Clay Knight, Texas continued
Our planet has much to offer and travelling
has given me the opportunity to confirm it. Of all my travels, a
camping safari in Botswana has come closest to my heart because it
reminds me of how the world was meant to be. I believe that this
understanding wouldn't have been near the quality of resolution if I
hadn't had you along the way to point out the ever important role and
duty an object plays in it's surrounding environment. To me that is
what helped make Botswana what it is in my mind and memory."
Clay Knight, Texas
Michael Power, UK continued
Michael Lorentz does not take you for a walk in the African Bush; rather he takes you for a walk with it.
Until you have experienced the contrast, you won’t know what I am talking about. But believe me, it makes –
quite literally – the world of difference.
I first met Michael at Abu’s Camp in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. The overwhelming novelty of riding atop elephants is such that everyone wants to do it – and immediately. I did it. I loved it. But, in that moment of supreme satisfaction where one becomes drunk with spectacle, my ‘still small voice’ told me I was missing out on an even greater experience. But what? Michael sensed my confusion and gently suggested the opposite of the obvious. “Try walking with the elephants”, he said. I did. Only then was I truly hooked.
That is what Michael is all about. He senses emotions – in people, in animals, in the weather and, most of all, in that most emotional of all earthly things, the African Bush. His gentle approach can only come from the confidence he has in his subject – not that he would admit it! It took time to find the supreme author of this confidence: the undaunted respect that he holds for the capricious majesty of true wilderness.
For the next few days I walked with Michael, with Abu and his herd, with the bush. I saw, heard, smelt, touched and even tasted an Africa that I, a son of the continent, never knew was there. And, in all my time in Africa, I had never felt safer. I was taken to a different world; yet it was a world I had been in all my life, in but never with – until now. Our conversation lasted five days; it was full of gestures, insights and most importantly, silent revelations. I could not believe our morning walks covered over 10 miles. And, if I think about it, time did not fly by but rather rolled forward in slow motion as only it can when you are both savouring something and – yes, I was on holiday trying to escape a hectic City lifestyle – learning something new at the same time.
Michael does not force his world on you – not least because, as he would be first to point out, it is not ‘his’ to force. But it is almost impossible for him not to succeed in opening everyone’s invisible door to the parallel world of ‘with’. He did it with all our party, not least the hard-bitten journalist from CNN! So if you are thinking of experiencing the true essence of Africa, go ‘with’ Michael.
Michael Power, UK
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