It is hard to describe what it is like to stare down your camera lens and see a full size male lion staring back at you. As you slowly pull the camera away from your face you realize that the lion is actually a lot closer than you had anticipated, and that there is nothing between you and that wild lion except the car window that you are rolling up at the speed of light.

If you want to experience this first hand, and you find yourself in Mozambique or South Africa, make the trip to Kruger Park; the largest game reserve in South Africa. I kept reminding myself that these were indeed wild animals, and they didn’t have keepers who brought them in at the end of the end. It was we, the visitors, who were herded into fenced private accommodation enclosures when dusk fell for our own safety.

For three days we drove around Kruger Park in our own vehicle with our heads hanging out the windows, our fingers firmly placed on our shutters as we witnessed the best of what African marketing has sold to the world. Graceful herds of giraffes gliding past us, elephants engaged in tusk wars, and dung beetles fastidiously rolling masses of animal droppings into perfect balls.

Even during the short breaks we would take at canteens, it was impossible to escape the wildlife. We had stopped for tea and had purchased the largest papaya I have ever seen to share for a mid morning snack. As soon as we cut the papaya in half, a cheeky monkey who had been watching from the tree above swung down and tried to steal the cut papaya. It was an unsuccessful attempt at theft as the papaya was the same size as the monkey, and his initial struggle gave way to reluctant acceptance that the papaya was staying put. He still took a cheeky bite and then scampered back up the tree.

Each day was different and anticipation ran high as you never knew what was coming around the next corner. The surefire way to know that you had hit the goldmine was if there was a traffic jam of 5 or 6 cars stopped in the middle of the road, usually to watch a pride of lions, or if you were really lucky some sort of natural interaction between two types of creatures. The lasting memory of our three day trek was while at dusk we raced to make it into the enclosure before the gates were shut and we were stopped by a train of elephants; complete with a baby elephant pulling up the caboose. Absolutely fantastic.