I Went to Africa and It Wasn’t Funny

I traveled to Africa with my mother a few years ago. We got to Newark airport and checked our luggage. The guy who handled it was extra nice and very polite. When we got to the gate, I sat down and looked at my phone. I had an email from someone named Felix.

To: Pam Gaslow

Reply To: FELIX ________

Subject: Hi

Hi how are u princess this the guy that was working with the bags earlier i just want to let you know ur a beautiful woman and god bless u and ur mom and have a good trip and enjoy ur vacation . . . I saw ur email in ur bag if anything this is my email have a good one.

I was dating a cop at the time so I forwarded it to him.

When we got on the plane I took a Xanax, put earplugs in, and watched as the stewardess demonstrated all the safety procedures for flying. I can’t believe they still show you how to buckle your seat belt. I’m sorry but if you don’t know how to buckle your seat belt, you deserve to fall out of the plane.

4500 hours later we landed in Johannesburg, then met our connecting flight to Zambia where we were going to see Victoria Falls. If you don’t know what Victoria Falls is, google it. I’m not a fucking geography teacher.

According to our itinerary that evening we were supposed to “Enjoy the Sundowner Cruise on the Zambezi River above the Falls. Glide lazily down the river looking for hippo, elephant or buffalo coming to drink at the water’s edge. Absorb the quietness of the African bush as sunset brings the day to a close, sometimes in a fiery departure, sometimes in a myriad of blended colors.”

Seriously, who writes this shit — a romance novelist? I can’t.

This was the reality: We saw three hippos, but they were mostly underwater, and that was for about five minutes of the two-hour ride. Then I fell asleep. The expression slow boat to nowhere describes our ride to a T.

The next day we went to Victoria Falls. It’s kind of like the Grand Canyon, except you stare at it for much longer because of the rainbows.

The following morning we took a tiny plane to Botswana. It was a fifteen-minute ride but it felt like 15 hours. I was terrified. After what seemed like an eternity I asked my mother how much longer and she said fourteen and a half minutes. When we landed I asked the pilot how long it would have taken to drive and he said eleven hours. Right.

We got to the safari camp and were on our way to our cabin when I saw a picture of Oprah hanging on a wall. It wasn’t clear if it was there because she had been a guest or just because they liked her. Then I saw this board which was very helpful if you lived in the past.

Our cabin was nice enough— two beds and a bathroom, but it had no air conditioning and no phone. It did come with an air horn that we were instructed to use to notify the “front desk” in case of an emergency. An hour later there was an 8" black spider on the ceiling above my bed so I blew the horn. Later on, a lizard was running around the room so I blew the horn again. I’m about as outdoorsy as Woody Allen. Or maybe I just like blowing air horns.

The next morning we went on our first game drive. While we drove through mini rivers and wildly uneven terrain, we learned fun facts. Hyenas are most famous for their “laugh.” Warthogs like to roll in the mud to protect their skin from the sun and parasites. Giraffes only need 5 to 30 minutes of sleep in a 24-hour period. I had the most in common with Koalas — they sleep 22 hours a day, eat one food, and love to be held by strangers for five minutes at a time. Unfortunately, they don’t have them in Africa and I had to go to a whole other continent just to hug one.

As we drove around the driver talked about the animals and their habits in the wild. He used phrases like “Sexually mature male,” “Heightened State,” and “In heat,” and I couldn’t help thinking about the cop I was dating back in NY. It probably wasn’t normal that I was getting excited by those terms, but there wasn’t a lot to think about out there in the wild. We saw a bunch of giraffes, elephants, and some zebras. I asked the driver if we were going to see any Leopards. He stopped the jeep, turned around, and showed me the only place we were going to see them . . .

Amazing. I could have just stayed in New York and Photoshopped one on my lap.

Then I got a text from the cop. “Are you awake? Whatcha doin? Was the guy that sent that email the TSA guy or just the Skycap? If he is the TSA guy I’m gonna have a chat with his boss about uninvited contact.” Loves.

I had been dating Mark the cop for almost three months. It was interesting and different. I mean no one had ever shown up at my apartment with a loaded gun before. He kept it on top of my cupcake display case. We had a lot in common. He had been in the military and served in Desert Storm in Iraq. I had studied psychology at a private school on the East Coast. He had killed 17 people in the war; some with a gun and some with a knife. I had once killed a goldfish by accident after filling its bowl with hot water instead of cold because I was drunk. He had been stabbed and shot. I had been stung by a bee in sixth grade. His cousin had asked him to have sex with her. I don’t have any cousins, but I used to fantasize about sleeping with a stepbrother, who I also didn’t have. He was an Italian Catholic, had four tattoos, and wore a small cross around his neck. I’m Jewish and dislike tattoos. He was a ranked triathlete. I was the laziest person on the face of the earth. He was funny and angry and we both hated everyone. He was the silent but deadly type and my friends were concerned because I’m such a wiseass they thought I might be the 18th person he killed. “Well,” one of them said, “if he does ever kill you it will be quick and efficient.”

Anyway, back to the leopards that we weren’t seeing . . . We started talking to the driver again. I asked him how many wives he had and he said one. I asked if he had any candy bars and he said no. He told us that his friend had a golden retriever and one day they went outside and a baboon was petting it! We saw a bird land on a giraffe’s ass and then eat the shit that was coming out of it. Our driver told us that one time a bird’s head got stuck in a giraffe’s ass and died. It probably wasn’t fun for the giraffe either.

Anyway, this is how you find the elephants:

This is what you drive through to find them. . .

There’s a lot of downtime on safari with absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go because you’re in the middle of nowhere. My mother and I were sitting at the pool one day, in about 100-degree heat, when she started telling me about one of her friends’ sons. She said he was inventing disposable gloves to wear on the subway.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Doesn’t he know that disposable gloves have already been invented?”

“They’re different,” she said.

“How?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What did he do before this?” I asked.

“He was an investment banker.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “So he woke up one day and was like ‘I really need to quit my investment banking job to invent already invented disposable gloves?’”

“He got tired of what he was doing,” she said.

“Right. So he quit his job and decided to invent something that had already been invented.” She just looked at me. “And what are people gonna do in the winter?” I asked. “Wear disposable subway gloves over their regular gloves?”

“I don’t know!”

“I can’t,” I said. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

You go on two game drives a day — one in the morning and one in the evening, to avoid being out during the hottest time of the day. The night drives were cold and since there was no windshield on the jeep bugs flew in your eyes if you didn’t wear glasses. I complained to the driver about these things, and he asked if anyone had ever called me a primadonna. I said yes. I asked if he had any candy bars and he said no.

The night drives felt like we were wildlife paparazzi — constantly stalking and pursuing the animals. The other drivers would radio ours and tell him their location and that they had spotted lions or cheetahs or whatever, and we would race over to that area hoping they would still be there. Once we found them the driver would shut off the jeep and we would be very quiet and still and watch them. It felt creepy to be invading their privacy, but they didn’t seem to mind.

The game drives were like doing drugs. Each spotting raised the bar a little higher. Once you saw a zebra you wanted to see a giraffe. Once you saw a giraffe, you wanted to see a lion. Once you saw lions having sex, you wanted to go home. The jackpot is seeing a “kill” which we didn’t get to see. When I watched the lions walk they reminded me of Mark the cop, lean and trim and quietly menacing.

It was excruciatingly hot in Botswana. I had no idea how hot it was until I asked one of the camp managers what the temperature was and he said 108. There were also A LOT of bugs. Every single surface had some sort of critter on it. When I picked up a shirt or a towel I always expected something to jump out at me. My anxiety was on high alert. I was never at ease. My nerves were shot. There was a space of about three inches between the bottom of our back door and the ground which was an open invitation for anything to break in and attack. When we walked to breakfast in the morning flies swarmed us. I had to walk with a towel over my head. It was maddening.

Our last day at the camp was Christmas Day and it was probably 108 degrees again. They had cute chocolate Santas for us in the dining tent but they were melted. We went out for our morning game drive and we found a mother elephant and two babies. We were watching them and then the mother elephant walked towards our jeep and stood in front of it and stared at us. Then she started slamming her trunk on the hood of the jeep. It was at that point that I noticed there was a rifle attached to the front of the jeep which made zero sense in any world, especially that one. We escaped unscathed.

After lunch, everyone went back to their rooms, and my mom and I stayed and just hung out. It started to rain. Then it rained harder. We had to move closer to the center of the open tent because we were getting wet. The wind picked up and the rain started coming in sideways so we moved closer inside. Then there was nowhere else to go and the winds were insane and we were ducking behind the bar. Pictures started falling off the walls. Glasses were falling off the bar. We were terrified that the tent was going to collapse on us and that we would get electrocuted or something. But at the same time, we couldn’t stop laughing because it was unbelievable that this was happening. It was something out of a movie. I’ve never laughed so hard while thinking I might die. When the storm finally stopped we went back to our room and our beds were soaking wet because the windows were open. I started to panic that we were running out of Xanax. I asked my mom how many she had left and she said nine. “Are u sure?” I asked. “Where are they? Should I hold onto them? How many more flights are we taking?” I started going through the itinerary counting how many more planes we would be on. “Oh my god, there’s a lizard!” I yelled as I picked my flip-flops off the floor. UGH! I could see the headline now:

PRIMADONNA AMERICAN BLOGGER RUNS OUT OF XANAX IN BOTSWANA AND IT WASN’T FUNNY