most memorable moment

i was looking for a free chair at the terrasse at the park hyatt/joburg in order to do a bit of paperwork - had already ordered a glass of my bottle of favourite chardonnay.
when i opened the door to get to the terrace suddenly there was a downpour.
when i was looking around for a chair i got the invitation by a gentleman to take a seat at his table.

we startet chatting (i postponed my paperwork ).
we had a wonderful afternoon, a very pleasant conversation, big loughs about everything and anything, countless "gimmi 5" when he or i made a joke. then i had to leave for an evening invitation and we exchanged businesscards.
and then i realised it's bishop tutu's son!
we keep in touch every since and when i travel to SA we meet (also with his family) in joburg.

that's one of the most memorable first-sights which continue to be pleasant!

div

i am looking forward to meeting them all.

div

One of my most memorable experiences of all my travels is walking up the dunes (part way) in Namibia.

Without a doubt being chased by an elephant at Akeru in the Timbavati.

It was the date of my 40th birthday.
(didn't really celebrate birthdays before, or given to it any significance)
camping on the beloved black-pebbled shores of lake Turkana. night time. some Turkana people were dancing. And, sure you're wondering about the moon - there was a lunar eclipse...

aby

aby - loved your prose, but you must tell me why the "black-pebbled shores of Lake Turkana" are beloved.

Divine - yes, that't just it - the people you meet by accident.

Definitely swimming at the lip of the Victoria Falls was a highlight for me!

Do you want special, or most memorable?

I've got a lot of memorable moments, but I don't think they would qualify as "special," at least not the way you may be implying.

Sitting on the "hump" inside a Maputo chapa, with 3 sets of knees in my side and leg, and the sliding door that I had my back to suddenly falling off--memorable, but not one of those "special" African sunset-type of moments. It was still sort of fun, though, once they put the door back on.

I did get to catch an English lesson for a group of schoolchildren--that was special. It was cute to see them learn the word "market"--they had a very sing-songy way of teaching and learning it.

My most memorable moment is when my ranger took us directly under a tree where we were able to take pictures of Tumbela, a dominant male leopard at Lion Sands. Remember, no windows..no doors...no ROOF. He was about 12 feet over my head. He was very bored with our presense.

http://www.pbase.com/mytmoss/image/50150763

Mike

I've got two, from a recent trip to Mozambique:

1) joining a local congregation in a mud hut church, and worshipping together. We found that the word 'Alleluiah' is understood in Makua, Portuguese and English.

2) Sitting with a local woman behind her mud hut, speaking in very broken Portuguese, and getting a Makua lesson while sharing a meal. We ate with our fingers from a communal platter.

I'm not sure if its memorable in the "positive" sense of that word, but to me, it was very haunting to visit the Cape Coast castles (slave forts) along the Ghana coast (and its etched in my memory).

Celebrating my 60th birthday sitting on tree stumps, eating from box lunches in the center of wandering zebras. Sunsets in the Serengeti also qualify. Also on another trip to Morocco, sipping tea under a night black sky around a candle with five others just before dinner in the desert (Merzouga). Camels were cobbled nearby.

Oops, forgot that animals nearby was a no no! www.pbase.com/pattyroth

Good question because so much of the glowing comments are all about animals.

I stayed in a Maasai village for a couple of days on one trip when I asked if anyone ever stayed over night instead of just a day visit. It was so much fun I went back the next year. The 2nd year the cattle were kept within the boma so that added to the excitement. But the first year there was a new baby and she was held constantly, 24 hours a day, for her first month of life. I got to take a late night shift of baby holding.

The hot stone massage that the owners of Luangwa River Lodge put together for my birthday. On the shores of the Luangwa River, baboons and vervets in the trees above, hippos playing music from the river. Very special and memorable experience.

One of the highlights of all my safaris was last year in Tanzania. My group consisted of 10 American women and we were visiting a Maasai village that had never had visitors before. We spent over 4 hours there, participating in tasks that the women did in the village, but the highlight came at the end when we were invited into the head wife's hut for an hour-long "sit down" with about a dozen Maasai women. With our guides interpreting, we asked the Maasai about their lives and customs, then they asked us about ours. One of our women passed around a photo of her dogs; she had not been married, so those were her "kids." At the end of the visit, we asked if they had anything they wanted to say to people back in America. The head wife thought for a moment, then said, "It would be better to have children than dogs, because your children can give you advice when you grow old." Smart lady!

Memories are not always pleasant but stick with you for life. I visited S. Africa in August of 1977. It was still apartheid and I vividly remember my S. African cousin telling me to be careful which restroom I used in the park. I was told it was as much an offense to use the wrong restroom (for non-Europeans as it was euphamistically referred) as it was for black Africans to use the European rest room. This left quite an impression on a liberal 23 year old from New York. Later the"colored" (designated as such if of mixed race or Asian and some other races by the government) chauffer for my older cousin pointed out the neighborhood he used to live in before he was forced into the townships.
I couldn't force myself to return till 2001.
There are also wonderful memories that bring me back over and over but those images and experiences still haunt me 31 years later.
Regards,
Eric

Visiting Hope Streams Academy in the slums of Ngando, Nairobi, and finding out that the name of the temporary school that my husband and I had built was called "Deborah's Building".

Watching those beautiful children sing and dance and then singing and dancing with them. Singing songs we really didn't know and understand, yet...somehow knowing and understanding...

Thank you all. Sorry I put "memorable" in the subject line, and "special" in the question. Because, you are right .. they are different.

I have a feeling that it's the people you meet that will live much longer in the memory that anything else.

Keep your recollection coming. They are just lovely.

Visiting Nogorogoro Crater, we got up early in order to have sunrise and the morning in the Crater. However due to a snafu with paperwork, we couldn't enter for about an hour or so. Instead we set up a breakfast picnic on the rim, chatted with our guide, and the local Masai. It was a beautiful sunrise, relaxing, and just being.

Sitting by the campfire at the mobile camp. I was the only client. It was wonderful just sitting there, sipping Amarula, reading my book as the sky grew ever darker, and listening to the sounds - however minute they may have been - that surrounded me. Sometimes there was no sound except the crackle of the fire. It was a surreal peacefulness.

I experienced many memorable moments. Follow are a few highlights:

In the Serengeti, sitting quietly in our safari vehicle in the midst of about 40 elephants. The interaction between them from baby to matriarch was a wonder to behold.

Napping in our tent in the Masai Mara during a sudden and intense rainstorm listening to the combined sounds of the rain and the animals.

Visiting Daphne Sheldrick's elephant orphanage in Nairobi-too profound for words.