On my last day in South Africa, somewhere between suffering over two hours sleep, returning my (scratched, grrrrrr) rental car, and packing, I went on a game drive with my friend Mostafa and some friends of his.

The game drive was different from the safari in Pilansberg because the animals are not in such a wild state. The lions and tigers, for a start, live in large roaming cages. The other animals live free, but they’re generally cared for (salt licks for the wildebeest, people to look after the elephants), rather than left to fend entirely for themselves as in the wild. It’s easy to look down on this kind of experience as somehow inferior to a real safari, but in fact it’s just different. And in some ways it was even better!

For one thing: I saw a few animals I hadn’t seen at all on the safari, most excitingly hippopotamuses! There were a pair of them hanging out in a pond, who drifted a little closer to yawn at us and then watch us with only their eyes above the water. I was surprised to learn that they were Africa’s most dangerous animal, and that the yawning was just their way of showing you their teeth…

The guide of our tour was hilarious and well informed. It was news to me that the zebra’s closest relative is not a horse, but a rhinoceros. It was news to me too that the structure of an elephants foot is like a high heel. A lot of things were news to me that day, and it was a great tour for that reason.

But undoubtedly the best thing about it was how close you could get to the animals, and how unconcerned they were. We drove right up to a sitting zebra and it just gave us a tolerant look before eventually wandering off. The elephants took it one step further. They came to us, relieved me of the apple I was eating, and then set about examining everyone in the jeep with their long trunks. So another few things I learned: though an elephant may be small (these ones were; two of them were still children) its trunk is ENORMOUS, much bigger than you would think, and that though they may be gentle giants, it’s a combination of exhilarating and deeply terrifying having one of those trunks crawling all over you, the sucker at the end opening and closing on your arms. The elephants particularly liked Mostafa; I thought they were going to keep him.

A little while later I had begun my 31 hours of flights and airports… still smelling like elephant.