We knew he was trouble as soon as he swaggered towards us kicking up clouds of dust. Two and a half tonnes of testosterone - with tusks. And we were in his patch. It was sunset on the shores of Lake Kariba in eastern Zimbabwe. Birds, water buffalo and other doe-like creatures had gone about their business as we drove past. Then, as if some animal choreographer wanted to really impress first-time safari-goers, in came an angry young male elephant silhouetted against the African sky.
We sat closer in the Land Cruiser. There was nervous laughter and then heart-thumping silence as the young male put his huge ears forward, lifted his trunk and ran down the small hill towards us. Chris Chiparaushe, the guide, gunned the engine, making it roar louder than the elephant. The animal backed off and then returned with a half-hearted charge and finally turned his enormous rear on us and swaggered off through the trees.
It had only been a mock charge, Chris assured us afterwards. All show and no substance. Like the difference between a blustering, bad-tempered drunk and a professional hit man - had the elephant been serious he wouldn't have bothered with all that ear, trunk and tusks stuff. It would have been silent, ears back and head down.
After a holiday in Zimbabwe it is easy to bore people with tales from the bush. Trying to describe the feeling of walking or driving in a game park is like trying to photograph fireworks.
Some come expecting to see a David Attenborough production played out in front of them, complete with animal kills. The most common complaint, according to the the people who deal with tourists is: "It was great. But we didn't see a lion."
At Kiplings Safari Lodge on Lake Kariba the nearest we got to a lion was some old paw-tracks. There was a large fur ball regurgitated by a leopard - the matted fur embedded with small chips of bone was all that remained of the unfortunate animal that became the leopard's lunch. But the fact that the big cats did not appear on cue took nothing from the essential thrill of a safari - the knowledge that they were there. A 6.30 a.m. game walk through the Matusadona National Park took in two hyenas, probably returning from a night's hunting. Matusadona, the guide book helpfully says, translates as "constantly dripping with dung" to indicate the large amount of wildlife that lives in the hills.
We walked in single file and close together, the guide in front carrying both a rifle and a pistol. The advice was to stick together if something appeared and the guide would deal with it. If that something was a rhino we would have to run and climb the nearest tree, he said. Rhinos, having been hunted to near extinction, are under armed guard in the park and poachers hunting for rhino can be shot on sight.
However the only rhino we encountered was a nine-week-old baby called Mbizi (pronounced Beegee) the height of a labrador and the width of two. She was being cared for at the park station. Quite tame, she happily sucked fingers and butted people in the knees with her nose, where the horn has just started to grow. Her feet pads were soft like a dog and the skin behind her ears velvety. When she tired of the attention, she lay on her side, closed her long eyelashes and slept.
Rangers tried de-horning the rhinos, as the horn is the poacher's prize. They found that poachers who had tracked a hornless rhino would shoot the animal anyway so they would not waste time another day tracking the same animal.
Mbizi's mother was recovering in a nearby compound with a saucer-sized, raw wound in the top of her head, where a poacher's snare had to be cut out.
Like many of Zimbabwe's safari locations, Kiplings is best reached by light aircraft. The sign at the landing strip you bounce along in a Cessna reads Kiplings International Airport.
The remainder of the journey is by pontoon across Lake Kariba. The lake was created artificially when the river was dammed in the 1950s. The tops of hardwood trees - dead since the lake filled - reach out of the water and on land the hardwoods wait for the rainy season to turn green.
It is only a decade since the signing of the peace accord in what was the British colony of Rhodesia. While Kenya and, more recently South Africa, have gained the reputation as adventure holiday and safari destinations, Zimbabwe's tourist industry has become one of the country's first priorities.
Kiplings, like many other developments, is built as a series of individual lodges and a central bar, dining area. After the concrete bombast and casino-kitsch of hotels built in the 1970s and 1980s these new developments are African in architecture and decor.
Kariba is the third point in the well-trodden tourist trail of Victoria Falls and Kwange (spelt phonetically during British rule as Wankie) National Park. But as yet there is very little spoilt by the people in well-pressed khakis and matching hats who travel the route.
Victoria Falls is the backpackers' haven, where the bungee jumpers and white water rafters recover and swap adventure tales over a few beers. The more mature (and wealthier) adventure-seekers stay in the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, which at more than $100 a night for room-only was still filled to capacity in September.
The Victoria Falls' Hotel is worth a visit, if not a stay, for anyone who wants to get a whiff of the old colonial days. A former railway station, it is beautifully preserved and in the dining-room the women peer over pincenez and their companions wear cravates.
The Falls themselves can be seen at stages along a winding path through the lush growth where the spray turns the landscape from bush to rain forest. A helicopter ride gave the best view of the point where the Zambeze River appears simply to disappear over the edge of the earth and tip itself into a hole.
GOING from Vic Falls to the Linkwasha wilderness camp in the middle of Kwange National Park feels like the transition from a tourist to a traveller. In truth the "bush experience" is just as organised as the show of native dancing and the replica tribal village. But Linkwasha is a clearing in the bush 110 km from the nearest town.
"Don't worry we have an electric fence," Obert the guide said reassuringly at the delicious three-course meal prepared by his staff on wood stoves. There was a pause. Then he admitted the fence was just a joke. There was, in fact, no electricity. It was a punchline that no-one really wanted to hear that night.
It was cold and wet, completely unseasonal for September, they said, and the camp was soon christened Linkwashout. But in the beds in grass huts we found warm hot water bottles. And the next day's safari walks and drives made up for the weather. A bushman all his life Obert knew more about the animals and plants we saw than we could possibly learn in two days.
Taking a piece of string out of his pocket he measured the circumference of a large elephant print in the earth, saying the elephant's shoulder height is twice this measure. He tied the string onto the nose of his rifle and raised it to where the elephant's shoulder would be. We looked up at the length of string in awe.
At Ngamo, a village just outside the park, Samson, the 65-year-old elder of the village living in a compound with his two wives, 16 children, 26 cattle, five donkeys, six goats and unknown number of chickens. His appeared to be a life of great contentment.
That evening it was dry enough to sit around the camp fire, and argue about the merits of men marrying more than one wife. In the morning Obert looked up at the tree outside the camp to see if the resident snake was still sleeping in it. The tree was snakeless, but there was the husky sheath of a snake's skin. Evidence that this was not just another tall tale from the bush.