Page 99 - CelebrationsSpring2020

feature an environment that can reach out and touch us, potentially affecting our comfort for the rest of the day (with all due apologies to Splash Mountain of course).
The journey itself is free flowing, as the raft is not attached to a track. This means that each time we ride, the water is the one element that makes the journey unpredictable. When we slide over the crest of the lift hill, we realize that we are heading straight for a geyser. Thankfully, it shrinks just in time for us to pass, and we sigh with relief...but a little too soon! We have not considered that the geyser will rise again behind our raft and shower down on the closest Kali River Expeditions patron. At this point in the journey, the water playfully teases its travelers. But the river speaks to us more harshly, rocking us more insistently, as we drift through the devastation left by the Tetak Logging Company. Once we pass the logging truck mired in the mud, when we are mesmerized by the glowing red warnings in the timber bridge, until we suddenly plunge down a 20-
foot drop. If the river spared us from the geyser’s benign sprinklings earlier, the water absolutely wreaks its revenge on us now. Could this drop symbolize a punishment for our looking in awe at the fiasco of deforestation in Anandapur? For “oohing” and “aahing” at the special effects, and not fully acknowledging the truth? Or could the river’s course at this moment imitate the loggers’ low morality, the physical descent mimicking the decline of man’s respect for nature? All in all, an integral part of the Kali River Rapids story is the river’s voice, alternately soothing us and knocking us a little off balance.
Though the Animal Kingdom was built decades after the era in which Walt Disney lived, the park serves as Walt’s call to both appreciation and action. At times provocative, but always breathtaking, this park of flora and fauna keeps us in tune with our own spirit...and with the colorful elements of humanity that string us together in kinship across the globe.
Photo © Garry Rollins
99 · Celebrations