The Day I Became a Shellback

I was still a Pollywog. But I wasnt mutating into a Shellback by the grimy sidewalk where a yellow signboard with zebra legs and a red band cutting through the map of Africa read: This sign is on the Equator. There stood a man lithe as a hound,spewing geodesic lessons. You see,water in the southern hemisphere swirls anti clockwise and…. He began with a drawl,holding a pink punched plastic mug in one hand and a blank certificate in another. Ten dollars. Ill get you to hop the Equator and the certificate is yours. The air was rife with temptation but I stood my ground. My hemisphere! Id cross the Equator with Hollywood heartthrobs!

Well,kinda. I wanted to cross the Equator in the shadow of Mount Kenya,and in the glimmer of Hollywood glitterati. In Fairmont Mt Kenya Safari Club,which was once the retreat of Hollywood hunk William Holden,who set hearts aflutter in Sunset Boulevard. The Equator cuts through the property. For the golfer,it is a hemispheric delight,for he can cross hemispheres in one fell swoop read: tee. The first hole is in the northern hemisphere,the seventh hole in the southern hemisphere. Imagine crossing hemispheres in seven holes! But I wasnt teeing.

I was looking for the statesman with the bald pate Sir Winston Churchill who was a founder member of Holdens 1,000-acre retreat. Famous for its sunken baths,the club reverberated with the footfalls of kings,millionaires,superstars: Lord Louis Mountbatten,Clint Eastwood,Clark Gable,Humphry Bogart,Grace Kelly… Sadly,when I walked into the resort,all I had for company was a peacock and two Masai men in coarse vermillion wraps,with beads snaking around their neck.

There was a red carpet too,rolled out for the Equator-hopping ceremony. As the drum boomed,the Masai men ambled gently on the manicured grass,and held my hand to take me across the Equator. Dance. You cannot be stiff on the Equator, the Masai coaxed. Dance on the Equator? I fumbled. But when the beats of the drum grew louder and the raucous cmon,cmon dance refrain got repetitive,I twirled on the red carpet and crossed the Equator. The drum fell silent. Finally,I was a trusty Shellback. I whooped.

With the Equator ticked off my list,I sought other must-dos. Mount Kenya raised its head out of the blue clouds. Climb it? Naah. Too high. Too daunting. I shunned the mountain and headed to shops with tin roofs where tubby women in intricate headwraps were hawking handwoven Masai fabric,cotton chintz sarongs with verses woven in Swahili,and artifacts made of dried gourd. I tried a kanga sarong with orange pansies that had the ode of a jilted lover woven in purple. I picked a canary yellow kikoy,a versatile East African wrap. However,when I tried wrapping it like a skirt,it hung precariously from my waist. Safety pin,anyone? I pleaded. Japo sipati tamaa sikati. Bashir mumbled and I looked askance. I was not sure whether Bashir was whispering a prayer for my dangerously hung kikoy or to see lions in the wild. Actually,she was reciting the proverb printed on her kanga: Even though I have nothing,I have not given up the desire to get what I want. That moment,all I wanted was a safety pin. I found one.

With a kikoy in hand,I knew what I wanted to do next. Find lions. And I knew exactly where. Barely 17 km from the Equator,in the 110,000-acre Ol Pejeta Conservancy that sits on the Laikipia plains and is home to the Big Five lion,elephant,buffalo,rhinoceroes and leopard. Ol Pejeta is not merely about lions it is the largest black rhino sanctuary in east Africa,and the only chimpanzee orphanage in the country. As the jeep manoeuvred through savannahs,the snarl of the hyena and the whistle of the starlings melded with the squawks of pelicans and drumming sound of the ostrich. The jeep rattled on the dirt track but I stood on the seat for a glimpse of the mighty cat. Faraway,the peak of Mt Kenya glistened in the burnished orange of the setting sun. That evening,I did not have to crane my neck for a look at wildlife antelopes sprinted fearlessly,buffaloes chewed lazily and,yes,the lion walked with a swagger fit for a monarch.

Hollywood heartthrobs. Lions. Chimpanzees. Masais. The brown of the Kenyan terrain was getting under my skin. Next morning,I yearned for pink. The pink of a flamingo. In search of that pink,I drove away from the Equator to Lake Nakuru literally,dust or dusty place in Masai language. Dusty it sure was on the way to Nakuru,one of the Rift Valleys soda lakes,but I was not paying heed to the dirt caught in my skirts hem. I was pulling out my Wellingtons to walk by the Lakes swampy bank to see millions of flamingos line the shores and paint the entire landscape in their distinctive fuchsia pink. The huge congregation of flamingos is often called the greatest bird spectacle on earth. Greatest might be an exaggeration,but the abundance of pink and the crescendo of legions of flamingos honking and babbling turns the lake into a theatre where the flamingos vie with pelicans,cormorants,white rhinos and baboons for an ovation.

I stood in the swamp and remembered what author Karen Blixen had said: Here I am. Where I ought to be. There I was. Not too far from the Equator. Blissful. With pink flamingos. n

Preeti Verma Lal is a journalist and a travel writer