A visually impaired traveler journeys through the wilds of Zimbabwe and discovers a side of the safari experience that very few know.

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This story is part of Travel Tales, a series of life-changing adventures on afar.com. Read more stories of transformative trips on the Travel Tales home page—and be sure to subscribe to the podcast! And, though COVID-19 has stalled many travel plans, we hope our stories can offer inspiration for your future adventures—and a bit of hope. As our land cruiser nosed through the brush, cicadas buzzed above us like power lines. My wife and I had been in Zimbabwe only a few hours. So far, our guide on our first safari drive, Alan, had already spotted several species of fleet antelope, and I was already concerned that for me—as a blind man—yes, this was going to kind of suck. I might as well be at a drive-in movie. Here, you try: Close your eyes. Over there is a kudu, whatever a kudu is. Welcome to a blind safari. Dharmesh, the driver, stopped the vehicle. Alan suggested in his lovely baritone voice that we step out and stretch our legs on the dusty path and have a drink, or “sundowner.” Robert, our animal tracker, dismounted from his seat on the vehicle’s grill to pass around beer and snacks. In the distance, apparently, a giraffe could be seen slipping into the trees. Tracy, my wife, watched quietly as Alan began his work, describing the animal and its behavior and its place in the ecosystem of the locale, the Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve. My can of lager, because I could taste it, was more real to me than a giraffe. How a blind man can be guided, how I might connect with unseen sights in an unseen place, would be Alan’s challenge for the next seven days. A few years earlier, he had guided his first blind client through a game reserve on the western boundary of South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The experience had radically enriched his approach. “Whether you’re sighted or not, the bush is overwhelming and confusing when you first arrive. It’s an onslaught of stimuli,” Alan told me. “But guiding a blind person helped me realize the significance, the depth, of our other senses. I could use them to enhance my voice as a guide. A taste, a sound, touching or holding something, these slow everything down to a different focus.” A safari, by cliché and assumption, is overwhelmingly driven by photography. Tourists survey a living museum of wild animals and, as their primary experience, merely look at Africa through cameras and screens. Photo by Cait Opperman Zimbabwe is home to nearly 700 species of birds and 199 species of mammals.



So far, I’d heard rumors of a giraffe and nursed a beer.



Suddenly Alan’s hand clamped my shoulder, communicating everything in a grip. Do not speak. Do not move. Adrenaline shot through me. We were in a clearing surrounded by bush and shadow and, well, something else. Something not-giraffe.



Silence, for the blind, is often the most terrifying sound. Alan’s grip firmed and pivoted me a few degrees to the right, aiming my attention like a satellite dish. At what?



“Elephant,” he whispered. “Twenty-five meters.”



I strained to hear it. To hear something. Was it moving? Had it seen us? Alan’s hand gently squeezed my shoulder, then again, and again, as if counting the animal’s steps. Everything around us is a living, working system, not just a view. But with Alan at the helm, here I was, ready not only to experience what a safari might reveal to the full spectrum of sensory input, but also to try to deepen my own understanding of what it means, or can mean, to be guided. Being blind, I’m a bit of a connoisseur. Daily, I’m dragged and steered and told where and how to move, perpetually hitched like a wagon to the elbows of strangers. You could say I live in a chronic state of guidance. But getting around without getting killed isn’t anything like having a sense of place. Perhaps a professional guide could impart some of that.So far, I’d heard rumors of a giraffe and nursed a beer.Suddenly Alan’s hand clamped my shoulder, communicating everything in a grip. Do not speak. Do not move. Adrenaline shot through me. We were in a clearing surrounded by bush and shadow and, well, something else. Something not-giraffe.Silence, for the blind, is often the most terrifying sound. Alan’s grip firmed and pivoted me a few degrees to the right, aiming my attention like a satellite dish. At what?“Elephant,” he whispered. “Twenty-five meters.”I strained to hear it. To hear something. Was it moving? Had it seen us? Alan’s hand gently squeezed my shoulder, then again, and again, as if counting the animal’s steps. “Fifteen meters,” he whispered.



I couldn’t hear my wife. I couldn’t sense where our vehicle was, or how far we were from its safety. Alan’s hand assured me we were fine for now, but it also implied, by its constant grip, everything could change in an instant.



“Ten meters.”



Finally, a faint noise. The plodding of a six-ton bull. Something I had never heard. An elephant’s loose-structured feet expand, landing with a small, dispirited squish, like the sound of spiking a semi-deflated football. Now I could understand how something so large could glide so quietly through the bush. Squish, squish, it lumbered toward us, deciding whether it would charge, or not. Alan’s hand clenched harder. The animal had stopped. I could sense its stare, Alan angling my body towards its gaze. Neither I nor the bull knew what to make of the other.



Then, squish, squish, it stepped off into the bush and was gone. An odor followed. Wet earth, like parched land after a first rain. Later, Alan would explain that I had smelled the elephant’s method of cooling and hygiene. Mud retains moisture, so elephants coat themselves to stay cool. When it dries, they’ll scrape themselves against leadwood or baobab trees, the hardened earth taking parasites from their skin. An elephant waxing. I hadn’t seen that, but I’d smelled my way into something.



Alan’s grip on my shoulder finally loosened, and a quick pat of assurance told me everything was OK now. Nothing to see here. I was, in a word, awestruck.



“Well,” he chirped, “that doesn’t happen every day.” Photo by Cait Opperman The art of the Shangaan people inspires the decor of the Singita Pamushana Lodge in Zimbabwe. Singita’s Pamushana Lodge is, by all sensory metrics, a stunning nest of luxurious thatched villas atop the sandstone cliffs of Malilangwe Lake. This game reserve, formerly a commercial cattle ranch, sprawls across roughly 130,000 acres and remains privately owned and operated by a nonprofit trust. The land itself has rewilded, thick with mopani and acacia groves, dry riverbeds, and rising stone bluffs. Caves and rock paintings can be found, too, evidence of the land’s human occupants in centuries past. Revenues from photographic safaris like ours fund the trust’s wild game conservation efforts. A sampling of notable resident species include rhinos, both black and white, lions and leopards, African wild dogs and cape buffalo, cheetahs, baboons, wildebeests and hartebeests and, of course, elephants. In addition to our guide, driver, and tracker, the reserve employs biologists and includes an on-site lab, as well as an anti-poaching force. Whenever we stepped from our Land Cruiser, Dharmesh would radio central command to record our location, as the security team would find and track any unreported human footprints.



Mornings at the lodge begin early. The aspiration was to be on safari by sunrise. Most large animals would be on the move by then, in search of water before the day’s heat could stamp every living thing into lethargy.



“Today,” Alan posited over breakfast, “perhaps we should try our luck at the blind.”



Yes, the blind guy was going to—a blind. But this blind referred to a semi-underground hideout, like the ones used by hunters. Pamushana had constructed one next to a shallow seasonal pan where water, and animals, naturally collected. It would allow us to get close enough that I might smell and hear any number of thirsty species, from zebras to hippos to elephants, within a mere few feet.



Alan’s style of guiding was to set a soft goal for the day—in this case, to check out the blind—but to take the long way, leaving our experience open to whatever caught his attention. We’d barely descended the sandstone heights of the lodge when Alan flagged Dharmesh to stop the Land Cruiser and strolled off into the bush. You know, like he was popping into a convenience store, not a forest that could conceal a lion’s jaws. Related There’s More to Kenya Than Safaris by all sensory metrics, a stunning nest of luxurious thatched villas atop the sandstone cliffs of Malilangwe Lake. This game reserve, formerly a commercial cattle ranch, sprawls across roughly 130,000 acres and remains privately owned and operated by a nonprofit trust. The land itself has rewilded, thick with mopani and acacia groves, dry riverbeds, and rising stone bluffs. Caves and rock paintings can be found, too, evidence of the land’s human occupants in centuries past. Revenues from photographic safaris like ours fund the trust’s wild game conservation efforts. A sampling of notable resident species include rhinos, both black and white, lions and leopards, African wild dogs and cape buffalo, cheetahs, baboons, wildebeests and hartebeests and, of course, elephants. In addition to our guide, driver, and tracker, the reserve employs biologists and includes an on-site lab, as well as an anti-poaching force. Whenever we stepped from our Land Cruiser, Dharmesh would radio central command to record our location, as the security team would find and track any unreported human footprints.Mornings at the lodge begin early. The aspiration was to be on safari by sunrise. Most large animals would be on the move by then, in search of water before the day’s heat could stamp every living thing into lethargy.“Today,” Alan posited over breakfast, “perhaps we should try our luck at the blind.”Yes, the blind guy was going to—a blind. But this blind referred to a semi-underground hideout, like the ones used by hunters. Pamushana had constructed one next to a shallow seasonal pan where water, and animals, naturally collected. It would allow us to get close enough that I might smell and hear any number of thirsty species, from zebras to hippos to elephants, within a mere few feet.Alan’s style of guiding was to set a soft goal for the day—in this case, to check out the blind—but to take the long way, leaving our experience open to whatever caught his attention. We’d barely descended the sandstone heights of the lodge when Alan flagged Dharmesh to stop the Land Cruiser and strolled off into the bush. You know, like he was popping into a convenience store, not a forest that could conceal a lion’s jaws.

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“Here, take these,” he said as he returned to the vehicle. He handed Tracy and me some leaves. “Crush one between your fingers and touch it to your tongue.”



My reflex was to ask what we were about to taste, and why. Nobody wants to close their eyes and put an unnamed unknown in their mouth. But I didn’t ask.



I shoved leafy bits into my face. Instantly my tongue went dry. Ridiculously dry.



“That’s from all the tannins,” Alan explained. “This is the leaf of a mopani tree. Now you know why most animals don’t eat them. Except elephants.” Given the tonnage of greenery they consume, it makes sense that elephants would possess the digestive capability to tolerate a nasty plant that attracts few competitors. “Now we also know what animal we’re likely to find in a mopani grove and why.” He handed me another leaf, this one attached to a twig and nestled tightly among short, sharp barbs. Acacia. Whereas the mopani protected itself biochemically, by taste, the acacia deterred predators with pain. Imagine, Alan noted, that you are a blunt-nosed browser, such as a rhino. To get between the barbs for the leaves would be nearly impossible. Giraffes, on the other hand, have long, narrow faces and long, narrow tongues that nimbly work between thorns. Where you find acacia, you find giraffes.



More than getting a botany lesson under the sun, I was learning about a way of guiding that begins with the animal’s own sensory experience. Leaves are food, so Alan had us approach them by taste and touch. Because most safaris work toward a photographic goal, the tendency is for guides to simply point to a distant scene and label it with names and facts like captions. Over there is acacia. Giraffes eat those. That’s a mopani tree. Elephants like those. But Alan wanted us to experience the reality that everything around us is a living, working system of taste and tactile strategy for survival, not just a view.



Soon we stopped again. “Give me your hands,” Alan said.



I couldn’t help myself. “What is it?” I asked. Something in his tone made me wary, as if he knew better than to tell me what he’d found.



“Just feel this. Hold this,” he insisted. “It’s really something.”



Please don’t let it be a snake, I thought.



He dropped into my hands a rough and fibrous ball, the size of a melon, of what felt like steel wool. I couldn’t guess what it was as I rolled it around between my palms. Nothing snakey, that was for sure.



“Rhino poo,” he said.



I swear I could hear him smiling. Then he laughed. Photo by Cait Opperman Singita Pamushana Lodge overlooks 130,000 acres of protected land.



Our destination that day, the blind, was nothing like the structure I’d imagined. In my mind’s eye, we would crowd behind a lean-to, perhaps a wall of branches and logs among the trees, from which we’d spy on animals. Instead, we entered an entire room of comforts dug into the earth next to the water, its conical roof perfectly resembling a massive termite mound. A few steps down and through a door, we were shown into a lounge, complete with couches and a restroom and snacks, where we could wait for wildlife to arrive. Dharmesh and Robert opened the windows, two long slats that squinted from ground level, with no screens, no barricade from whatever might visit the watering hole just feet from us.



The potential dangers of this were real. Dharmesh told us they once found a six-foot black mamba snake stretched out behind the couch cushions.



I had just started to doze a little in the dusky cool when Alan whispered, “Rhinos are coming. Two. A mother and calf.” When you are a blind man strapped into the tracker’s seat on the grill of a Land Cruiser, you feel as if you are floating through the air, because you are. But you have to pause and appreciate such an act of bravery. Really. Imagine the potential offense of taking advantage of my blindness for a joke. So many people treat me like a child, or a fragile soul. Yet Alan had already figured me out. At least well enough to know I wouldn’t get upset when handed a ball of rhino poo. In addition to interpreting nature, a good safari guide must also interpret the other people in the Land Cruiser.Our destination that day, the blind, was nothing like the structure I’d imagined. In my mind’s eye, we would crowd behind a lean-to, perhaps a wall of branches and logs among the trees, from which we’d spy on animals. Instead, we entered an entire room of comforts dug into the earth next to the water, its conical roof perfectly resembling a massive termite mound. A few steps down and through a door, we were shown into a lounge, complete with couches and a restroom and snacks, where we could wait for wildlife to arrive. Dharmesh and Robert opened the windows, two long slats that squinted from ground level, with no screens, no barricade from whatever might visit the watering hole just feet from us.The potential dangers of this were real. Dharmesh told us they once found a six-foot black mamba snake stretched out behind the couch cushions.I had just started to doze a little in the dusky cool when Alan whispered, “Rhinos are coming. Two. A mother and calf.”

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