What brings me back to Africa? It seems like a straightforward question. Over the last 35 years, I’ve been addicted to the place, ticking off a wish list that’s included everything from Cape Town to Kilimanjaro, mountain gorillas to the Great Migration. I’d return at the drop of a hat to witness any one of them again. But I’m sure I am not alone among Travel Africa readers in feeling something deeper — more instinctive — that draws me back to Africa again and again than simply to see its great iconic sights. It’s almost as if Africa has become embedded in my psyche; entwined with my senses.
When I’m at home in the UK, it only takes the cooing of a humble collared dove to instantly transport me to a Zambezi dawn, sunlight flickering through the mopane scrub; Cape turtle doves purring into the stillness. Brush against some thyme in my garden on a hot, sunny day and I’m back in South Africa: the herby, pepper-sweet tang of the bushveld accompanied by a scratchy percussion of crickets. And when the stars shine brightly over my home in the Cotswolds, I count my blessings that we’ve been spared street lights, but can’t help thinking of an African night sky glittering over the Kalahari, the Milky Way renting the cosmos, spilling otherworldly light across the salt pans.