Briana's Travels

I'm baaaaaaack! I never quite feel the reality of leaving on a trip like this one until I get in the taxi to go to the airport. For many years I would spend about three months each summer in Africa, mostly Kenya in the last decade or so, so this three week trip sort of pales in comparison. But since my son Toby was born in September 2011, this is the longest trip I will have taken - and I miss him so much already. Once, when someone asked me what changed for me most since I became a parent, without thinking too in depth I instinctively said "I have a new appreciation for my own mortality". I love traveling, but it takes on a gravity now that it never did before. It also makes me realize how brave my parents were to cheer me on as I adventured for years on a continent neither of them had ever been to, sometimes - back in the Paleolithic without good cell phone or internet connections - for weeks at a time, in places without quick access to medical care should I have need...