You learn quickly that the best game drive guides do very little that looks like guiding. They stop the vehicle. They watch. They might say nothing for twenty minutes. This is the job.
The wildlife doesn't perform on a schedule. A leopard that was in a tree an hour ago has probably moved. A herd of elephants moving through the riverbed will reach you when it reaches you, not when you'd like it to.
The gift of a well-run safari is that it forces the kind of attention we rarely give anything. You watch a pride for an hour because there's nowhere else to be. You notice the sub-adult learning to stalk. You watch the light change on the grass.
Go before the migration peak if you can. June, not August. The plains are still extraordinary and the queues at the river crossings are shorter. You're there for the animals, not for other people watching animals.
adv.entu.re editorial