Family on Safari
Travel Stories: How would Grandma have felt about the bumpy Tanzanian roads? She would've hated them. And those pit toilets? Ditto. Frank Bures explores the family vacation minus one.
The road veered toward the lake, then widened. As we picked up speed, the dust cloud trailed further behind us. I sat in the front seat alongside Dad, my visor falling down with each bump and pothole. In the back, Mom, Bob and Joe rocked back and forth with each tilt of the car. Dust coated their hair. I knew exactly how Grandma would have felt about the whirlwinds whipping through her perm. She never, ever rode with the windows down.
We were on our way to some of the greatest wildlife parks in the world, and everyone was excited about the country, the landscape, the animals, the whole trip. Yet somehow, the cab still felt a little empty.
We finally reached the edge of the valley and arrived at Lake Manyara. Elias parked the Land Rover and went into the office to pay our fees while I went to look for a bathroom, which I found behind the small museum. I also found some large warthogs with long tusks loitering near the door. They ambled off when I came around the corner. As I pushed the door, and it creaked open, something dove out of the rafters into the toilet.
Grandma would have been unnerved.
Back in the car, Elias popped the top up and we poked our heads out, ready for safari. We rolled into the park, under the thick acacia trees, past our first monkey (of which we have at least 200 pictures), and emerged onto the open flat area between the forest and the lake, where wildebeests and buffalo stood watching our car. Two giraffes hit each other with their necks, and further on, at the hippo pool, a gaggle of tourists in zebra-striped shirts, safari shorts and sun hats crowded up to the water, tempting one of the park’s most deadly animals with their clicks and flashes.
Down the road, some way into the park, Elias stopped the car. He climbed onto the hood and scanned the horizon with his binoculars until he saw them: Tiny black dots miles away.
Elephants.
The car jolted hard again as we raced off toward the herd. Wind rushed through our hair, and we had to duck when thorny acacia branches whipped against the car. As we approached the elephants, Elias slowed the car to a crawl. They were grazing in the low branches, moving slowly, swinging their trunks and flapping their ears.
“You must be very quiet,” Elias whispered. “If you make any noise, they can come.”
What he meant was that they can come and crush our car like a soda can. The elephants seemed vaguely annoyed by our presence. More and more cars pulled up behind us and stopped to watch them. A large elephant snorted.
“Jesus!” hissed Bob, “Did you see that?” He pointed to one of the larger elephants—a bull—and we all saw it. The elephant’s penis hung almost to the ground. It had to be over three feet long. Murmurs of disbelief filled the car and Bob tried to get a picture. But the elephant turned away, and when it turned back the penis, miraculously, was gone.
No one dared to say what Grandma might have thought.
The park was closing, so Elias turned the car around and headed for the gate. Outside it, we drove up a long, winding road to our lodge that looked down on the lake from the edge of the valley.
We put our bags in our rooms, and met on the balcony. Below us, shadows were getting long. The animals near the lake were specks on the plain. There was little talk as the sun sank and stars started to appear. As darkness reached across the valley, the air got cool and in a silence that seemed to drift up from below, a thought lingered in all our heads.
Grandma would have loved this.
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