lighting out

The word "safari", in Shahili, means "journey"; it has nothing to do with animals. Someone "on safari" is just away and unobtainable and out of touch.

Out of touch in Africa was where I wanted to be. The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life -- the homebound writer's irritants. Being kept waiting is the human condition.

I thought, Let other people explain whree I am. I imagined the dialogue:
"When will Paul be back?"
"We don't know."
"Where is he?"
"We're not sure."
"Can we get in touch with him?"
"No."

Travel in the African bush can also be a sort of revenge on cellular phone and fax machines, on telephones and the daily paper, on the creepier aspects of globalization that allow anyone who chooses to get his insinuating hands on you. I desired to be unobtainable...

I was going to Africa for the best reason - in a spirit of discovery; and for the pettiest -- simply to disappear, to light out, with a suggestion of I dare you to try and find me.

Home had become a routine, and routines make time pass quickly. I was a sitting duck in my predictable routine: people knew when to call me; they knew when I would be at my desk. I was in such regular touch it was like having a job, a mode of life I hated. I was sick of being called up and importuned, asked for favors, hit up for money. You stick around too long and people begin to impose their own deadlines on you. "I need this by the twenty-fifth" or "Please read this by Friday" or "Try to finish this over the weekend" or "Let's have a conference call on Wednesday." Call me, fax me, e-mail me. You can get me anytime on my cell phone, here's the number.

Being available at any time in the totally accessible world seemed to me pure horror. It made me want to find a place that was not accessible at all: no phones, no fax machines, not even mail delivery, the wonderful old world of being out of touch. In other words, gone away.

All I had to do was remove myself. I loved not having to ask permission, and in fact in my domestic life things had begun to get a little predictable, too -- Mr. Paul at home every evening when Mrs. Paul came home from work. "I made spaghetti sauce... I seared some tuna... I'm scrubbing some potatoes..." The writer in his apron, perspiring over his bechamel sauce, always within earshot of the telephone. You have to pick it up because it's ringing in your ear.

I wanted to drop out. People said, "Get a cell phone, use FedEx, sign up for Hotmail, stop in at Internet cafes, visit my Web site..."

I said no thanks. The whole point of my leaving was to escape this stuff, to be out of touch. The greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace. As Huck put it, lighting out for the territory.

Africa is one of the last great places on earth a person can vanish into. I wanted that. Let them wait. I have been waiting far too many times for far too long.

- Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari