It’s a little after 11 pm in Botswana when my now fiancée asks to go on a short walk. I'm tired - it's been a full day of Safari and we've just polished off a big traditional beef meal cooked over the campfire to celebrate our last night. Nearly everyone else in our small group tour has tapered off to their tents.
Sure, I say. Just a short one. So our guide gives us the okay and tells us to be careful before we head off into the night.
Admittedly, I'm a little scared. The Salt Pans are a vast, endless desert where you're completely surrounded by the moon and stars, but not much else. You could compare the scenery to that of Mars, and we are the only eleven people around for hundreds of miles. It's breathtaking, but eerie, and even though animal sightings are very rare on the Pans at this time of year, we'd sat mere feet from beastly lions and majestic elephants on this trip many times already. The thought of meeting an animal on foot makes my stomach churn.
Especially after hearing the horror stories we'd just weaseled out of our two guides, Thuso and Moscow, who’d refused to talk about close animal encounters until we reached the relative calm of the Salt Pans since animals roamed around our tents freely at night.
Just minutes before they’d told us about the time lions dragged one of their tents ten feet while they were sleeping inside. They also told us about the time an entire pride of seven or so lions surrounded Thuso who'd hung back to prepare lunch and chased him into the storage trailer where he hid shivering as they tore up a T-Shirt he'd set out to dry. How Moscow and his Jeep of tourists drove up and found the lions playing with Thuso’s shredded T-shirt. How everyone thought he was dead and started crying until he popped out of the storage trailer twenty minutes later beyond terrified.
So, these stories were fresh on my mind as we walked toward this small patch of grass in the desert (there were little islands of grass peppered throughout) but I was also excited. As we stared walking I had a hunch that something was up, and when we got to the island, which was fifteen minutes away from camp, it was quickly clear that Ivan was going to propose under the full moon.
Ivan, who I have dated for five years, started talking about how the two of us can get through anything together, and how he loved me and wanted to marry me. As he slid onto one knee I said yes with tears in my eyes, so overwhelmed by the emotional experience and the breathtaking scenery that I offered up my right hand. He corrected me.
Keep in mind that this is one of the stinkiest and most unattractive moments of our lives. We're wearing Safari cargo pants and hats and layers of T-shirts reeking of bug spray. But as anyone would after getting engaged in the middle of nowhere, we started to make out under the stars, completely drunk on love.
Suddenly, we saw headlights flash in the distance and I realized that it was a supply truck coming to replace our trailer that'd been damaged in an accident when we first arrived.
That afternoon when we drove onto the Salt Pans our vehicle had lost control and skidded around in a full circle before tipping dangerously onto two wheels. The Jeep quickly whipped back into place, but our trailer (the same one Thuso had hidden in) tumbled and broke with food spilling across the desert floor. It'd taken the supply truck hours to get to us, but now, I was afraid we'd been caught making out in its high beams in a modest country.
Let's go back! I said, quickly pulling away and rushing toward the vehicle, which became totally invisible when the driver parked in the distance and shut off his lights.
So we started to walk in the dark.
And walk. And walk. And we did not find our camp.
Everything in the Salt Pans looks the same and there's no way to orient yourself. As midnight rolls around the wind kicks up too, so we try to go back to the island and start again before we get cold. Maybe we were just a bit off course. Then we yell for help, but no one can hear us. We walk some more. And finally, gradually, we admit that we are lost in Africa.
Very lost and alone and in the most unforgiving of landscapes with no food or water or shelter and no one around.
For supplies we only have one jacket and a dim headlamp between us. We stayed lost for six and a half hours walking and sitting and huddling together all night. Finding anything we could to protect ourselves in the off chance that an animal passed through.
And as the night crept on, I saw shadows lurking everywhere. I spun in circles constantly surveying the vast empty landscape for signs of lions. I drove myself so crazy I eventually threw up. And then, at my lowest of lows, for the first time on our several night trip, I had to go to the bathroom. Desperately, and number two. Go figure. Maybe it was something I ate. Maybe it was the ridiculous nerves. Pretty sure the term "scared shitless" is just real, though.
Luckily I had toilet paper stowed in my pocket, but crouching down to relieve yourself behind your new finance's back as you convince yourself a lion isn't lurking in the backdrop is not the post-engagement moment I imagined as a young girl.
Yet it was also a strange affirmation that this was the man for me. The one who would love me at my darkest, most compromising moments. The one who knew we could get through anything together. After, all we could do was laugh, and the burden of being lost briefly lifted.
We started to talk about our wedding and reflect on the trip. Wait out the long night until sunrise came. But when it rose, we were still surprisingly nowhere near camp.
Then the heat started to come on and Ivan and I began to panic again. The Salt Pans get very hot - over 100 degrees at this time of year.
Luckily, not long after sunrise, our tour group (a pair of Brits, a German, a young Canadian couple, two Swiss and our guides) rose for breakfast and drove to rescue us when they realized we hadn't come back to camp. They found us wandering around dirty and red-eyed carrying big sticks a mile or so away. We hadn’t slept a minute.
When we saw them we ran joyously to the vehicle. They were still clearly rattled, so I smiled big and held up my ring to break the ice. We got engaged! I cried. Their confused faces were priceless.
Then, Thuso and Moscow, who'd become great friends throughout the trip, pulled us into a group hug. Moscow started crying (from happiness or relief, I do not know). He told us that even locals get lost here and he thought we were hurt. I felt absolutely awful.
But as we stood there clinging onto each other in silence with our heads bowed while the African sun beat down, my embarrassment gave way to the purest love.
Love for my finance, who is truly a great man. For our new friends, who'd been total strangers a week ago, but suddenly felt like family after six nights spent roughing it on the Savannah sharing the most intimate moments of our lives. For this beautiful planet that birthed us, and for the creatures that roam searching for mates, food, shelter, and prides to pull us in. To protect us.
We are one.
