February 9, 2020
There is something special about waking up early and seeing the sunrise and feeling its warmth touch my shadow. When you look at the Kenyan plains, they are so endlessly vast that you can see a tree for miles in the distance, even if your eyesight is poor. The land is flat and open, a home to the fearless Masai tribe and the animals that dwell there. I find myself coming here as an escape from a world that is filled with all kinds of emotions. When I am in the Masai Mara, there is only tranquility and a sense of interconnectedness between people and animals. Every time I wake up with a sunrise and sunset, I am restored, and I feel the wandering safari spirit fills my soul.
After watching the sunrise, I packed up my belongings and began to drive. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I knew I was driving further and further away. Soon, I stopped my car to take a break—the bumpy terrains were giving me a headache—and in the distance, I saw a mirror of light flickering. When I opened my glove box and took out my binoculars, I could see a man in his Land Cruiser, the tires swimming in thick mud. He was stuck and needed help, big time. Thankfully, I had a military compass that showed me he was half a kilometer away.
As I became closer, the terrain got rough. The roads were muddy because it had been raining for two months, and the region had experienced dangerous floods. I had heard that one person was killed after his car lost balance and flipped over. As I approached the young Kenyan man, who was waving for help and appeared to be in his mid-20s, I saw his car had gotten even worse. I had a shovel, trackers, and a winch in the back of the truck and got to work.
“Every time I wake up with a sunrise and sunset, I am restored, and I feel the wandering safari spirit fills my soul.”
The first thing we did was remove the mud, which was very deep by this point. Thankfully, I was wearing equestrian boots which came up to my knees—handy for keeping away mud, snakes, and other poisonous insects (you never know what is lurking out there!) How thankful I was to be wearing them now. After nearly one hour of struggling, we finally managed to free his car. By the time we were done, the weather was nearly 26 ° C, and I was soaked with sweat and tired from dehydration. On my way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about taking a well-deserved cold shower and ending the night with a glass of wine.