Eswatini

Eswatini caught me completely off guard. I'd crossed into it from South Africa expecting a quick transit, and instead ended up spending two full days barely moving — just sitting in the bush at Hlane, watching the light shift over the yellow grass and the flat acacia canopy. The air had a particular weight to it, dry and warm, and the red laterite soil stained everything.

The traditional Swazi village at Mantenga was a different kind of quiet. Those beehive huts — built low and round with thatched grass pulled tight over a reed frame — look deceptively simple up close, but the craftsmanship in them is real. Behind the compound the mountain rose green and jagged under grey cloud, and the whole place felt cut off from the rest of the century in the best possible way.

The evenings in camp were something I hadn't expected. Dinner in the park lodge — rack of lamb and a glass of red wine with candles on the table — felt almost absurd given that lions were somewhere out there in the dark. That contrast, rough bush all day and then this small civilised warmth at night, is what stays with me most about Eswatini.