Ndutu in January

Madison, Wisconsin·Jan 2025

We are in our sixties and this was the trip we had been putting off since our children left home.

The plains at Ndutu in January are not a landscape with animals in it. They are animals, with a bit of landscape showing through. We had seen the documentaries and still were not ready for the scale of it, or for how quiet it is. You expect noise. Mostly there is wind and a low sound like a crowd two streets away.

Practical things, because those are what I looked for when I was reading other people's letters. The vehicle was ours alone, which mattered more than we expected: we could stop when we wanted and stay as long as we wanted. The camp moved with the herds and was genuinely comfortable, though it is canvas and it is cold at five in the morning. Bring the fleece they tell you to bring.

Rosalind's knee meant she could not do the walking safari. We were told that at the planning stage rather than at the gate, and an alternative was arranged. Small thing. It is the kind of small thing that tells you who you are dealing with.