In this new series about cultural observations, our expert Sosauce traveler and family man, Howard will be introducing stories about his encounters with interesting people in his travels. This is the second part of a story about John Kago, a travel guide from Tanzania. Read the first part here.
Before our little propeller plane landed on the Serengeti Plains, what I wanted was glory – not in terms of achievement in photography (I hadn’t taken much of an interest in it then), but in terms of memory. I wanted to take back with what I thought were the most glorious images and sounds on a safari – the big five games (lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard, black rhino, and white rhino), cheetah in pursuit, a feast after a kill, the Mara River crossing, or the laugh of an excited hyena.
John Kago changed all that. His knowledge of the Serengeti was encyclopedic, and above all, he had a passion for birds. With him, we had no appointments to rush to. We took our time, stopping to investigate whatever piqued our interest. On our first game drive, everyone in our vehicle was anticipating the blood and the gore, and we did get to see that. We were one of the first to arrive on scene when a lion took down a full grown adult African buffalo. The lion leisurely sat in the tall grass, panting a bit, and savored his lunch. Yet, along the way, John was going on and on about the different bird species. Like hearing a new language unintended, John’s words were merely droning and unintelligible at first. But they did get to me look.
Once I took my first look at a bird, a small one like the lilac-breasted roller for example, I never stopped looking since. I felt like I was being initiated. I had made up my mind before the trip to look for the big stuff, whatever that meant. When I met John, I started to take in everything. I started to get fascinated by the stillness of the kingfisher looking over a creek or the courtship of Kori Bustards.
One morning in the Ngorongoro Crater, we were looking at flock of herons in a watering hole through our binoculars, and all of a sudden, the herons started to fly up into the sky in haste and alarm. John stopped his lecture and shifted his binoculars to look. Finding what he was looking for, he whispered, “there,” and guided our binoculars to a spot. In our view was a serval cat strolling slowly through the grass. It was simply beautiful, and I had never seen a pair of ears quite like the ones on the serval cat. Aside from seeing the epic Mara River crossing, where the army of wildebeests charged down the hill in full panic and scrambled across the river, this was the most memorable moment for me on the safari. It helped me to crystallize the beauty, the scale, and the wonder of the African Savannah in a single moment. This would not have happened if I didn’t meet John. I am sure of it.
Howard is a dreamer of distant places, and he would like to take his daughter to see the world some day soon. Howard’s blog series is about the people he meets on his travels.
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[...] is the third part of a story about John Kago, a travel guide from Tanzania. Read the second part here. We traveled in Tanzania only by land, a welcoming change after experiencing the wrath of the [...]
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