I’ve no idea what Joseph has in mind for the morning, but I’m at the vehicles on time and he is waiting for me next to one of the 4x4 Toyotas that I’d virtually ignored so far. When he sees me approach, he comes round to the passenger side and opens the front door for me to get in.

We’re quickly back on the highway and heading back towards the city. I’ve been quite prepared to wait and see what he has planned, but when we turn off the main road and along a broad highway to the west, I have to know more.

“Okay, Joseph, where are we going?”

“Nairobi National Park,” Joseph tells me. “I hope you brought some money!”

I wouldn’t go anywhere without my wallet and my phone, so I do have funds. I didn’t know whether I might be asked to by lunch for myself or whatever. “The National Park?” I ask in wonder. “Wild animals?”

“Hopefully,” Joseph replies. “Is that okay?”

“Yes, of course. I have wanted to go, but thought it would be a few weeks until I found the time.”

“I know. I heard you speaking with Mister Anders.”

I sit in relative silence for the next few minutes as we continue west towards Langata and then turn more south to skirt the north-western edge of the park and get to the entrance. “I’m afraid you need to book in advance to see the orphan elephants,” Joseph tells me as we walk towards the park office. “You will have to come back and do that another time.”

Our paperwork and payments are quick and efficient and we are soon armed with a pass to spend the day in the park.

I can’t resist a photo of the magnificent thatched-roofed gateway as we drive through and realize that I should keep my phone in my hand and ready to shoot. I’ve absolutely no idea what to expect and am both apprehensive and intrigued. I just wish I had more time to prepare myself mentally for whatever might await.

Our first few hundred metres are through an area of fairly dense bush, but soon enough this begins to thin and more resemble the glimpses of the ground I could see from the highway on the other side of the park. Game tracks between the thorny shrubs widen out into more grassy open spaces.

When Joseph slows to a stop, it takes me a moment to look around and see what he has seen. There are three giraffes in the trees on his side of the road, perhaps less than a hundred metres from us and all browsing on the tree-tops. The clouds of morning are thinning and the sun is beginning to break through, bathing them in golden light.

If I hadn’t already been convinced by the people and culture around me, then now it was irrefutable. I’m in Africa. I’ve never felt the need to own a real camera, but now I’m feeling that my phone is distinctly inadequate, despite its remarkable abilities. Still, all I can do is try my best to capture the moments as they come.

“There are no adult elephants,” Joseph explains as we drive along. “The park is too small and far too close to the city. There are the orphans, however and they will be out and about near the gate every day.” To emphasise his point about the closeness of civilisation, we round a corner and crest a hill to reveal the skyline of the city off in the distance. It's closer than any major city has any right to be.

There might not be elephants, but there is plenty to be seen. I don’t know one antelope from another, but Joseph tells me that we are looking at impala and eland. Where one is slender, slight and graceful, the other is as large as a cow and quite intimidating.

I don’t need any help in identifying our next encounter. Even I can tell when we’re looking at a rhino. If there’s a fault with seeing wildlife on the television, then it is that you often don’t have a frame of reference for their absolute size. Rhinos, I can now see clearly, are fucking enormous and, for me at least right now, 100m or so is close enough. One of these gigantic buggers could surely wreck our truck in moments.

Joseph has clearly seen all this before, but he is happy to share my enthusiasm and encourage me to take more photographs. Once satisfied that I have seen enough, he heads onward along one dusty track after another.

The park is busy and we meet or pass many vehicles over the next couple of hours or more. A collection of four vehicles close to a roadside tree attracts our attention and Joseph pulls us over behind the group.

Their point of interest is at the bottom of the tree where a pride of lions is resting in the now necessary shade. Again, I have few prior points of reference, other than the fact that the lion is a really big cat. Yeah. One of them could easily make two of me. I’m fairly light and slender of build and these well-fed creatures are far from that.

We’re also really close to them, perhaps less than twenty metres and the photo opportunities are easy. Not that there’s really much to photograph, as the whole group seems to be asleep or close to it.

“It looks like they hunted in the night,” Joseph tells me. “That’s the way with lions. They spend much of the day sleeping. Still, it is good to see them.”

I’m about ready for a break, but it seems that Joseph has anticipated this as well. Soon enough, we are pulling into an open area where there are a few vehicles already parked.

“Lunch time,” Joseph tells me as he opens his door and steps out into the wild. “Washrooms in that building over there,” he adds while pointing off to my left. Now that he mentions the possibility, I’ve that inevitable sudden urge to urinate, even though a moment ago I was fine.

When I return, Joseph has been rummaging in the back of the vehicle and a picnic basket has appeared, along with a cool-box. Joseph leads me a few metres up the hill, along a well-kept path and towards a small group of grass-roofed huts that turn out to be picnic tables in the shade.

The last of the clouds have now burned away and the day is bright and increasingly hot, making the shade more than welcome. We find an empty space and Joseph bids me sit before handing me a cold drink and a bottle-opener.

Soon we are tucking into sandwiches, wraps filled with chicken and hard-boiled eggs. I’m not even sure that I want to ask how he has organised all this on such short notice. Perhaps it is better that I don’t know. There are even some of those exquisitely sweet small bananas to follow as dessert.

By the time we have finished eating and Joseph has put everything away, it’s becoming so warm that even being in the shade is bordering on unbearable. Heading back to the car and the blessing of air conditioning is a welcome respite.

Many of the animals are similarly feeling the heat and tending to concentrate in the more wooded parts of the park, crowding one-another in what shade there is available. There are baboons – almost dog-like in their features and with strikingly large fang-like canines. There are more giraffes and a large group of zebras who seem more comfortable out in the open than many of the other animals.

I’m finding myself having to admit that this slow-drive excursion through this small expanse of African wilderness is more interesting and exciting than I had given thought to beforehand. There’s a genuine anticipatory edge to the rounding of each corner on the track and sense of wonder when there’s something new to see.

It seems so easy to lose any sense of direction, but an occasional glance that reveals the skyline of the city keeps me grounded. As the afternoon draws on and the sun begins to lose the fiercest part of its heat, we find ourselves moving slowly back in the direction of the main gate. I’m definitely beginning to feel a little bit of emotional fatigue; excitement leading to a sense of relaxation.

I’m probably on the verge of drifting into sleep, as I’m startled by the sound of my name being said in an urgent whisper “Will!” I manage an incoherent sound of acknowledgement and turn to follow Joseph’s pointing finger.

At first, I’m not sure quite what he is trying to get me to see. There’s another car on the track in front of us, perhaps twenty metres away and similarly stopped. The four white-skinned occupants who are standing in the back of it with the roof up are all looking off to the right and that’s where I direct my gaze. All I can see, however, is the dense undergrowth of bushes beneath the spreading acacias above.

Whatever they can see, however, has them all very animated and turning until they are facing almost towards us.

Suddenly, there is the movement that I have had hidden from my view until now. A spotted head appears from behind a dense growth of shrubbery and a magnificent, majestic spotted cat steps out of cover and onto the road a few metres behind the other vehicle, between us and them.

While it might not be as big as the lions we saw before lunch, this is something that somehow manages to have more presence, more sense of purpose and more projection of power than anything I’ve ever seen before.

Just a few hours ago, I’d had no expectation of seeing any wildlife and now I’m seeing what is perhaps the ultimate wild creature of Africa. The leopard, a huge male, glances up at the other vehicle and then turns to walk almost directly towards us. If it wasn’t for the elegance, nonchalance and poise of each step, you’d almost call his movement a swagger.

I find myself almost holding my breath as he walks towards us. I’ve barely enough of my wits intact to remember to raise my phone and press the camera shutter a few times. At the last moment of his approach towards us, the great cat turns to our left and steps off the road. He’s so close that, for a moment, he was invisible to me in front of the bumper. As he finally steps into the dense bush he pauses and looks back, straight into my eyes, or so it seems to me.

I hear Joseph sigh as he finally exhales at the same time as I do so. When I turn to him, he has a huge grin on his face that I see as a blur because of the tears in my eyes. That was one of the most highly charged and emotionally intense things that I’ve ever experienced.

Joseph’s smile fades as he sees my expression and the tears in my eyes. At his look of concern I manage to smile back at him before finally making a sound. “Wow!”