Step One: Initially feel contented with your national parks lodge surroundings. Then FREAK OUT as you read the BED BUGS comment written in the last entry of the guest book.
Step Two: Strip the beds search every mattress, thinking the info you know about NYC bed bugs will be applicable to Africa’s. (It’s not.) Do all of this very loudly while friend Dan tries to sleep with a migraine.
Step Three: Find no evidence of bed bugs, look at the sun going down, think about the five and a half hour trip you just finished, and decide to stay. After all, who could know about bedbugs so quickly during their stay? The guest book must be incorrect. Still, stay very paranoid the rest of the trip.
Step Four: Watch as Luke, the youngest of the Mullens, downs
Benadryl after Benadryl (strong, drowsy allergy med) as his eyes swell, his nose runs uncontrollably, and
hives break out on his skin.
Step Five: Eat a sweltering but delicious dinner and relax
next to the river, hearing quaint hippos grunt across the water to each other. Watch
your child step on a thorn. Become swarmed with bugs. Go inside.
Watch as black bugs come out of all the living room furniture and scream
and dance as your four year old cries while you get them out of his shorts and
shirt. Panic more and rush everyone to bed under the safety of mosquito
netting.
Step Six: Boil as you drift off to sleep, listening to
the night-long sounds of the hippos and elephants grazing by on their way in and out of
the water.
Step Seven: Awaken to a beautiful morning, bright and
early. Grab some pumpkin scones before getting
in your not-sounding-quite-right-anymore car and heading to various pools to
take in the early morning wildlife.
Return to the lodge when you realize you have forgotten tow ropes and
have almost gotten stuck a number of times.
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| If we hadn't seen a lot of animals, I would have blamed Dan's Bob Marley pants. |
Step Eight: Return to the lodge to find that despite the
locked doors, screens, and bars on the windows, monkeys have broken inside and
eaten everything they could get their hands on.
Imagine them licking your toothbrushes as you play a game called Find
the Monkey Crap, watch Julie turn using baby wipes into a fine art, and grieve
for the now empty Ziplocs (I used to call these baggies, but locals laugh at this) where chocolate cookies once resided.
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| Nothing will bond two people together like cleaning up monkey poo. |
Step Nine: Enjoy your first Egg McMullens before locking things up again and heading out to the parks office. Take note of how miserable Luke is as he downs three times the human dosage of Benadryl and tries to keep his eyes open.
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| Jonas happily finds a snake skin while breakfasting. |
Step Ten: At the parks office find out a big storm is coming
to Mana Pools that night. Request a
guided hike with a less than charismatic man named Amos. Get in the car to head to a good spot, then
stop at the edge of the river. Find the
river (the only way out) rushing high over the bridge, too high to cross. It
has been dry our entire stay, so where did all of the sudden water come from? Amos
will say that they must have had a large storm up north in Zambia. Dan Mullen
will say the dead hippo clogged the cistern below. Either way, there is no crossing the river.
Step Eleven: Drive to a different spot, wondering how you
will ever get out of this place. Take a
guided hike with Amos and an AK 47, tracking hippo through poisonous trees and
foot-deep mud. Make sure it is over one
hundred degrees. Finally come to the
mouth of Mana River, where it flows into the Zambezi, and take in the amazing
view.
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| Amos leads the way. Way to wear neutral colors, Mullens. |
Step Twelve: Look at Luke, who is sleeping with toilet paper
in his nose and no longer has eyes.
Think about the storm to come and the fact that one extra day in the
park means we will each get only one meatball for dinner. If the monkeys have not already eaten them. Hurry back to the lodge and pack everything
as fast as possible. Hose Luke down -literally, use a hose- and find a hornet’s
nest in the living room furniture. Yes, you will forge the already risky river
to get out as soon as possible.
