Zara's Safari

Chapter 14

You make hundreds of decisions everyday. From the small ones, like choosing what to eat for breakfast, to the big ones, like what study at university. Each one has a consequence, or several consequences for that matter. Some decisions are more far-reaching than others and they set a series of consequence in motion like a row of  falling dominos.

But then there's a very different kind of decision. The type that only comes around a few times in a your   life.  They are the kind of decisions you make that change EVERYTHING.  They alter your entire life, they change you beyond recognition and their consequences can be felt like ripples through every aspect of you life.

And often when they come, you don’t know it’s them…..

My preparations were completed.

1. Ladder climbed and map to my salvation downloaded

2.     Route planned- as best as I could

3.     Bags packed

4.     Change into warmest clothes- a Zebra print tracksuit that Clay had bought me, again with the African Ironic Aesthetic.

5.     Had a drink to calm my nerves

6.     Drew map on paper in case I lost GPS signal.

And now for the hard part… taking the car. I’d noted earlier that they kept the keys in the ignition, so all I needed to do was sneak up to one, jump in and drive off- without being spotted. I decided that the best time to make my escape would be at 10:00 PM, when lights went out.  

It seemed like such an easy plan; escape under the cover of night, take the car and drive to Mecca. Simple. What could go wrong? And just to clarify, I wasn’t stealing the car, I was just borrowing it without asking. As soon as I reached my destination I would get someone to drive it back, no harm done. They had plenty of cars, they wouldn’t ever notice that it was gone.

The lights had barely gone out when I dragged my bags outside as quietly as possible. There was no one in sight and I was good to go. The car was exactly where I thought I would find it and the keys were exactly where they were supposed be- everything was going according to plan. Except that the car was a manual, not an automatic! I should have guessed, Africa had a habit of making things difficult. After a few failed attempts at pulling off, I finally seemed to get the hang of the whole clutch thing and pulled off at high speed. The wheels spun and kicked up a cloud of red dust, it was wildly exhilarating.

I clicked ‘start route’ on my iphone and headed out into the night as fast as I could. I probably should have felt afraid that I was driving into the middle of Africa by myself, but I wasn’t. I was too wired; abuzz with a million zinging emotions that were sloshing through my veins and that had opened the sluice gates to the adrenalin that was now flooding me. Besides, I didn’t feel alone, a nice polite sounding lady was telling me to “Keep straight for 2 km’s and then veer left”

This was it! I was going to the Lost Palace come hell or high water, fire and brimstone, fricking elephants and lions and whatever else lurked in the bushes.

Bring it on!

 Nothing was going to stop me because I was woman on a mission. With a deadly, pointed singular focus.  I felt like some super- hero boss bitch that kicked men in the balls for sport and then laughed about it HA-HA-HA! I was she who killed the enemy with a sharp saber tooth ninja sword while wearing a skintight lycra suit and looking fucking hot while doing it. Move over Angelina and Uma there was a new woman in town… *evil laugh.

But then, half an hour into the drive, that feeling started fading as fast as the cell phone reception. I stopped the car and climbed onto one of the benches in the back hoping to get reception by standing with my hand in the air- nothing.  But there was no need to panic, I had planned for this possibility. I pulled the hand drawn map out of my pocket and unfolded it, but it was absolutely illegible.  The lines were wavy, the names of the roads were scribbled and it looked like a three year old had drawn it.