirl, and there’s loads more research to be done.
I was texting a Bedouin camp that I was going to stay at in Jordan to organise some tour activities, and noticed some instantaneous replies. This got me thinking about how convenient things are sometimes, and how I notice that some countries have outstanding customer service, where you can WhatsApp people at any moment and get a reply and confirm things out of business hours.
On one angle as a customer it’s incredible, you can get anything you want at any time. But just like the unregulated gig economy and what we’ve seen with delivery drivers - how work is insecure, with loose protections and often physical dangers, we are operating with borrowed convenience.
There is a human cost here, rewarding thin work/life boundaries because put simply, it isn’t a choice for many - it’s the way to get food on the plate. I compare places I’ve been which have hyper-convenience - often because labour is so cheap for the outsider - with places which have strong worker rights, resulting in stricter work boundaries; think businesses closing at 5pm sharp.
I think to how a lot of political movements began at the worker level, where enough people said enough is enough - and we demand better.
After having touched the southernmost tip of Africa, I can rest for a day or two. I’m embarking on the next chapter of my travels tomorrow. Egypt, Jordan and Turkey await!
Signing off,
Apurva