Where's the Baobab tree, bwana?

There's things to look forward to in Tanzania. For me being a trekker, summitting Mount Kilimanjaro would be a dream and a feat. A safari in the vast wilderness of the African Serengeti pretty much is as exotic and romantic as it gets. Paris and Venice ...so yesterday and over rated. Trust!

I'm a simple person who enjoy simple pleasures. I want to see trees. What I look forward to are the magnificent and visually awesome and strangely hypnotic Baobab trees in Africa.

This fascination and curiosity stem from a childhood book I read which greatly impacted me emotionally. Probably the first book that made me cry for the author's rendition of his watercolor illustration of Baobab trees made me wonder if they were real or a made-up kind of tree that the author took in creative liberty. Antoine de St.-Exuperty's Le Petit Prince takes place in Saharan Africa. His description of the landscape and the Baobab trees were the first impression I had of Africa: mysterious, remote, and lonely. I recall reading the English version, The Little Prince, on my mother's bed alone as a kid one late afternoon. After I finished the story, I cried for the little prince disappeared into the vast desert and the pilot wondered what became of his little friend. I hope he was able to continue caring for his beloved rose and clean out his volcanoes. From the little prince's world, it was the Baobab tree that has embedded in my memory. Once and for all, I want to witness if these trees do exist or only in the imagination of St.-Exupery.

 

I collect this book in different foreign languages. Swahili will be next.

 

bwana in Swahili means "sir or mister"