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Heading for the African Bush in a High-Tech Kinda Way

First, let me say that if I can get internet access anywhere outside of Nairobi on this trip I will be disappointed. My fantasy for this adventure is that my wife and I have to fight off lions, beware of snakes and wade through streams and rivers to get anywhere. I want baboons swinging at me from the trees and vultures circling overhead waiting to feast on my corpse.

OK, OK, it will not be that way. This is 2011, not 1811, or 1911. I am no Marlin Perkins although I am dressed like him for the trip. You should see me. I look ridiculous in my great white hunter outfit. I do not care, I am here for fun. I am here to fulfill a fantasy that developed back when I watched the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom show with Marlin Perkins on television, in black and white, every Saturday afternoon. He and his sidekick Jim Fowler always had to fight off the big animals to get the exciting footage for an eight year old boy to watch.

I was always afraid that the Africa they showed me would be kaput by the time I was old enough to go see it. I thank my spiritual angels that first of all, there is some of it left, and second that I am now married to a woman that is making it possible.

As I write this we are about 35,000 feet above the Eastern coast of Africa on a five hour flight to Kenya. Getting on the plane in Sharjah was probably the hardest thing we will have to do for the entire trip. When we get to our destination airport we will be met by a first rate safari operator, and just follow his lead for the next week. I know he will take one look at me and laugh, at least secretly. Hope he calls me Bwana, I deserve it. And I would not dress like this if I didn’t want him to.

I am sitting here in this cookie cutter airplane seat typing away on my reliable wonderful lightweight mini HP laptop. I have my Ipod plugged into my ears listening to everything from The Grateful Dead to Frank Sinatra. I also have my super Coolpix Nikon P7000 on my lap, which what was inspired me to pull out the mini.

I am still learning how to use this camera. This is the third or fourth trip I have taken with it. I have probably taken 10,000 photos (maybe 50 are really good) and I am sitting here reading the manual. This manual is longer than the manual for my HP, or for Windows 7. All I have to do is open it to any page and my reaction is “Really? I can do THAT?”

The digital age of photography is as complicated as the future. It is also as full of possibilities. It is also as full of fraught. While the possibility exists that with the right settings selected, and the proper opportunity presenting itself I could take a photo not only worthy of my readers, but of National Geographic , the possibility also exists that I will take 10,000 pictures and none of them will be worth elephant dung. I’ll never know unless I just do it. So I better get back to the manual. Or maybe I should just put it on automatic and point’n’clik.

My Ipod just shuffled to the Rhythm Devils which for those of you unlucky enough not to know is the fancy title for a Grateful Dead drum solo. I was instantly reminded by a shuffle of my mind of a Dead Head friend of mine who made this trip many years ago. He brought along a Walkman (like I said MANY years ago) and of course some dead tapes and a pair of big old headphones (YEARS AGO!). Anyway, he was watching some Masia warriors dance to the locals drum solo and thought, “sheet man, why not.” He fast forwarded the tape (EONS AGO) to the start of a drum solo and put the headphones on the warrior. He showed me pictures of the warrior jumping like Michael Jordan with a huge smile on his face. THAT’S what I call great international relations! I am now inspired to do the same thing and capture the moment for you my faithful readers. That is if I can master the Coolpix 7000.

We just crossed over the “Horn of Africa”. Mogadishu and all that is below us. We are probably less than two hours out of Nairobi.

Now we are crossing the equator, and Nairobi lies just one degree of latitude south.

Captured from the inflight entertainment on air Arabia

OK we are in Nairobi. Everything went fine at the airport. The only thing is that this is yet another country that uses a full page of my passport for a simple visa. I do not have that many pages left, damn.

The hotel, a five star hotel, deserves every star. Wonderful service in a beautiful neighborhood. There are even beautiful birds hanging out by the pool!