Ernest Hemingway Travels to Africa

In 1933 Hemingway and Pauline went on safari to East Africa, a 10-week trip that provided material for Green Hills of Africa as well as the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber". They visited Mombasa, Nairobi, and Machakos in Kenya, then Tanganyika where they hunted in the Serengeti, around Lake Manyara and west and southeast of the present-day Tarangire National Park. Hemingway contracted amoebic dysentery that caused a prolapsed intestine and he was evacuated by plane to Nairobi, an experience reflected in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Their guide was the noted "white hunter" Philip Hope Percival, who had guided Theodore Roosevelt on his 1909 safari.

In the summer of 1933 the Hemingways and their Key West friend Charles Thompson journeyed to Africa for a big game safari. Ever since reading of Teddy Roosevelt’s African hunting exploits as a boy, Hemingway wanted to test his hunting skills against the biggest and most dangerous animals on earth. With a $25,000 loan form Pauline’s uncle Gus (the same uncle who helped them buy their Key West home) Hemingway spent three months hunting on the dark continent, all the while gathering material for his future writing.