Laura's Safari Journal: Day 1...

There’s a certain kind of tired that comes from crossing continents - not just physical fatigue, but the sense of being unmoored. I felt that in Johannesburg: not quite in one place or the next, until Roan appeared - solid, familiar, and grinning. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year, but we picked up as if no time had passed. Over coffee, Patrick and I told him how our nephews had recently declared a day we spent together at the trampoline park “the best day of their lives,” their faces lit with certainty. Roan smiled and said, “The thing about kids is, they don’t hold back from joy. They just let the world in. As adults, we could stand to relearn that.” Little did I know what the day would hold…

Johannesburg faded into Maun, where Patrick discovered what he declared the best lemonade in Africa at a little café called the Duck. We laughed, but already the ordinary had started to shimmer with the kind of exaggeration travel invites. From there, the bush plane carried us west, skimming low over the Makgadikgadi Pans. From the air, the earth seemed to stretch into infinity: pale salt flats gleaming like a mirror of the sky, empty yet alive.

When we landed, the “airport” looked like something conjured out of imagination - velvet drapes, polished hardwood underfoot, and our two smiling guides, Prince and Nimrod – who welcomed us with warm smiles and cool drinks.

The drive to camp was meant to be a transfer, but Africa rarely does ordinary. Ostriches scattered before us, zebra and wildebeest grazed untroubled, and by a waterhole stood a lone bull elephant, statuesque in the setting sun - as if posted there to test whether we were ready for what lay ahead.

We hurried through orientation and were back in the Land Rover as dusk set in. With little more than coats against the chill, we plunged into the night. The bush revealed itself in fragments: bat-eared foxes darting like shadows, jackals slipping along the edge of the track, and then - lions. Prince had said, “You just gotta believe.” And then - there they were: two lionesses and a blond-maned male, moving silently through the Kalahari. These desert lions carry more muscle than their cousins, built for the brutal distances they roam.

Later, Prince brought us to the Ntwetwe Pan for a pre-dinner drink. We toasted the night beside a roaring fire. As we got up to leave, Prince asked us to help Nimrod by carrying our chairs to the trailer. Happy to play our part, we walked in the general direction indicated, where we happened upon a long table set for dinner beneath a cathedral of stars, each seat warmed by glowing coals.

Over dinner, Prince shared his story - once a boy washing cars at the camp, now a guide teaching others how to see. Guides like him are guardians as much as storytellers. Without them, travellers might spot animals but miss the meaning of the wild. Afterward, Prince said there was one more thing we had to see - a hippo fossil. Still trying to envision what this would be, I kept looking at Roan inquisitively, but he didn’t let on. The darkness was thick, shapes uncertain. And then - not bones, but beds emerged from the darkness, each turned down with hot water bottles and toothbrushes laid beside them. My joy and surprise was hard to contain.

Lying beneath the stars, giddy to be back in Africa, I thought of what Roan had said earlier that day - and knew that for at least one night, I’d experienced the world again with the pure joy of a child.

Laura xxx