After a lifetime of traveling solo, Honor Moore tackles the ultimate adventure a safari through Tanzania with friends.
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRIET LEE-MERRION
Ill go if you go, my friend Diane said.
She was recently widowed.
Credit:ILLUSTRATION BY HARRIET LEE-MERRION
The price was steep, but I had time to save up.
I was 20 when I first traveled by myself, the trip to Europe a gift from my parents.
Supper was a solo affair at a cafe.
The author as a teenager, ready for takeoff.Courtesy of Honor Moore
Courtesy of Honor Moore
My high school French got me through the first part of the trip.
But Italy was next, and my Italian was barely good enough to shout Basta!
when a gorgeous Italian soldier helped with my suitcase, then swept me into an unwanted kiss.
In the decades since, travel never failed me.
I have come to relish solo travel.
A gentleman asked them in Greece, Are you two women alone?
Alone meaning without spouse or children.
In Tanzania, Id be alone, but with company.
Are we really doing this?
I was terrified Id bring the wrong clothes.
wrote Kathryn and Dena.
Another panic: we were allowed to take duffel bags only.
Hard-framed suitcases with wheels wouldnt fit on the small planes we needed to take from camp to camp.
How would I carry 33 pounds on those endless airport walks?
With airport assistance, of coursea wheelchair or cart.
(Where was the twentysomething who thought nothing of flying to Paris in heels?)
At Kilimanjaro we were met byNomad Tanzania, the company that planned our trip.
I fell asleep to the sounds of birds and low mysterious purrs.
I was settling into the beauty of limitless space when our vehicle jerked to a stop.
We leaped up, heads and shoulders through openings in the cruiser roof.
Our first sighting: black and white stripes like Pop art in a green meadow.
First one, then a group, officially called adazzle.
It bent my mind to see them uncaged.
A giraffe was munching the tops of the small trees near our shared deck.
The next day, we saw baboons, ostriches, and more big cats.
Through binoculars, I could barely see the leopard.
Then his black spots broke camouflage.
asked a friend later.
The next day, we saw our first kill.
This is how the lions eat, our guide, Mollel, explained.
Through our binoculars, we watched a lion gnaw its prey, an unfortunate wildebeest.
Jackals and vultures followed, then the hyenas, who would eventually scatter the bones.
A lilac-breasted roller, we were told.
“All was quiet.
Then a shock of splashing, a flash of fighting limbs.
We were watching an attempted kill, as a massive crocodile climbed onto the bank.”
By the time we reached the Serengeti, our final stop, Id become adept at observing.
We paused within view of a massive herd that had stopped in hesitation on a steep riverbank.
They have no leader, Ali Kea, another guide, explained.
They cross on instinct.
Even he, a safari veteran of decades, didnt know when theyd surge.
Then a shock of splashing, a flash of fighting limbs.
We were watching an attempted kill, as a massive crocodile climbed onto the bank.
The herd magically vanished.
I was back there.
I saw the paintings in Florence when I was 20, at the beginning of my adult life.
