The park gate is quite a few kilometres from the lodge, but the road is good and the traffic isn’t anything like being in Nairobi. Soon enough I’m in the office buying our passes – valid for twenty-four hours – and we are being ushered through the gate and into the park.

As we drive slowly into the park, the scenery appears to have changed little from outside the boundary. The southern side of the road is dominated by the slopes of Kilimanjaro and the north by the flat dusty plains. As I thought, the bulk of the mountain is now shrouded in clouds. Soon enough, however, the northern side of the road becomes much greener, a broad swampy plain now, instead of the dry dust. Even the lower slopes of the volcano appear to be more densely forested and the wildlife finally begins to appear.

Joseph is in his element, pointing out different antelopes, gazelles and some of the bigger and more obvious birds. Soon enough, however, we come across an animal that needs no introduction. Next to a much more open stretch of water, there are a family of elephants and I’m mesmerised.

The whole family is clearly drinking, mothers standing over their young as they siphon water. As much of it seems to be getting sprayed about as is being swallowed, but the whole group seem more than content with that.

“You are really good at this,” I tell Joseph as we move on. The road is threading its way like a causeway between expanses of open water and green reedy swamp, teeming with life. “Did you never think to be a safari driver?”

“I only know what I have taught myself. After school, I just wanted to get away from home and make a life for myself. The city seemed a better option than going to college to study again. Guides need all sorts of qualifications and most also speak French or German to get more work,” he tells me.

“Does it pay well?” I ask, genuinely interested.

“Only about the same as my current job. Then, there is often no work and therefore no pay. Most guides rely on their tips, but that’s a gamble.”

We’ve stopped again, this time for a group of giraffes who are busy feeding on some very picturesque acacia trees. The day is slipping slowly towards evening and the giraffes are almost seen as silhouettes against the sky with their heads raised towards the umbrella-like canopy of the trees. I think this might be exactly the type of image that Niko and my other contributors were looking for. Even I can see the possibilities for this clearly now.

“We’ll need to head back to the gate soon,” Joseph tells me softly. “We need to be out of the park by sunset.”

“Okay,” I agree reluctantly. “Let’s go back by a different road if we can.”

“We can,” he acknowledges.

We drive for about thirty minutes, the light beginning to fade, but good progress being made before Joseph pulls us to an abrupt stop. “You have real luck with cats, don’t you?” he asks as he points off to the north across the open plain.

It takes me a moment or two to home-in on what he has seen, but then I am once again staring with eyes wide and my heart in my mouth. It’s a cheetah, or more precisely a female and three half-grown cubs. They are walking through the parched grass, parallel to the road and they are incredible.

I’m taken back to the power and presence of the leopard that we saw, but this is a totally different sort of big cat and a very different experience. She seems almost timid in her walk, gaze darting left and right as if on constant look-out. None of the self-assured belief in her own power that the leopard had shown so obviously. Every few moments she turns her head and makes sure that the cubs are following.

They are, but their playfulness is equally mesmerising and comical. Where the mother is a portrait of balletic grace, they are a tumble of clumsiness and playful exuberance. Much of their journey seems to consist of one or more of them pouncing on the others in an endless series of mock chases.

Sadly, the light is getting too poor for me to get good photos. I manage one or two reasonable ones, but have to admit quickly that we are running out of time and need to get to the gate. Other vehicles have the same imperative and we’re soon in a long convoy heading back along the main track to the east.

With only perhaps a kilometre to go until the gate, I’m startled by the looming form of a huge bull elephant right by the side of the road. I think I’d almost drifted off into a snooze, but now I’m wide awake, even though the huge creature is now some distance behind us in the gloom. “Fuck, that was close,” I mutter more to myself than to Joseph.

At least we’re not the last vehicle at the gate, although the last sliver of the setting sun is barely visible in the rear-view mirror as we depart.