Our first morning bush drive at Karongwe started with an old fashioned wake-up call (a knock on the door, “are you awake?”) at 5:30 a.m.

We headed out while it was still dark, our tracker sweeping his spotlight to and fro, searching for animals.

While still dark, we spotted a few hyenas, seemingly shy, slinking off into the bush as the spotlight sought them out.

Shortly after light dawned, we spotted an elephant ahead on the right enjoying a breakfast of tree branches. As she moved, her baby was revealed. She looked at us briefly but seemed unconcerned. Breakfast was clearly her priority.

We watched a while and then one of us looked up and realized there was another elephant ahead of us on the road. It looked big, even at a distance. Our tracker vacated his seat on top of the hood and jumped into the front passenger seat next to the driver. Our driver pulled the vehicle ahead and off the road to the left.

Steadily, slowly, this bull elephant walked up the road toward us. Soon we saw a second elephant behind him.

These two elephants walked right past us, turned our way, raised their trunk slightly and carried on. Words cannot quite describe what it was like to be there in that moment. But it was truly amazing.

The elephants continued past us on the road, heading toward the other vehicle of our group. They were alerted about the sighting by our driver and got the tail end of the experience.

The early wake up call was worth it.