I tried to stop the tears that welled in my eyes from flowing, but they escaped, and I could no longer control them. I didn’t want to look like a fool on that small passenger plane from Johannesburg. The African wilderness was somewhere I had always wanted to experience, but it seemed like somewhere that only existed in my dreams, in the pages of National Geographic and on television.

As we flew over the northeast area of South Africa, memories of Sunday evenings on the sofa with my dad and Gran came to mind. As a child, I watched the Wild Kingdom and the television shows that featured the wildlife of Africa.

I saw mountains and valleys below and imagined the people that lived there and the animals that roamed amongst it. As we approached the Hoedspruit airport and flew closer to the ground, I looked for elephants and giraffes amongst the trees I saw below, but couldn’t see anything but dark green patches that dotted the ground. As we descended into the vast expanse that is the greater Kruger National Park, a feeling washed over me like none other, and I started to cry.

I worried that my cry would quickly become audible, so I worked hard at keeping it silent. Had I been alone, it would have been one of those cries that feel like you had been cleansed inside and had no more tears to cry, devoid of further emotion. I never had, in all my travels, felt like that before.

I went to South Africa with the intention of learning more about it and its people, enjoying beautiful scenery, stalking wild animals and by stalking I mean going on a game drive to admire animals in their natural habitats and having new experiences. I came back having fulfilled all of those things, but what I didn’t expect was feeling like I was somehow home.

It’s been almost 6 months since I was there and I still feel like I am trying to process it all. I write, ponder, leave the blog, look at my photos and come back to this unfinished post many times over.

I wanted to so perfectly describe the feeling I had and to perhaps make sense of it but have resigned to the fact that I don’t think I really can. Nonetheless, I wanted to share my experience. I will chalk it up to one of those profound experiences in my life that can’t be fully explained.

Update: In the last year (about 2 years since I first visited South Africa) learned that my paternal great-great-grandfather is buried in a cemetery near Johannesburg. I had no idea that any of my family had been to South Africa. I’ve since learned his history and that I have other relatives buried there as well and  have relatives that are still in South Africa.