Does a long trip take its toll on our bodies?

Since my husband and I are both in our seventies and the couple we traveled with are in their late sixties, I started thinking about how traveling to far away places – especially Africa – can take its toll on our aging bodies. Here’s the precautions and planning I did to counter any possible adverse affects on what would be the trip of a lifetime.

First I needed to get a series of shots required for traveling to Africa – polio vaccine, hepatitis, tetanus, and yellow fever – the yellow fever injection was painful for quite a while. I also brought along a 25-day supply of malaria prevention pills that I started taking a few days before arriving in Africa and continued for seven days after we left. I brought along the original prescription bottle to avoid any questions at the airport.

What to pack for Africa was another issue. We were told to bring crushable duffle-type bags to Africa with the admonition that that bag and any of our carry on pieces should weigh no more than a total of 33 pounds. Space and weight restrictions on the mini twin-engine planes we had to take to get from place to place in Africa imposed that dictum. However, in hindsight I realized I didn’t pack quite enough. I needed a couple of lightweight sweaters for the cool mornings and a couple more changes of lightweight loose fitting slacks. Since I get an allergic reaction to the sun, I was very concerned about sun-protection clothing. I wore mostly dark colored clothing throughout the trip. Sun block was also essential.

The short flights we took within Africa were exciting – we could actually see wild animals from the plane’s window before we landed – but, the planes are hot, cramped, and a little nerve racking – especially while landing on dirt runways. I felt very relieved when we were finished with those.

Late afternoon during a rainstorm 

       Besides flying, we rode in open four-wheel drive vehicles and very bumpy almost non-existent roads while on safari. Because we mostly kept the plastic side windows rolled up we had to take care to prevent getting sunburned, wind burned, and inundated by the dust wafting in off the roads. I had a good solution – a big cotton knit scarf that I wore many different ways. If the morning was cold I wore it wound around my head and neck, if it was dusty, I used it to cover my mouth. And I wore it to protect my back and hands and arms from too much sun. I wore that scarf constantly. However, our guides were good about rolling down the windows and loaning us ponchos during the few rainstorms we encountered. They really knew how to take care of us.

       Also, the seats in the jeeps were very high off the ground. I had to learn to climb in using a series of narrow steps attached to the sides. I had to use those same steps but going backwards on the way down.

At the Ngorongoro Crater wearing 

my ubiquitous scarf

Dietary constraints were another consideration. Since I can’t eat dairy, gluten, or red meat, I let my tour organizer know of these restrictions well before I left home. I was very grateful that most places we visited were prepared to cater to my needs. However, that didn’t stop me or the others in our little group from having some digestive problems. I think those came from eating fresh vegetables washed in regular, unfiltered, African water. We were warned to drink and use only filtered water while brushing our teeth, but I guess they don’t follow their own warnings when handling food. Even so it’s amazing how even while staying in a tent camp, we took showers with running water, and toilets flushed like the ones at home. The staff just has to keep pouring water into tanks at the back of the tent to miraculously make that happen.

The long flights were also a concern. We had to take two separate flights to London with a long layover in between. And on our way home between Paris and Los Angeles, we took three flights with two layovers. We had luggage problems not just associated with packing, hauling, and checking, we had a mis-marked bag that didn’t arrive home until the day after we did.

And what about jet lag? I had the worst ever after this recent trip. I’d heard we are susceptible to a day of jet lag for every hour we’re out of our normal time zone. Well, at some points during this trip we were twelve hours on the other side of the clock. I finally began to feel normal on my eleventh day at home. During my jet lag phase I missed two appointments, made with the same person. I know I’ll never live that down.

I hope I haven’t turned anyone off from taking a trip like this. Experiencing the wonders of Africa was well worth the effort and occasional hardships. Like I said at the outset, it was a trip of a lifetime. Just be prepared if you decide to go.

       This piece (now slightly edited) was originally published at the Aging Bodies website where I contribute a monthly article.

Africa Trip Part 5 - Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Because we only stayed in Lake Manyara one night and had the same guide, Ray, from our arrival there until we left Tanzania at the Kilimanjaro airport two days later, I’ve decided to lump our days in both places together. Plus, their landscape and weather are similar – dry, dusty, with mostly red clay soil.

After a long plane ride to Lake Manyara, Ray picked us up in an enclosed truck with an open roof where we could stand up and take our photos by leaning out through the top. However, since I’m so short, I had to continually climb up and down from my seat so I could get my camera and head out there. Once we arrived at the national park and had our picnic lunch we proceeded to look for game – as we’ve done for the last eight days. And while I was beginning to feel ready to stop this, I began to click away with great enthusiasm, climbing up and down off my seat, and soon as I  saw more elephants, giraffes, and a lion relaxing in a tree. 

We stayed at the Lemala camp at the lake, and though smaller than the others, it was as beautifully appointed. Plus the food was excellent, including a great African buffet for dinner. The two chefs were very happy to cater to my dietary constraints.

Ray took us another game drive after we left Lake Manyara the next morning, and the highlight was seeing four lions looking very comfortable up on the branches of a tree. We also saw the blue monkey, thousands of pink flamingos, a great white pelican, ostriches, and more giraffes. Sadly, we also saw an elephant with one tusk.

Another sadness was the many beggars who came by every time we stopped. Although Ray discouraged us from giving them anything, he stopped the truck several times to give our leftover food to young boys walking along the road. Every village we passed showed this level of poverty. Lots of little shacks where people were trying to sell practically anything that they could: a few t-shirts and dresses hanging from a line, flimsy necklaces, and bracelets. There was a butcher shop and a place to buy medicines – called medics, umpteen curio shops, and beautiful rows upon rows of garden material on the other side of the road. However, everyone was trying to sell the same thing, so no one was buying anything. Except us. Much to our travel mate’s delight, Ray also took us to the best African handicrafts emporium of our whole safari experience during that drive.

We arrived at the Ngorongoro National Park by mid afternoon, and I was surprised and actually taken aback at the amenities it provided: actual toilets, picnic areas, lookouts. It lacked the raw and naturalness of the other reserves and parks we had visited. But then we should have known what was to follow: the Explorean Lodge where we would stay the next two nights. Here we were really back in civilization and a very elegant one at that. Our room was huge – actually it had a both a living room and bedroom – with an outdoor deck that looked out to the lodge’s huge vegetable and flower gardens. The food, however, was not so good. At first we all thought how lovely it would be to stay in this paradise for the rest of our lives, but after we sampled the food, we changed our minds. Going home soon was beginning to sound pretty good.

The next day, on our last game drive to the Ngorongoro Crater, further cemented our thoughts about leaving Africa. We drove and drove and drove up and down hills in a thick morning fog to get to the crater. There we saw wildebeeste and elephants and a few lions – actually a male lion was having his way with a female lion right in front of us – and many birds we hadn’t seen before. However, the red dirt road and so much foliage covered with red dust were what I remember most about this area. Every time another vehicle would pass it kicked up dust such that we were left with a coating of red dust on ourselves, inside ourselves, and upon every thing we carried. I wrote:

I’m satisfied

on this last day of safari.

I’ve seen more animals and birds

than I ever dreamed of – so many more

than Jonah could ever board in his ark.

The geography and weather varied

in each place we visited.

Bumpy hills with bare trees in hot Samburu,

a vast plain with little vegetation

called the Savanna in the Masai Mara,

rolling greens covered with dense rocks

and thunderstorms every evening in the Serengeti,

dust and hot dry air in Lake Manyara,

and now at our last place Ngorongoro

wind-blown red dusty soil that covers

all of me inside and out.

The next morning Ray drove us to the airport just past Arusha, Tanzania. We spent another four hours on a combination of bumpy and newly paved highways. He told us the Chinese designed and built the new roads with labor by Chinese prisoners and a few newly-trained Africans workers. The Japanese paid for the whole enterprise.

Africa Trip Part 4 - Serengeti, Tanzania

After a plane ride, a long drive in a car with a young and sophisticated woman at the wheel, careful and thorough customs checks when leaving Kenya and later arriving in Tanzania, and another plane ride, we arrived in the Serengeti. It turns out the Serengeti is located just a couple hours drive from where we were in the Masai Mara, but because of some kind of feud between the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments the nearby border was closed causing us to unnecessarily spend hours and the big bucks to get to our first Tanzanian destination. 

However, all was forgiven when our guide Nathan met us at the airport. Throughout our three-day stay there, he took us on what I thought were the most interesting game drives of our entire time in Africa – imagine seeing a mother and baby rhino before we even arrived at our next tent camp, the Olakira.

On that first drive we also saw two kinds of vultures, storks, hippos, elephants, and Masai giraffes. But the rhinos were the find of the day – perhaps even of the whole trip. Even Nathan hadn’t seen any rhinos in months.

The Olakira camp is much more traditional – without the elegant appointments of the Elephant Pepper camp. However, it does have running water into the sink making it much easier to wash out undies, a curtain separating the bath from the bedroom, and a large screened in living room outside of the bedroom. The food, however, was way worse.

As we traveled around the Serengeti with Nathan for three days, we began to call him a tracking genius. We saw leopards, lions, the Agama lizard that looks like Spiderman, many more kinds of antelopes, a very pregnant zebra, and more gorgeous birds including the woodland kingfisher, the lilac breasted roller, the gray heron, the yellow throated long claw, the gray headed social weaver, the little bee eater, and the marabou stork. 

Nathan also taught us some more Swahili words (Swahili is the language of Tanzania whereas the Kenyans speak English). “Twende” means let’s go and “Semama” means stop. Also “Pole-pole” means slowly, slowly. We used those words a lot while we were driving around. He also had his own language for asking us if we needed to stop to pee. “Do you need to “Pick a flower?” he’d ask ,and if we did he’d find us a suitable bush to hide behind.

The most exciting part of our Serengeti stay – aside from the rhino sightings – was watching the wildebeest and zebra cross the Mara River from the Kenya side to where we were in Tanzania - called the Migration. Nathan was intent. He took us back to the crossing point several times and finally when we were about to give it up we saw another game driver racing a ways up on the road we were on. Nathan followed at about 60 mph with the four of us in an open land rover without seat belts. But it was worth it. We got there just in time to see the wildebeests and a few zebras – about 500 animals in all – cross. It was like a stampede. Some were on each other’s backs. They filed down the cliff on the Kenya side, got into the water, swam, climbed over rocks, swam some more until they got to our side, and climbed out. A couple had trouble. One made it and was the last one out. The other appeared to be stuck between two rocks and couldn’t figure out how to back up to get out. Instead it kept struggling until exhausted. The croc hovering nearby never attacked. It just waited patiently for the wildebeest to die on its own. It was so sad to watch that we left before the croc got its dinner.

That afternoon, on our ride with Nathan, he miraculously found us another rhino. Out of only forty-five rhinos in the whole area, we were lucky to see three of them. And then it absolutely poured down rain the rest of the day.

Stay tuned for the next installment about Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater, also in Tanzania.