There were moments of trepidation, of exhilaration, fear, and sheer delight. Old-fashioned safaris were a different proposition. He was just one of many who fostered enduring images of deep, dark, and dangerous Africa for impressionable readers. These days, you arm yourself not with guns and ammunition, like they did then, but with cameras and film. Now when you shoot animals in the wild, the pictures are your trophies.
Elephants abound in northern Botswana.
Transport between each place was by small bush planes or on the ground, in huge, open Toyota Land Cruisers that could maneuver in deep sandy or swampy terrain and even cross rivers. You quickly became used to the roar of the small, twin-engine planes as they took off from simple grass airfields for the next stopping place. Remote wasn't the word for it. My journey had begun with an eleven-hour flight from London to Johannesburg and from there a further three flights to Maun in Botswana, at the edge of the Kalahari. We were transported by jeep across golden grasslands to our first camp.