A Safari is...

Dan Eldon was a photojournalist who traveled Africa making friends and helping those he came across on his travels. In the biographical novel I'm reading about him there were several excerpts that caught my eye. The first I wanted to share seems to splendidly represent his carefree, daring attitude:

"From there, he headed straight to Soweto, the notorious black township outside Johannesburg. It was already dark, and he needed an inexpensive, safe place to sleep...He phoned his grandmother to ask,"What family do we have in South Africa?" She replied, "Sorry Dan. Our people didn't get that far...where will you stay?" He told her not to worry and then, seeing no other immediate options, went to the local jail where the amused police were willing to provide him with a cell for the night."

He was only 18 years old. These next quotes discuss "safaris" and how this term describes the way Dan treated every day of his short life.

"A safari is about more than the sum of a trip...It is about the power of departure, that feeling of cutting oneself off from the day-to-day routine and entering new time zones, different landscapes, other people's lives-all of which at the moment of departure, are totally unknown and unexpected. Safari is also about living in the moment and the way that travel forces you into the present, be it through extreme pleasure or hardship."

"Why plan too extensively when the plan is bound to change? There's always a turn in the road that you can't quite see around, and waiting on the other side could be a sweeping, magnificent vista or, just as easily, a spilled box of nails poised to poke a hole in your tire."

"Safari is about constant play, constant curiosity, constant resourcefulness. It's a perspective on life, a life lived in eternal exploration."



Above is one of Dan's beautiful journal pages....learn more about him or see more of his work at: www.daneldon.org