Articles

Comfort. In these troubled economic times, it is what we are looking for. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes, pot roast and stewed vegetables. Can’t buy a new red car, buy a new red lipstick instead. Put off your haircut another week. Do your own nails. Recession is no longer just the “R” word, recession is here.

It is not the time to book a three week safari, but sometimes we do need to get out and get away. Every once in a while we need to forget our troubles and take a short breather.

There was a time when packing for a trip or a vacation was easy. You moved everything from your closet to your trunks. Your trunks numbered at least three; a large steamer trunk, a smaller steamer trunk and a wardrobe trunk fitted with drawers on one side and a closet on the other. A vanity case and the odd hatbox or two would round out your travel trunks. These cases were carried on ships, railroads, in cars and by camels. No matter where in the world you traveled, you could be assured that your many trunks would arrive with you. Lovely!

Would you take a vacation with me? I am an easy traveler. Nothing flusters or bothers me. I expect to be kept waiting in airports. I am not surprised by dirty bathrooms, rude people nor bad weather. I am not moody. I do not have a bad temper.

There is nothing that can compare to a camel safari -- days spent walking or riding through the African hinterland. Silence surrounds you except for the soft thuds of camel feet. At night myriad stars and the moon shines in the absolute blackness of the sky. Animals snuffle, their distance unknown in the unfamiliar quiet.

There are some places with names so exotic, so poetic, that they evoke mystery simply by their sound. Kathmandu is such a place and I was eager to get there while Nepal was still a lost horizon.

Kathmandu is a crossroads. Visitors gather in Nepal to study the religions, the deities, and the fascinating mix of cultures from India, China, Tibet and Nepal itself. They come to visit the shrines, stupas, temples and palaces and to perhaps view the living Goddess.

The young man’s words haunt me still. It was November 2000. I had prepared a driving safari for a group of sixteen, a safari which would allow my travelers to see Kenya and Tanzania, rather than fly from game reserve to game reserve without ever understanding the scope and makeup of the countries they were visiting. We began our Safari at the Windsor Golf and Country Club, a luxurious hotel outside of Nairobi. The Windsor is a rather secret place, away from the hubbub of the city, the meeting place of U.N. delegates and representatives of the African Nations. It is safe and secure.

My husband and I have an agreement. We take turns choosing the destinations of our travels. I cheat. I mostly choose. But, when my husband chose Ireland, the land of his grandparents, I could not deny him a trip to his ancestral home.

As always, I began my preparation for our trip with study. I studied the history of Ireland, reread some of the literature of Irish writers and poets and in my search of the ancient religion and lore of the Island, I discovered fairies. Fairies led me backwards to Celts and Celts to the supposition that the ancient Celts were a Semitic, Hebrew speaking people. Ireland was becoming more and more interesting.

Before traveling to Kenya the first time, I read everything I could find about the extraordinary land I was to visit. The complex Maasai culture especially intrigued me. I studied their beliefs, dress and social structure. I read biographies of warriors, learned why they wore red and studied their rites of passage. I also found that on Wednesdays, not terribly far from the tented camp where we would stay in the Maasai Mara, there was a small village market that was not open to outsiders. I arranged my itinerary so that I would be able to go and see what promised to be a real market rather than a “cultural village”.