My wife was raised with the belief that travel was primarily for visiting family, and as a result we’ve done very little recreational travel. In 2022 our close friends invited us to their wedding in India and we decided that life was too short not to (we also knew that this was the perfect excuse for us to make such a trip). It was our very first international trip together (not counting small excursions to Canada).
While travelling in the State of Kerala (motto: God’s Own Country), we passed an elephant crossing sign that completely blew my mind – it never occurred to me that I’d be in a place where I might casually encounter an elephant in the wild. We did not see a wild elephant on this trip, but it made me realize that I really wanted to. That got us thinking about an African safari.
Not long afterward, my wife realized that a member of in her interfaith group organized safaris in Kenya (she married the brother of her safari guide), so we reached out and decided to join her safari group in December 2024. My wife pointed out that it is a long way to travel to only do one thing, so we looked for a secondary trip as well. We were looking at visiting Victoria Falls, but I realize that while I’d love to see it, there usually isn’t much to do at a waterfall except take a few pictures and then leave.
Madagascar kept jumping out to me as a fun place to visit, so we decided to go there.
When we made the plans, the trip seemed a long ways away, but now we leave in three days. Preparing for the trip has been our major focus for the past several months. The Kenya part of the trip was easy to plan, since basically we just had to be at a certain hotel at a certain time and the safari group made all the arrangements. We’ve also had zoom calls with the group that included slide shows of previous safaris, so I have a pretty good idea what to expect.
Planning the Madagascar part of the trip was a lot harder and included a lot more choices. Every part of Madagascar is different from every other part – they have beautiful islands, jungles, the avenue of the Baobabs, the capital city of Antananarivo, etc.
As the country is still developing, the roads are not very drivable and you mostly have to fly from place to place. We finally decided on a short trip into Antananarivo and to spend a couple of days around the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. We won’t see any beaches or baobab trees, but we will see some jungle and lots of lemurs. My wife is hoping to see a giraffe necked weevil.
We made our arrangements through Kensington Tours, but we still aren’t sure what to expect (especially since the weather forecast is heavy rain for the entire time).
With those plans made, I realized that I needed a telephoto lens for my camera. I have an old Canon EOS (that I almost never use), so I went to Kenmore Camera only to learn that Canon cameras have changed enough that getting a good lens for that camera was no longer possible. My brother-in-law is a passionate photographer and he said that if I bought a Nikon Z series camera that he’d loan me his 100-400mm lens. For some reason I bought a Nikon Z8, which is WAY more camera than I’m used to. Hence, I’ve spent the last several months learning and practicing how to use it. I bought a 9-hour video tutorial that was very helpful. I also took a couple of courses through Kenmore Camera, one of which was coincidentally taught by the same guy that did the 9-hour video series.
My wife started taking French lessons to prepare for our trip, so we should be able to find the library if we ever get lost. I will be entirely at the mercy of our tour guides and Google translate.
We return 2 days before Christmas, which means that we also had to finish all of our Christmas shopping early. Hectic times, but we are very excited!