African Sunsets

When I remember the end of an African day it is like this, a sun silhouetting a tree - an umbrella-shaped acacia or the bulk of a baobab - the colours smears of gory reds and oranges above the tangle of black that is the matted thorn trees of 'the bush'. African sunsets are often spectacular simply because the sun is setting through an atmosphere filled with the dust of the day, fine dust lifted high into the atmosphere which scatters the sunlight differentially to allow through light at the red end of the spectrum.

I know now that I will not see another African sunset so I am left, very contentedly, with the recollection of sights like this. It was at the end of a day at Saadani, the Tanzanian game reserve which is on the coast to the north of Dar-es-Salaam. The tented lodge we stayed in, the reserve itself, the people who looked after us - we could not have asked for more.

One of the things we most looked forward to at Saadani was the escorted walks in the bush, and this sunset happened at the end of one of them. We hadn't seen much but had enjoyed - if that is the right word - the frisson of fear as we moved through what is lion country. We ended the walk on the beach just by the hotel and turned to see this sunset and, in that moment, created this memory.