“I’ll turn left here then,” Phil said as he manoeuvred the car down a narrow street. I consulted my instructions again. “There should be a hill, but this is flat,” I observed despondently. With no addresses in Addis, descriptions and landmarks are used to locate any specific point of interest that you want to visit. On this occasion it was a hairdresser that had been recommended to me, and I was keen to try.

“This is the complete opposite of Addis” observed Chris, as the Chobe river gurgled gently past the sides of our electrically powered boat. The young woman who was our guide for the next two days, endearingly named Slodge (I once accidentally called her “Splodge”), was skilfully navigating us towards a distant herd of elephants walking along the river bank.