With careers that demand that emails are attended to quickly and digital addictions that require us to check multiple social media platforms numerous times a day, a digital detox is a necessary respite from the information overload that has overtaken our lives. Lately, social media platforms feel less like a place to connect with far flung friends and more like a divisive social commons where stress inducing breaking news stories are interspersed with targeted advertisements. This constant bombardment of unnecessary information in no way enriches my life, but going off the grid is harder than it sounds. Perhaps that is why I increasingly seek out holidays to remote corners of the world where cell phone towers and WiFi have yet to reach. There I can enjoy the benefits of going off the grid. I had planned an eight day trip to Botswana and Zimbabwe with my Love fully knowing that we would inaccessible for nearly the entire vacation; never imagining that the real reason why we carry devices with us – so that we can be reachable at all times – would affect me.
Londolozi is the place where I fell in love with safari. It is the place where I saw my first leopard. It is the place where I met a ranger named Callum who fetched me from the airstrip and transferred me to Founders Camp. That seven minute moment led to a date in Johannesburg a year later. It is fair to say that I have raved about Londolozi to all who will listen. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that my Dad suggested we ring in new years overlooking the bush on the Varty deck after reading the Londolozi blog about their annual New Year Eve’s party. We booked our rooms nearly a year in advance and in the meantime, my parents read the blog daily in anticipation of the trip and I fell in love with that ranger who met me at the airstrip.
While I recognize the time to wish others a Happy New Year has come and gone, I believe if you have yet to see a person in the new year, it remains an acceptable greeting. Inevitably I accompany this greeting with a sheepish acknowledgement of lateness and a mumbled excuse for having let so much time elapse.
I have been ignoring my blog of late. Life Happens. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but a confluence of personal and professional reasons made it difficult to find and dedicate time to my hobby blog. I plan on returning to the social media sphere and I have a number of stories rattling around in my head documenting my spring travels across South Africa.
Nearly three years ago was the culmination of one of the biggest decisions I have made in my life. Having never been to Johannesburg, I boarded a plane and flew 16 hours, halfway around the world, into the unknown. I was moving to a city where the only person I knew was the woman who had hired me. Mid-flight I awoke from an exhausted sleep in a panic about the decision I had made. It was the only moment in the past three years, that I doubted my decision to leave home.
Neither words nor photos can capture the chaos of the great migration. It is a wildlife spectacle that needs to been seen to understand the scale on which it unfolds. Every year an estimated one and a half million white-bearded wildebeest travel over 300 miles in a giant loop across Kenya and Tanzania in search of fresh grass. Along this trek they birth their young; attempt perilous river crossings where many wildebeest drown or are eaten by crocodiles; and they fall prey to awaiting lions. The entire display is filled with drama and suspense and was something I had wanted to see since I moved to South Africa.