My pre-trip vision of SA

This is the first in a four part series to be posted every night for the next four nights:

Before I went to South Africa I envisioned my time there to be the following:


Niel was a bachelor who devoted all of his time to saving the wild animals of Africa. He lived deep in the bush, smoked and cursed incessantly, and smiled infrequently. He housed us in an annex behind his small stone dwelling where he slept with a pack of rogue dogs….


The wooden annex, built on stilts, had only cutouts for windows (no glass), no running water and electricity was minimal -- perhaps a hanging light bulb from the ceiling but definitely not any outlets. Our beds were cot-like with thin mattresses and sheathed with mosquito netting. To shower and use the toilet we would journey from our room on stilts and use a shack like bathroom that only had lukewarm water. For dinner we ate goat that we would prepare over a fire with baked beans (BTW, we acquired the goat as payment for birthing a calf for a tribe in the middle of no where)….


There were HUGE bugs everywhere. Rats, cockroaches, tarantulas and snakes filled my life with a terror that kept me awake for hours every night as they crawled all over my mosquito netting. Mosquitoes plagued me night and day as the 5 economy-size bottles of insect repellent ran out in three weeks time. I was itching all over and dehydrated from the continual diarrhea my American meds couldn’t cure. My bottles of Deer Park water and Charmin To-Go toilet paper proved to be priceless commodities I had to learn to live without -- they were gone within the first week. It was two months of pure discomfort, but I sacrificing for conservation…


Callouts were never ending. Countless tribes with sick cattle and goats contacted us by word-of-mouth, and park rangers who found injured lions and rhinos reached us by satellite phone. We were constantly on the lookout for the poachers who hunted the beautiful animals we fought to save. How could they even dare think to shoot them?


The bush extended for thousands of kilometers, as fences and homes were no where to be found….


Whites and blacks lived in perfect harmony since the end of apartheid….


My liver thanked me for the absence of alcohol on my lips for two months…..


Dr. Lambert really has no idea of what Africa is like. It’s not urbanized, no way….

Check back tomorrow for what SA was really like.