Dar es Salaam. I’m still trying to make sense of the taxis, busses, cars, motorbikes, lanes of roads in the making, pulsating crowds of people, colourful wares in busy markets and a world class hotel with the best dressed clientele and tightest security I’ve ever experienced in my life. Perhaps I need to go back and try again. But the lush, fertile landscape of rural Tanzania drew me in instantly. The magnificence of the landscape all around us, the neatly dressed children on their way to school, the mealies, the donkeys, the roadside tailors, the colourful dresses and carefully crafted jewellery, the Rift Valley and a coffee plantation tucked away in the hills … and managed by a South African!

And our home from home was a train. The Rovos Rail to be exact. The glamorous guests came from across the globe. We travelled and bonded for 15 nights on what was to be a planned, predictable adventure through Africa. But, this is Africa and there is nothing predictable about our beautiful continent. So, two derailments along the tracks, an unscheduled chartered plane trip, many nail-biting hours in between, a charming eloquent onboard historian who talked us through it all and a gorgeous young doctor, who was consulted more than he expected to be. And thus, we were shepherded to the Victoria Falls hotel and later, to our ‘new’ train where the dream team delivered our luggage to us, against all odds! (And that’s a story for another time.)

Game reserves and encounters with lions, elephants a little too close for comfort, baby zebras, giraffes, baboons, buck of every possible variety, black rhinos and wildebeest, birds of prey, crocodiles, wallowing hippos and an unexpected leopard right next to our landrover. Add fine dining, fascinating fellow travellers, five star accommodation, African sunsets, traditional drumming and dancing around enormous fire pits, and the unbeatable camaraderie of the excellent Rovos Rail team, and you have a foolproof recipe for the African adventure of a lifetime.

My impressions are melding into one seamless memory and it’s difficult to pick out the most outstanding one, but if I’m pressed to, it’s this – being rocked to sleep on a luxury train and slowly awakening to the smoke that thunders …