The Road to Bulungula Lodge, Wild Coast, South Africa. (24 total images, 1 video)

“Rufus is a very strong man,” says Maya, a local Xhosa woman we just picked up from a village on the Wild Coast of South Africa. “Even in his old age of 80 years he is still able to procreate and have many children,” she says.

We’re all headed to the Bulungula Lodge where Maya works and we’ll be visiting. Rufus is our driver.

Of all the things I miss about Africa, I miss being on a safari the most. While at Kruger National Park in northeast South Africa, Kelly and I operated on “animal time.” We had established a solid routine of getting up at 3:30 a.m., brewing coffee, and as the first light appeared, drove to a nearby watering hole to watch the animals come out.

We parked the car. Sipped on boxed wine. Took out our cameras and binoculars and watched hippos, alligators, buffalo and impala share the same drinking hole, all the while keeping an eye for predators. A British family from whom we had borrowed sugar for the coffee gave us the tip that there had been a lion kill — the pinnacle of all thrills for safari-goes — at this same spot four days ago. Trackers spend entire lifetimes without seeing a proper lion kill. So we kept our fingers crossed and used our peripheral visions to scan the savanna for any movement, the slightest twitch, the perking of an ear perhaps. Intensity and expectation could not be any higher. I understood why people paid good money for this. How lifelong addictions were formed.

The Setting: An Unnamed Hostel, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Cigarette in hand and wine out of a tea cup — it’s the British way.

“All roads lead to Johannesburg. If you are white or if you are black they lead to Johannesburg. If the crops fail, there is work in Johannesburg. If there are taxes to be paid, there is work in Johannesburg. If the farm is too small to be divided further, some must go to Johannesburg. If there is a child to be born that must be delivered in secret, it can be delivered in Johannesburg.” –From the book Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton