This personal travelogue of a seven month trek through Africa includes meeting a gorilla fact to face, enduring a blistering Saharan breakdown, hunting dik-dik with a tribe of pygmies, climbing Africa's highest mountain, hurtling through Zambezi rapes, experiencing some of the effects of on-going civil wars.

The driving force behind the safari, Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (who is originally from Chiang Mai), went to Kenya in December to secure 175 animals--including giraffes, flamingoes, hippos, zebras, dik-diks, impalas, buffaloes and gazelles--in exchange for a reported $1 million to go towards Kenyan conservation efforts, and a promise to train Kenyans in the way of the Thai mahout (elephant trainers, whose practices many consider harsh).

Elsewhere, we enjoyed the hummingbird and butterfly gardens; the toylike Gunther's dik-dik from East Africa, 13-inch-long antelope with spindly legs and doe eyes; and the nursery, where there are not only long tables holding potted desert plants for sale, but a smorgasbord of wind chimes, garden ornaments, bird feeders, fountains and sculptures.