By Rebecca Fahrlander, Guest Columnist

Editor’s note: This is another installment of a monthly guest travel column written by Rebecca Fahrlander, a world traveler and professor of social psychology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

I traveled to Zimbabwe before things fell apart there. Before the economic collapse, widespread political unrest and the attacks on farms.
That is not to say it was without risk. While planning my trip, news sources reported rioting and unrest in Harare, the capital. Friends out of state sent me copies of U.S. State Department warnings against travel on Air Zimbabwe, which was deemed unsafe, and the Centers for Disease Control reports of dengue fever and the threat of malaria. The country also faced economic problems including a high rate of unemployment.
But having been emboldened by surviving my recent battle with cancer, I went anyway. I wanted to go on safari yet again. My earlier safari had been to South Africa; Zimbabwe called to me now.
I flew on Air Zimbabwe, fortunately without incident. I traveled alone, moving about the country from one bush camp to another. In two of these camps, I was surprised to find myself in huts with low walls and open windows without glass or screens, leaving the huts unprotected from the wilderness around them.
It took some getting used to this level of risk, as these camps were open and unfenced where animals such as lion, zebra and hyena moved about freely.
At nightfall, a burst of insect noise and the rough laughing call of hyenas filled the air. Beneath my canopy bed swathed in insect netting, all manner of spiders and other “creepy crawlies” settled in for the night.
In the total blackout that is the African savannah before midnight, sounds of animals in the tall grass and acacia trees were magnified tenfold. Somehow I managed to sleep, and awoke safe and sound to begin a safari at dawn.
One of these mornings, we hurried into our jeep to follow giraffe that had been spotted on the camp’s edge. As the jeep traversed the rough off-road landscape we were rewarded with close-ups of numerous giraffes, as well as zebras and impalas. Zebras were so ubiquitous they moved along the edges of highways.
The ranger and I would get out of the jeep and hike through the tall elephant grass along the riverbank, tracking elephants, impalas and other animals. On these hikes I remember the exotic scent of lavender mixed with eucalyptus and wild grasses; the soft sounds of rustling grasses and leaves against a background of bird song; the bright glare of the morning sun.
The savannah is a magical Eden-like place, for it contains the essence of life on Earth. The landscape is sunny and hot in the daytime, with magnificent views of open savannah, rivers and animals. The people are wonderful, warm and hospitable to travelers. The pace of life is slower, more natural here, allowing one to appreciate the world we live in.
On my last night in Zimbabwe, I sat around a table with other travelers, rangers and the owner of our safari camp, sharing tales of the day’s safari.
I was so drawn to this place I was reluctant to leave. And yet reminders of the risk of this place appeared many weeks after my return to the U.S, when several news reports brought to my attention the story of a British man who had been pulled from his hut by a lion and killed in a bush camp somewhere in Zimbabwe.

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