Countdown to Somewhere in Africa: 5 Things We Dread

The other side of the anticipation.

Not every emotion before a big trip is excitement.

We are about eight weeks out from a two-part Africa trip. And while I've already written about the five things we can't wait for, I owe an honest counterpart. Because the truth is, some parts of this trip scare me. Some of them keep me awake at 2am. Some of them make me question our choices, briefly, before I remember exactly why we chose to go.

Here are the five things I dread. Written honestly, because pretending they don't exist would be lying.

1. The Security Question

What I've read vs what my body still worries about.

We are going to a region I've never been. The kind of place tourists go, yes, but not the kind of place most Mauritians have been. And my brain, however much I've read, keeps sending me the same worries.

Getting robbed at night. Being in the wrong street at the wrong hour. Being obviously not local and paying for it. Small things that don't happen most of the time but that I have already imagined too many times before we even leave.

The research is reassuring. The specific region is well-travelled by tourists and considered one of the safest in the country. But the fear is still there, and I'm not going to pretend I've mastered it. I probably won't fully relax about it until we're back at Plaisance.

The verdict: doing your research helps. Doing your research does not delete the worry entirely.

2. Malaria and the Mosquitoes

A very small insect. A very big fear.

I hate mosquitoes anywhere. I really hate mosquitoes in a country where they can carry something serious.

We haven't decided yet whether we're taking preventative pills. I know malaria is treatable when caught early. I also know that the idea of catching it far from home, in a place I don't know, with a doctor whose language I don't speak, is not a small thing.

I've already bought the strongest repellent I could find. I'll wear long sleeves at dusk. I'll sleep with the mosquito net checked twice. But every time I lie down between now and the trip, part of me will wonder about that one bite that got through.

The verdict: you can respect a risk without letting it own the trip. I'm working on it.

3. The Small Plane

I don't love planes. I really don't love the small ones.

At one point in the trip, we take a small plane between two cities. A short flight. A bush plane, or something close to it. Way smaller than any commercial jet I'm used to.

I am, quietly, terrified of this.

I don't love regular planes. I'm the person who watches the flight attendants during turbulence to see if their face changes. Small planes take all of that anxiety and multiply it by ten. Fewer seats. More weather to feel. More sense that you are truly in the sky with nothing between you and the wind.

I know a hundred people take this flight every week without incident. I've told myself this every day since we booked. It hasn't fully worked yet.

The verdict: courage isn't the absence of fear. It's booking the flight anyway.

4. Water, Hygiene, and Falling Ill Far From Home

The small things that can spiral fast.

I'm not usually a paranoid traveller. I've eaten in a lot of places. I've drunk tap water in countries I probably shouldn't have. Most times, my stomach has forgiven me.

But this trip is different. We are going to a place where the water isn't reliable, where the hotels are lovely but not five-star sterile, and where being sick would mean being sick very far from home.

Falling ill at the wrong moment could ruin days. Getting a stomach bug on a safari morning is not a story I want to tell. Being taken to a clinic in a village where I don't speak the language is not a scene I want to live.

We'll bring what we can. Filtered water. Basic meds. Common sense. But some anxiety is going to travel with us either way.

The verdict: you can pack for most fears. You can't pack away all of them.

5. Work Following Me on Vacation

The most modern fear on this list.

The thing I dread most on this trip isn't the mosquitoes. Isn't the plane. Isn't the water.

It's my own inability to fully disconnect.

I am a work addict. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I check emails when I shouldn't. I answer messages during dinner. I have never in ten years of adult working life taken a real, complete break from being available.

The village we're going to has limited signal. That's part of why I picked it. But some part of me is already anxious about the moments when the signal comes back. About checking. About not being able to just leave the phone alone for the fourteen days.

I know myself well enough to know this is going to be a fight. I'm going to have to work on it. Nim is going to have to help me. Maybe even hide the phone once or twice.

The verdict: the hardest part of a real vacation is sometimes the person you have to be to actually take it.

The Real Answer

Five fears. Five weights to carry between now and departure.

Some of them are legitimate. Some of them are noise. Some of them will vanish the second we land and see the place with our own eyes. Some of them will follow us into the trip and only leave once we're back home.

But every one of them is worth naming.

The excitement is easier to write about. The dread is harder. Both are travel too.

I owe you both sides of the countdown. That is the whole point of writing honestly about a trip you haven't taken yet.

Fifty-something days to go. Ten thousand small emotions to sort through. And I intend to enjoy every one of them.

More soon.