Let’s Get Lost

In literary preparation for my trip to Tanzania, I downloaded Henry Morton Stanley’s memoir “How I Found Livingstone” for my iPad. The ebook is free, it’s in the public domain now and if you’ve got any kind of reader device, you’ll find you have access to a sprawling library of classics. I was giddy when I discovered that my local library had an electronic collection that I could access without leaving my house; I promptly grabbed a handful of East Africa related titles including the electronic version of Frommer’s Kenya and Tanzania. I may or may not get around to reading everything in full before the books are reclaimed by the ether from which they came — library titles magically expire at three weeks out, while “How I Found Livingstone” is mine for as long as I feel like giving it space.

Stanley opens “How I Found Livingstone” by describing how his editor suggested he should go find David Livingstone, a missionary and explorer who’d seemingly disappeared into East Africa. Stanley seems to be in no hurry to find Livingstone, he starts with several bragging paragraphs about what he’s accomplished prior to setting foot in Africa. “No big deal,” he seems to say, and then plunges hip deep into more florid language about his heroism and discomfort. “How I Found Livingstone” is barely readable — my modern mind finds the rambling sentences and Victorian drama hard to digest. The paragraphs make me dizzy and oh, he’s such a colonial bastard, Stanley is. He did find Livingstone, though, dying of malaria in a village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

Stanley was a newspaper journalist, his expedition to find Livingstone was funded by the New York Herald. I like to imagine him pitching this effort to his editor, but in modern terms. “Dude, it will be epic. Savage people, savage territory, savage everything. We’ll serialize it, our mundane workaday readers will  go through my reports like popcorn at a matinee!” In Stanley’s time, you could be an explorer and a travel writer all at once and there was a certain air of glamor and danger to the whole occupation. Now, so much of travel writing tells you how to get a great deal or where to find the particular flavor of indolence you like best, urban or beach side. Anyone who’s saved up the cash can have an adventure, and with the ease of self publishing, anyone can declare themselves a travel writer, including me.

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At the travel clinic, it looked as though there was no place to sit. The nurse came out and called a name, then a large Indian family vacated half the chairs in the waiting room. Like me, they were there to get their vaccinations — I saw them exit later, little round band-aids visible on the upper arms that were exposed. I got three shots — against polio, yellow fever, and hepatitis. I got a dose of oral vaccine against typhoid, and prescriptions for anti-malarials and a round of antibiotics just in case.  My own band-aids had the Warner Brothers Tasmanian devil on them; there were two that I peeled off later in the day to reveal… nothing. The first time I’d been vaccinated for hepatitis, I bled and bruised and then ached for several days; this second round had me a little sore, but with minimal side effects. The worst part was the expense — as I have crappy American health insurance, travel vaccinations are not covered. I spent nearly 600 dollars — you read that correctly — 600 dollars to prevent serious disease. I can’t argue with the intent, I would rather not have yellow fever, but cognitive dissonance allows me to be angry about the expense and to appreciate how necessary it is.

I am on my way to Tanzania. First, I will stop in Nairobi for about 48 hours, then I will join a safari tour. My last stop is in Dar es Salaam, but I will spend some time in Zanzibar before boarding a series of very long flights that will return me to Seattle. I hear that the Ngorogoro Crater — a famous wildlife and conservation area — is crowded with tourists. I must keep an eye on my valuables in Zanzibar and I must not drink the water and I should probably do some comparison shopping if I want to buy Masai bead work because if I don’t, I am likely to pay too much money. But if I want to get lost, I will have to try very hard — I am with a tour group — and now that I’m properly vaccinated, I’ll need little more than common sense to ensure my health and well being.

Tanzania is well mapped, my route well traveled. Everything will be new to me, but there won’t be any ground breaking exploration taking place. There will probably be some big cats and elephants and zebra and wildebeest. There will be a certain amount of sleeplessness, impatience, sunburn, hunger, I can count on that. Something will make me cry, baby elephants, perhaps, or more likely, standing on the ghost inhabited grounds of a former slave trade station. I hope I’ll forget all this expectation upon boarding my outbound flight; I am good at letting go once I’m underway.

Stanley had a clear goal, he wanted to be a hero, to find the lost explorer. Livingstone had a goal too, exploration and spreading Christianity. My goals are fuzzy — pay attention, be awake, write well. Explore. Get lost, just a tiny bit, and then, find my way home again.

My trip to Tanzania is mostly, but not 100% funded by Intrepid Travel as part of their “Classic Journeys” promotion. In return for funding my travel, they’ve asked that I blog about the experience here. The photo above is from the Library of Congress archives. It’s taken en route to Arusha in 1936 by Eric G. Matson.