Trying to rescue the last vestiges of politeness from the furthest corners of your soul, you've faced off immigration, been stamped out and released into an overcrowded shopping mall so you can find a quiet corner in which to crawl and cocoon until you claw your way through boarding gate procedures, produce your passport for the 50-millionth time and stride forcefully down endless ramps to your plane.

Swallowing the bile induced from endless, fruitless hours of waiting and discomfort, you offer a wan smile to the cabin attendant who directs you to your seat in spite of you knowing where it is because you reserved it from an overhead plan online. Sweaty and unimpressed, you haul your carry on into the overhead bin, plop into a seat that you're going to spend half a day wrestling with, convince yourself that it's not too bad and attempt to create enthusiasm at what tomorrow will bring.

What seems like a million people swarm onto the plane around you before doors close and the gargantuan metal behemoth in whose belly you reside begins to move. The moment you feel the acceleration that pushes your head to the back of your headrest, you know the journey is well and truly under way. You've left normal and are headed to a new reality, far, far away, breaking free of the physical and mental restraints that your every day existence dresses up as "life". Freedom beckons. And your destination is drawing closer with every passing minute... Africa. Mysterious. Alluring. Exciting. 

You accept your here and now - being forced to sit in a seat that no ergonomics have ever applied to, eat warmed-up leftovers disguised as food, faking sleep and convincing your brain that it's real - and reassure yourself that this, too, will pass... And it does... 

Purgatory endured, the sun does rise and on a different side of the world. As cabin lights come on there's expectation in the air. Window blinds are raised, seats are placed in an upright position, seat belts are buckled and after what seems like an entire epoch, wheels touch down on a strange, new land. When the seat belt signs go off and everyone scrambles to stand, anxious to exit their aeronautic prison as quickly as possible, you feel the longed-for excitement seeping into tired muscles, sleep-deprived neurons firing unexpectedly.

Not much longer, you say to yourself. The disembarkation process floats by, you move through immigration in an acquiescent stupor and navigate the luggage carousel with surprising grace. With a swoosh of automatic doors you're finally in Africa... Warm smiles greet you, the air is heavy with heat and anticipation, you're almost there... Almost free... One more hop and it's done... A short transfer, then one more flight, one final link in the journey's chain.

You're on hot tarmac, looking at the smallest plane you've ever seen. The sun seems brighter than you've ever known it and the sky is so blue it's almost painful. Everyone's so friendly, and as you squeeze yourself into what passes for a seat, you remind yourself why you're doing this - why you travel. Why it's good for you. And wonder what the next part of the journey holds. The engine fires, propellers whirl, fans burst into life filling the plane with fresh, cool air. You gather speed and become airborne with seemingly no thrust, defying your imagined grasp of the physics of flight. And below you something wonderful happens... 

Your perspective is dragged screaming and kicking from everything familiar and thrust into a new reality as a vastness you never knew existed opens up. Horizons expand, becoming limitless. Epic landscapes are revealed and as the breath involuntarily leaves your body in a silent "WOW!" the realisation of where you are begins to hit you. You watch in wonder through a small window as Africa is revealed to you, moment by captivating moment. 

Every breath you take is another kilometre further from "civilisation," as all evidence of human presence on the surface of the planet below fades into memory. What replaces it is indescribable... Untouched. Untamed. Unfathomable. Wilderness for as far as the eye can see. Filled with life in all its raw, magnificent glory. Life you catch glimpses of as the plane begins its descent to a dry, dusty strip of cleared earth... Elephants moving slowly along pathways etched into the soil over countless millennia... Antelope grazing on open savannahs dotted with acacias... Hippos half submerged like biological submarines on the sandbanks of glistening rivers...

As rubber meets the rich, red soil of Africa and you taxi to your stop, you realise something profound. Far from being over, your journey is about to begin. Getting here was part of it - a necessary evil in something much greater. And as the door opens and you step down for the first time onto the land where humankind was born, a connection is restored at an almost cellular level. You exhale as it hits you - the realisation that you have come "home" and that it's been waiting for you since time began.

And for the first time in your life, you feel alive. 

Welcome to Africa. You'll never be the same again!

Text: Sharon Gilbert-Rivett