I was more lucky than shrewd in choosing to visit the northern Kalahari and Okavango Delta in Botswana at the start of the wet season and shortly before Christmas 2023. Mobile safaris organized by Penduka normally take up to nine visitors, but when I turned up the company didn’t cancel a party of only one! What a privilege to go on a private safari, staying for a few nights at each of four sites in the bush with an expert guide and camp staff all to myself. It only rained at night, a syncopating patter on the canvas. Kenny the camp’s cook prepared meals to the standard of a fine restaurant on open fires.

The team kept the campsite as pristine as we found it but the aromas from cooking food attracted wildlife. Without a fence to deter them, an Elephant barged past one day, a Spotted Hyena sniffed around my tent while I lay in bed, a cocky Pied Crow stole two eggs, and a scorpion dashed around our feet under the table. Fortunately, no lions though we heard them roaring a quarter of a mile away after dusk.