I’m taking in my espresso slowly, recovering from the jetlag. I didn’t change time zones, but my head still hurts from waking up at 5am for a 7:30am flight, arriving in Montréal by 11am sharp. I made contact at the hotel for the conference, I picked up the guitar Adrian and Meredith loaned me, and I finally got a seat at a Tim Horton’s with a donut and an espresso, with just enough time to call Maryjo.

She’s subscribed to these wacky flight deals, and gets frequent notices for ridiculous fares to far-flung destinations. I’m a sucker for travel, and even more of a sucker for Maryjo. Even though my head was pounding, the $675 fare to South Africa sounded irresistible.

Four months later, as I’m sitting in the backseat of the open-air Safari truck, high up above the bumpy terrain, with a telephoto over the heads of the seven or eight other tourists in the back, Marcus Kapp told me just to shout if I saw anything worth taking a picture of.

1 The Lion at Golden Hour

In the first hour of hitting the dirt road at a reasonable clip, we saw four stunning examples of the Big Five, the last of which was a solitary lion, maybe 50 meters from the road. At around 5pm, just as the Pilanesberg sun rode parallel to the horizon , I saw what looked like a shrub shaking under a tree. As the shrub stood up, I realized it was the mane of a lone male lion, standing, stretching, and shaking off. And padding his way slowly to the road.

2. Lunch with Mom

This calf is around seven weeks old, and already has enough command of its limbs to run laps around its mother, weaving around the dozen other elephants in the group. The young one won’t learn to trunk as articulately as an adult until its first birthday— the grown-up elephants can easily wrench whole branches from trees with their trunks. The young ones will mimic the behavior by pulling up tufts of grass with their trunks, and throwing it in the air over their heads .

3 Impala at the Gate

The horns are used chiefly for fighting. Male impala have a gland in the middle of their foreheads, right between the horns, that alerts other gentlemen impala to a challenger during the rut. These are not antlers, shed annually, and re-grown over a few months. These horns are permanent, and will provide defense for as long as they are attached.

4. Out for a Stroll

While they sometimes lack the coordination and slow grace of their adult counterparts, the youngsters take great glee in zooming around their family group. Elephants are highly social creatures, and enjoy conversation among their family group— if you sit very still while they walk around the truck, and keep your ears open, you’ll hear low hums, clicks, and the occasional trumpet call. While we can only hear maybe a quarter of the conversation with our tiny human ears, the elephants’ calls can be heard just under 10km away.

5. Zebra Butt Caught a Sunbeam

We arrived at Black Rhino Game Lodge just after the crew broke for lunch, with plenty of time to re-adjust before heading out into the bush for our first game drive. The pond just beyond the back deck of the lodge caught my eye as a nice spot to test new lens with a landscape, even if there wasn’t anything of note to shoot. I dropped off my bag, grabbed the camera and lens, walked back to the pond, and found a zebra standing stock still in the sun at the far end. He allowed me to take a few pictures before he left in a huff, grunting as he strode back to the bush.

6. The Lion’s Breath

As he saunters through the tall grass, he tilts his head at the truck in the road. He understands there might be food, but the likelihood of making off with any is slim to none. By the scars on his face, it’s evident he’s been in a few scrapes before—by his careful walk, it’s evident he’s learned how to avoid unnecessary conflict. Still, the truck is worth investigating.

He advances with his head low, and sniffs the air around the truck as he walks a lap around our truck. As he comes around my side, I can hear him breathe. I knew I was safe in the back of the truck, and I knew I was getting a marvelous picture I would keep forever, but every single hair on my arms stood up when I heard the lion’s breath. Something left over from my hunter-gatherer ancestors was quietly reminding me that 20 meters from a lion is not a safe place to be.

7 Kudu Cooling Off

Like the impala, the kudu have permanent sets of horns stuck to their foreheads. While the horns are great for defense, and for presenting a mating display, they’re packed full of tissue and blood vessels. On the scorching savannah, kudu will often cover their horns in mud to shield them from the sun.

8 The Static Rhinos

There are only four main roads in Pilanesberg that cut through the largely unmanaged forest on the game reserve. This makes monitoring traffic in and out of the park much easier, and for good reason. Poaching continues to be a serious threat, especially for black rhino horn. There is still, however, a sizable population of black rhino on the reserve, including a pair of best buds who like to stand semi-hidden in the weeds by the side of the road. Due to their perpetual inactivity, they’re referred to as "static rhinos” by a handful of the guides.

9 How an Elephant Says Hello

One young lady elephant at the edge of the group stood in front of the truck, facing it head-on from a few meters away. As she curls her trunk up, and flares the opening, she flaps her ears slowly against her head. With her trunk twisted and aloft, she smells the air around our truck. With both her ears flapping back and forth, intently listening, she can tell how big we are, and how hard we’re breathing. While everyone in the truck marveled and studied the elephant, and I knelt on the edge of the backseat, it became very clear the elephant was looking right back at us.