Six for the road

It was the year of Africa. Two Africas, really. With chunks of Wisconsin and a little San Francisco, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan in between.

When I began my year of travel in southern Africa, I didn’t expect to end it nine months later in eastern Africa. But travel has a way of changing your head and your mind and your plans.

Perhaps it was the scenery. Or the people. Or the history. Or the leopard in the tree.

Or all of the above. The Africa I saw in March seduced me into seeing more of a vast continent that I had never seen from its sub-Sahara side before.

Africa, Part I: With its modern infrastructure and the highest standard of living on the continent, South Africa has often been described as “a First-World country in a Third-World continent.” Less than a decade after the end of apartheid, it is a country struggling to maintain that distinction while trying to lessen the divisions–economic and otherwise–that still clearly exist.

The two-week “elegant adventure” I took with Tauck World Discovery (and wrote about as part of our View From the Bus series) was just that–a very comfortable overview of the Cape Town area, Victoria Falls (on the Zimbabwe/Zambia border), Johannesburg, Pretoria, Sun City, the Drakenburg Mountains (with Blyde River Canyon) and Sabi Sabi, a private game reserve adjoining Kruger National Park.

Of course, we saw the shanty towns with hundreds of thousands of immigrants from other, much poorer African countries, lured by the good life and naively lenient immigration policies. But we also saw hope.

And everywhere we went there were world-class hotels, fine restaurants, tip-top attractions, good roads and, wonder of wonders, clean toilets.

Our worst hardship was some bouncing around, on trail and off, as we pursued wildlife on our brief, two-day safari at Sabi Sabi. But that had its rewards when, on the final morning, we spotted the most elusive of all the big game, a leopard in a tree with a freshly killed impala.

That was quite a treat. Before the trip, I’d been told that if you really wanted to see animals–lots and lots of `em–you had to go to East Africa. And indeed, we hadn’t seen a lot of exotic animals–a few lions, elephants and rhinos here, some hippos in Zimbabwe–on this trip.

Intermission: But I’d been bitten. So to speak. And by the end of summer, I’d decided to go for game.

I’d been highly impressed with Tauck, and would have taken them again. But I was working with a free frequent-flier ticket, and the only tours I could find to fit my schedule this time were with Abercrombie & Kent, Tauck’s chief competitor–and perhaps even more expensive–in the upscale travel market. Since this trip, unlike the first, wasn’t a Tribune-paid trip, it was a good thing I’d just refinanced my house.

I booked two back-to-back week-long safari tours–one of Kenya, one of Tanzania–with a weekend in the Tanzanian island state of Zanzibar at the end. The groups would be small–a maximum of 18 to 20–and though there would be a fair amount of driving, most would be one-way, with returns by air to avoid the roads and trails I’d been warned would make Sabi Sabi’s look like freeways.

A few friends were worried. They’d heard of bandits attacking travelers on safaris. And weren’t these countries full of terrorists? I had an easy answer for that: They’ve already attacked Kenya and Tanzania (blowing up the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998); they won’t repeat themselves.

Then came Sept. 11. And suddenly, it was hard to get interested in doing anything or going anywhere–not for the safety factor so much, but rather just the joy the attackers had sucked out of the world. A&K offered everyone booked on trips for the rest of 2001 a chance to reschedule for 2002 without penalty.

I considered, especially–I confess–the side trip to Zanzibar, which is 99 percent Muslim (I have never had anything but good experiences in Muslim countries, which have always been noted–rightfully–for their hospitality).

I read all the travel advisories (if you really want to get paranoid, read the Canadians’–and not just on Zanzibar; they had a consular warning on Florida), watched way too much CNN, felt guilty about traveling and guilty about not traveling. And eventually, without a lot of enthusiasm, I decided to go because it was simpler than not going.

Africa, Part II: Not watching CNN for two weeks can do wonders for your mental health. I couldn’t have felt safer than I did in East Africa–and without the constant drumbeat of TV and, uh, newspapers, you realize again how big and isolated–and wonderful–the world can be.

And I pretty much had it all to myself.

On the Kenya week of the trip, there were only two of us who did not take A&K up on the offer to reschedule. On the Tanzania portion, there were only seven of us. In effect, we had close to a personal tour.

We saw animals–95 lions (we kept count); a dozen cheetahs; two leopards (they’re as elusive here as in South Africa); thousands of elephants, giraffes, warthogs, baboons and zebras; too many impalas, gazelles and other antelopes to count; lines of migrating wildebeest as far as the eye could see; birds, birds, birds; and even one spitting cobra.

We visited Sweetwater’s Private Reserve in Kenya, where a strolling maribou stork snatched a bird out of midair and gobbled it down. In Kenya’s Samburu National Park, a leopard banged its tail against our vehicle as it single-mindedly skirted us to track a distant prey.

We witnessed the vastness of Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania from above, as if from an airplane, then descended 2,000 feet to the crater floor where we saw all the “big five”–lion, leopard, cape buffalo, rhinoceros and elephant–in a single day. We drove for hours through the Serengeti in Kenya (where it’s called Masai Mara) and then again, from the other end, in Tanzania, yet hit only the edges.

We bumped our way–sometimes more than 100 miles a day–across the plains of Africa, stretching endlessly between the distant, dramatic mountains edging the Great Rift Valley. And late each afternoon, as the day’s light faded into the clouds and behind the peaks, we witnessed magic time–a disappearing act with a long trick of light, followed by suspension of breath.

I’d heard about it and read about it. I’d seen “Out of Africa” and watched endless hours of the Discovery Channel.

Africa–this Africa–is beyond photos, or these words.

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I think I’ve regained my enthusiasm.

Out of Africa: Aside from the two Africa trips and a weekend in San Francisco for a travel editors’ meeting, this was a stay-in-the-Midwest year. And there were some nice things to keep me here. Among them:

Rediscovering . . . Dubuque: Since I grew up just 15 miles away on the Wisconsin-Illinois state line, I’m no stranger to Dubuque, Iowa. But this summer, for the first time in more than 30 years, I revisited Eagle Point Park, a city park with a spectacular view from the bluffs down onto the Mississippi River.

Highly recommended–as is the entire Tri-State Area (which, yes, I made Robert Cross write about last summer as a result of my trip).

Discovering . . . Saugatuck: But I’d never been to Saugatuck, Mich., until late September, when I spent an evening there on my way to a tourism conference in Cadillac. It was cool, crisp–and charming. I’m told it gets pretty crowded in summer–and I can see why.

The other side of the lake: I also passed through Holland (stopping, of course, in the Dutch Village), Ludington (Michigan home of the only ferry between Wisconsin and Michigan) and Manistee. Great Lake Michigan beaches everywhere–and so different from the Wisconsin side, with which I’m more familiar.

And more Michigan: On my return trip, I spent a Monday afternoon in Grand Rapids. I visited two terrific museums. The Gerald R. Ford Museum is a wonderful time capsule of Americana in the late 20th Century, while the Van Andel Museum Center has general and regional exhibits that aren’t–even if you don’t care about the history of furniture–at all parochial. (I’d have visited the well-regarded Grand Rapids Art Museum, too, but it’s closed on Mondays.)

Downtown streets were pretty deserted, but there’s major renovation work going on, and this place could become a real gem.

Personal highlight: I’ve been going to baseball games in Milwaukee since the days of the Braves, including a dozen or so opening days at County Stadium where the seats, in early April, were usually colder than the beer. So I was expecting, at least, to be comfortable in the new Miller Park, with its retractable roof.

But it was beyond my wildest dreams. It’s not just a great indoor park, it’s also a great outdoor park. The seats are so close (closer than Wrigley) that I flinched from my 4th row seat whenever the pitcher threw to first. And you’ve got to stick around for the opening (or closing, depending) ceremony after the game, when the roof opens/closes to the accompaniment of theme music from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

They still tailgate in the parking lot, and the ballpark atmosphere for all the modernity is unapologetically and wonderfully . . . cheesy.

The only person who wouldn’t like this park is someone really un-American like, say, an envious Yankee fan from Chicago (the shame!), perhaps with the initials A.S.

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E-mail Randy Curwen: [email protected]