You wake before the sun, and it is cold in a way nobody warns you about. Coffee in a tin cup, a blanket over your knees, and then the vehicle rolls out into grass the color of honey.
Twenty minutes in, the guide cuts the engine. A family of elephants crosses ahead of us, unhurried, the smallest one trotting to keep up. Nobody in the vehicle says a word. It lasts maybe four minutes and I have thought about it almost every week since.
People assume safari is out of reach. The flights are real, yes. But the lodges have shoulder seasons like everywhere else, and booking the lodge through member inventory rather than a retail package took a serious bite out of the total.
Go for the longer stay if you can. Two nights is a photograph. Four nights is a memory, because the animals start to feel like neighbors rather than a show.
Bring layers, a real camera if you own one, and patience. The best sightings happen to the people who stayed out the longest.