A Blind Man's Trip Will Change the Way You Think About Safaris - Travel Tales by AFAR - video Dailymotion

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Subscribe to the Travel Tales podcast at https://afar.com/podcast  A visually impaired traveler journeys through the wilds of Zimbabwe and discovers a side of the safari experience that very few know.  Read the story here: https://rebrand.ly/pz91nzb  ——— Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com  Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters  Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia Follow AFAR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/afarmedia Follow AFAR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afarmedia

Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, and welcome to Travel Tales, a podcast from Afar Media. I'm your host,

00:14 Senior Editor Aislinn Green. And for the past six years, I've had the pleasure of working

00:18 with some of the most creative and interesting people in the world. Comedians, philosophers,

00:23 novelists, they've all shared their stories with Afar's readers about getting out into

00:28 the world and just reveling in it. And now, each week on Travel Tales, we'll hear from

00:33 some of our favorite contributors about a trip that changed their life. And because

00:38 the world is really anything but normal right now, thanks to COVID-19, I'm recording all

00:43 of this from my houseboat in California. In this episode, we meet Ryan Knighton, an author,

00:49 screenwriter, and one of Afar's contributing writers. Ryan is also blind, but that has

00:55 never stopped him from embracing adventure. And so we wondered, what would it be like

01:00 for him to go on safari? Some people might assume it's all about eyesight on a safari.

01:05 I mean, I know I did, but what's it like when we tune into our other senses? A lot, it turns

01:12 out. Soon it will be time for another adventure, but for now, enjoy these stories from travelers

01:29 who have connected to our world on a deeper level and let them fuel your dreams of a future

01:34 adventure. And with the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card, you'll be well on your way to powerful

01:39 new experiences. Learn more at marriottboundlesscard.com.

01:51 My wife and I had only been in Zimbabwe on safari for a few hours as our land cruiser

01:57 nosed through the bush and cicadas buzzed overhead like power lines. Our guide, Alan,

02:04 had already spotted several fleeting species of antelope, and I was already getting concerned

02:09 that as a blind man, yeah, this was going to kind of suck. I mean, I might as well be

02:14 at a drive-in movie. Close your eyes. Hey, over there is a kudu, whatever a kudu is.

02:22 Welcome to a blind safari. Our driver, Darmish, pulled over and Alan suggested in his lovely

02:28 baritone that we get out and stretch our legs and have a drink or what he called a sundowner.

02:33 Off in the distance, a giraffe was slipping into the trees and Alan began his work describing

02:38 the animal and its place in the ecosystem of this, the Malalangwe Game Reserve.

02:45 How a blind man such as myself could be connected to the unseen sights of an unseen place would

02:51 be Alan's challenge for the next few days. Me, I wanted to explore what a safari could

02:57 reveal to the remaining spectrum of my senses. Well, so far I'd nursed a bear and I'd

03:04 heard a rumor of a giraffe. Suddenly, Alan's hand clamped down on my shoulder, communicating

03:10 everything in a grip. Adrenaline shot through me. We were surrounded by bush and shadow

03:16 and something else, something not so giraffe. Alan's hand pivoted me, aiming my attention

03:24 like a satellite dish. Elephant, he whispered, 25 meters away. I strained to hear it, to

03:33 hear anything really. Was it moving? Had it seen us? Alan's hand squeezed my shoulder,

03:41 then again and again and again, imitating the steps of the animal. 15 meters away, he

03:51 said. I didn't know where our land cruiser was or how far we were from its safety. Alan's

03:58 hand assured me that everything was fine, but his constant grip implied that everything

04:03 could change in an instant. 10 meters. Finally, the faintest sound, the plodding of a six-ton

04:12 bull. An elephant's unstructured feet expand with every step, making a dispirited squish

04:19 like spiking a semi-deflated football. Now I knew how something so large could glide

04:24 so quietly through the forest. Squish, squish, it lumbered towards us, deciding whether to

04:32 charge. Then, squish, squish, it shuffled off into the forest and was gone. An odor

04:42 followed. I could smell wet earth. Alan would later explain to me that I had smelled the

04:48 elephant's method of cooling and hygiene. Mud retains moisture, so elephants paint themselves

04:54 in it to stay cool. When it dries, they scrape themselves against leadwood and baobab trees

04:59 to remove the hardened earth and any parasites from their skin. Basically, it's an elephant

05:05 waxing. Now, I hadn't seen one, but I'd already smelled and heard my way into some

05:12 of the marvelous biology around us. Sengita's Pamashana Lodge is a stunning nest

05:19 of thatched villas perched atop the sandstone cliffs of Malalangwe Lake. Most animals are

05:26 out early in search of water before the day's heat can stamp every living thing into lethargy,

05:31 so the aspiration is to be on safari by dawn. We had barely descended the cliffs and we

05:37 were nearing a pond when Alan flagged Dharmesh to pull over. He got out and disappeared into

05:44 the forest, you know, as if he was popping into a convenience store, not an ecosystem

05:49 that could hide a lion. "Here," he said when he returned, "chew these." I didn't know what

05:56 these were, but I put leafy bits into my face and began to chew, being the ever-compliant

06:01 Canadian that I am. Instantly, my tongue went dry. Like, ridiculously dry. "That's from

06:08 all the tannins," Alan explained. "You're chewing on the leaf of the maponi tree. Most

06:14 animals can't digest it, and now you know why. But elephants can, and they need a food

06:19 source with little competition, given how large they are."

06:24 More than a botany lesson under the sun, I was glimpsing a way of guiding that used an

06:29 animal's sensory experience as a point of entry. Leaves are food, so Alan had us engage

06:35 them by taste. Most guides would point to the distance and label sites with facts and

06:41 names like captions. "Over there is maponi. Elephants eat those. That's acacia. Giraffes

06:47 dig those." But that wasn't Alan's style. He wanted us to literally experience the ecology

06:54 around us as an evolving system of tastes and survival.

07:09 Afar Travel Tales, presented by the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card from Chase, is a powerful

07:14 way to connect through stories of travel. Stories move us. They take us across the world

07:20 and into the unknown. Stories inspire us to ask questions and dream of possibilities.

07:27 The experiences we share give us a glimpse of where we could go, what we could learn,

07:32 how we could grow. We hope the stories here will lift you up and give you inspiration

07:37 for adventures to come. Until then, the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card can help you on your

07:42 way to future destinations. Learn more at marriottboundlesscard.com

07:47 Soon, two white rhinos appeared, a mother and a calf. I could hear them snorting and

08:03 stamping in the mud, all of it just a few feet from us. But something was troubling

08:08 the water off to the right as well. "Uh-oh," Darmish said, and I felt this familiar tingle

08:16 in my spine. It's the tension that precedes violence. Three hyenas were stalking the rhinos

08:24 as they continued to drink, completely unfazed. Most people go on safari with a desire above

08:31 all else to photograph a lion. If you ask Alan, though, this is the least interesting

08:37 pursuit. Lions sleep a lot. Lions basically are photographs. Me, I'm not so into photographs.

08:46 But as I listened to those hyenas drink, I realized how much I wanted to hear one of

08:50 them laugh. If I could, it would be kind of like a trophy of sound I could take home.

08:57 But the hyenas didn't give up a peep. They just finished drinking, and then they darted

09:01 off into the hills. But not before the largest one dropped the nastiest, most eye-burning

09:07 carnivore fart ever blown into the face of a blind man. It's as if she knew I wanted

09:13 to hear her laugh, and instead mocked me by obliterating my sense of smell.

09:21 When you're a blind man strapped to the chair of a tracker's seat on the grill of a land

09:26 cruiser, you feel as if you're floating through the air, because you are. You also feel like

09:32 a hunk of bait, because you are. Within a few days under Alan's tutelage, I could flag

09:39 for Darmesh to stop if I smelled something disrupting the umbrella trees around us. A

09:45 thin marbling in the air, something sour and sweaty like a horse. Moments later, maybe

09:52 fifty yards away, a giraffe would appear.

09:57 But I didn't catch a whiff of anything. The afternoon, Darmesh suddenly locked up the

10:01 brakes, and Alan's hand shot through the open windshield of the land cruiser and clamped

10:06 down on my shoulder on that tracker's seat. "Don't move," he said. "Black rhino."

10:13 Quick movements can startle rhinos into a charge. Black rhinos, in particular, are nervous

10:21 and prone to fight.

10:23 Quickly, Alan began to whistle, small and unthreatening like a little bird, just to

10:29 let it know that we were here. It turns out black rhinos are nearly blind, and irony is

10:36 abundant in the bush. Still, the rhino charged at me, and then it stopped. And then I heard

10:45 it charge again, and it stopped. Then the rhino and I faced each other and hid in our

10:53 respective silences, until it went off into the forest and was gone. And I retired my

11:00 experiment as a tracker.

11:03 On our last day, a call came over the radio. Five hyenas had been spotted in a watering

11:09 pan about a half-hour's drive from where we were. By the time we got there, they were

11:14 still in the water with the leg of what Alan said looked like a heart of beast. But squaring

11:20 off at the pan's edge was a pack of wild African hunting dogs, about twenty of them,

11:26 although the species is nearly extinct. They were closing in either to take the hyenas'

11:31 kill or to pick a fight. The air smelled of blood. Hundreds of tiny birds called quilia

11:40 tornadoed above us in a humming swarm. There was a hot wind in my face, and it came from

11:46 their wings. Then I heard it. The nervous laugh of a hyena. It sounded like the forced

11:54 chuckle of an old man after a bad joke. Suddenly there was an explosion of water as the dogs

12:01 attacked, and rushed into the pond gnashing at the heels of the hyenas, mobbing, circling,

12:08 confusing them from every angle. The cries of the wild African hunting dog are probably

12:14 the strangest sound I've ever heard, like a chorus of computerized, twittering birds.

12:21 Vicious they bit the hyenas. The hyenas bit back and laughed, were wounded, squealed like

12:28 pigs in slaughter. On and on it went for hours. What else should you do but listen? Given

12:35 the near extinction of those dogs, that hyena fight might have been the only sound of its

12:41 kind made on the entire planet that day. And I can still hear it.

13:01 That was Ryan Knighton. Ryan is quarantining, like a good Canadian, at home on the wild

13:06 coast of Vancouver Island. It is its own safari, he says. The bears are awake, as are the sea

13:14 lions. Ready for more travel stories? Visit us online at afar.com/traveltales. And be

13:21 sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We're @afarmedia.

13:25 If you enjoyed today's adventure, we hope you'll come back next week for more great

13:29 stories. Subscribing makes this easy. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or

13:36 your favorite podcast platform. And please be sure to rate and review us. It helps other

13:40 travelers find the show. This has been Travel Tales, a production of

13:45 Afar Media and Boom Integrated. Our podcast was produced by Aislinn Green, Adrienne Glover,

13:51 and Robin Lai. Post-production was by John Marshall Media staff Jen Grossman and Clint

13:55 Rhodes. Music composition by Alan Queresha. And a special thanks to Laura Redman, Sarah

14:01 Storm and Irene Wang. I'm Aislinn Green, your zoomed out, under-traveled host. I can't wait

14:08 to hit the road again. Until we all freely can, remember that travel begins the moment

14:13 we walk out our front door. Everyone has a travel tale. What's yours?

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A Blind Man's Trip Will Change the Way You Think About Safaris - Travel Tales by AFAR

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