The Where’s Rich Project

As many people reading this may have looked at it as they are planning thier own visit to some of the places i have tagged, I thought it would be a good idea to recall my previous visit to Africa, namely Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, where I stayed in a bush camp for two weeks in 2007. Being in a standard camping tent surrounded by nature certainly left for some outstanding memories, and as a photographer, some amazing shots.

Below are some of the images i was able to get just moments from my tent on the Luangwa River; i hope they serve as inspiration for anyone thinking about heading off to Africa.

A male Lion rests in the dawn sun on the banks of the Luangwa River, Zambia

A lioness sends a protective glance toward an elephant heard crossing the Luangwa River, Zambia

An elephant leaves a 200-strong group to cross the Chobe River, Botswana to gain acces to the lush green Islands thriving in the dry season

An Elephant crosses the Luangwa River, Zambia

The Nightstalker

A lone elephant has a stoll on the dry earth of the South Luangwa National Park

Deciding where I want to go on holiday every year has never been a hard thing; I am fortunate to have an understanding and (more often than not) incorrigible bunch of friends who have the remarkable ability to agree to slightly obtuse trips at the drop of a hat, an example;

‘Chris are you up for going Zambia next week for a bit?’

‘Ya man’

No more explanation is really needed on this, lets just say I’ve had some interesting trips in the past when the traditional ‘use up all of your year’s holiday in one go and hope you don’t get ill or have much of a social life for the rest of the year, in fact also don’t have any birthdays or Christmas too’ philosophy. But now a more permanent solution to my desire or perhaps lust to see the world has presented itself in quite the random circumstances that I have become accustomed to.

I’m not really sure how it came about, certainly it was something I wanted to do sooner rather than later; I had travelled across Europe on my own in 2006 to escape a bad exam result (and ended up with a $1,000 phone bill – lesson learned) southern Africa in 2007 for a month to much fanfare and joy and last year was spent navigating the Appalachian Trail on my own ‘the English way’ via car (I will probably post on each of these later on when I have nothing to write about the current trip as they both served up some anecdotal treats).

Travel has always been in my blood, well maybe in my heart is a better way of putting it, well somewhere insde me anyway. I had the traditional family trips when I was younger. We would often go to France, my dad would drive us all to the south west, the huge pine forests of the region to relax in the Eurocamp resorts with our own little caravan sheltered from the sun under fifty meter pine. We would canoe in lakes, fish in streams and generally try and do a few ‘French things’ as, although they have never been intrepid explorers, I always get the feeling my parents do actually want to experience some sort of culture for two weeks a year. Trips then moved on to Scotland and Wales where my love of the outdoors met with being on holiday in an orgy of ‘is this right? We’re on holiday AND I get to climb trees and climb rocks!’ style questions which my mum and dad tentatively said yes too; probably wishing their son was on a hot beach where he couldn’t fall off anything. So that was the family effect. I thank them dearly for introducing me to hot weather, airplanes and in-car arguments which is enough to get anyone started.

The most endearing memory of these trips and why I am mentioning it in this increasingly wayward blog was the journey there. I have always enjoyed long car, coach or train journeys, I get quite sentimental about passing people and cars and towns only to forget them as soon as the next one comes and goes and on a 26 hour journey this can happen a lot as the sun goes down and cars and towns become lights and sounds. Then of course there is the thrill that you are in a foreign land, place names so mundane to the residents become a fantasy land that put you out on your own a million miles from home listening to different music which would then forever remind you of a moment every time you hear it for the rest of your life, etched in memory like it is etched on the record itself. And then of course there was Paris, I will cover Paris in another blog.

I toured Europe in my teenage as a promising footballer in my teenage years, my dad would be with me for much of it; they were all loan exchange deals so I got put up with a nice, say German family who’s son was getting the same deal back in the UK. Although he wasn’t really as the places I stayed in Germany were a lot nicer than what he was living in now in the UK I am quite sure of. So I had spells in Germany where I was enchanted by Munich and the Black Forest, I also spent time in Prague and Poland which for a World War II buff was quite fascinating. I then played in Barcelona, which as a lifelong admirer of the football team I was very much looking forward to. But actually as a city and country I did not enjoy at all, in fact it goes down on my all time destination blacklist. I thought it was dirty, hot, crowded and downright dangerous. After nearly falling off La Sagrada Familia (which is mind numbingly beautiful in a very scary way it has to be said) I vowed never to go back to Spain and spent most of my time there at the old Olympic hockey venue in Caella, near Badalona. I came home shortly afterwards, in fact I don’t think I was there much longer than two weeks, it was ultimately the last such trip I would make as university and a thing called a career got in the way.  

A significant fact of this trip though is it was perhaps the first when I was truly on my own. There were other players of course but none that I knew and most I couldn’t talk to as my Spanish is as you say, inelegant, so here I was in a big city on my own in a quite partisan town (‘they no lika the English’), if perhaps I had signed for FC Barcelona I would have one more friends, but I digress, for this spell was actually when the travel bug really first hit.I think being on my own for the first time brought something out of me. I didn’t feel it at the time, I thought it was a quite awful experience, but subconsciously I think it clicked something in my mind, as fast forward a few years and I’m 21 or 23, I don’t remember but I hate everything, its all too easy, people are idiots etc, the sort of thing a million bored people say every day and with good reason. I’m bored of the routine, the mundane and I swear it might make me insane. But then I thought of Barcelona, something a million miles from where I was. That is what I am escaping from, that is what I don’t need or want in my life, adventure for me, happiness if you will is putting me in a place where I don’t know what the next moment will be, I don’t know where that road leads or what is around that corner, its a journey of discovery, of being captivated by the unknown. I had found my passion. The hustle, the fear, the exploration, being a total stranger to a whole country. It was so different to what I was living like at the time I suddenly believed it might be the answer, I needed to leave my comfort zone behind, I could find peace through mayhem.

It was a moment of enlightenment and for a few small moments it was like I had discovered the meaning of life, well my life at least. So I did some research into ‘Barcelona-like’ scenarios that would cure me of the temporary insanity that I was sure was haunting me and it led me to Africa, where, despite the isolation and seemingly perfect location for my cure, I was a little unsure about going alone, which led to a meeting at the local pub with the question:

‘Chris are you up for going Zambia next week for a bit?’

‘Ya man’

Which rounds the story off nicely

Hi, Im Richard. I could go on to tell you about my life, my past and hopes and dreams, but no one is here to read that and I dont think im even here to write that. This is about ... [Continue reading this entry]