Smoke signals during The Pause 🐾

I’m used to spending lengthy parts of the year getting African dust on my boots so I miss Africa, and my safari friends. And my binoculars are missing me! These days my Swarovski’s just look at me sadly and shrug their shoulders. “Wassup? Let’s go, man,” they’re saying.

African safari reminds us to slow down. I talk about this all the time on my trips: chill, everything will be fine, just slow down and breathe. So I have loved the stillness and community spirit that his Quiet Whisper has brought us. It’s been like an African dawn, but without the soul-caress of Green Pigeons and an elephant passing by. It’s been bloody rough commercially but Nature hado take a breath – we are very hard on our world – so she asserted herself and gave us no choice. While our hair has grown unruly and we have struggled to socially distance ourselves from the fridge, it has been good to pause. I’ve enjoyed it in many ways.

And I’ve been busy. While Africa and the animals are preparing to receive us again, I’ll bet we have all got on with our COVID projects, things we have always been meaning to do, such as learning Spanish, or getting really fit, or learning to waltz. I’ve been doing those, too! But mostly I have been engaged in desk-top safari stuff, and I want to let you know about it, because I’m really chuffed.

• I published my second book of Africa safari stories, Confessions of an African Safari Guide (Truths, Tales and Taboos of the Safari Life). It’s a cheeky look at the intriguing back-stories of the guiding industry, and a personal view on the fervour, foibles and frailties of us guides. You’ll find it on Amazon here

• I’m in the process of converting Confessions to Kindle, too. I’m hoping that will be ready in a few weeks. It depends on the tech guys!

• I created the Audible version of my first book, Africa Bites. It was a fun process learning how to make an audio book and re-living my fireside chats. It’s in my own voice, too, which was important to me. There’ve been a lot of requests for the Audible version that you can listen to in your car, so you’ll find it (and the Kindle version) on Amazon here

• I have already started the audio recordings for Confessions. Soon, that too will be on Audible. Get driving! The highways are as quiet as they ever will be

• I have started a series on Zoom (“Hello. Hello! Can you hear me? You’re on mute!”) called Mudd Buffalo Moments: CAMPfire Tales, and invited several colleagues to join me and tell their African safari stories alongside my own. So far these have run weekly since lockdown began, with enthusiastic attendance. It’s been wonderful to re-connect with old safari friends and clients and have a laugh at some of our shared adventures and escapades. It’s amazing who pops up on screen! CAMPfire Tales is held (no charge) on the first Thursday evening of each month on Zoom here

Zoom Link : Meeting ID: 780 932 0496
Password: campfire

• I am very pleased and proud that Lloyd Camp Consulting Africa here is an integral component of The Malcolm Ainscough Collection. We are a team of very experienced and positive safari folk, and we have embraced the opportunity to gather and re-gear ourselves for next year’s safaris. This hiatus has given us time to totally revamp our website here and reassure our clients that Africa awaits. We are in an influential position with our partners in Africa and are completely confident that business will be strong again. We are self-reliant, grateful for our success thus far, resilient in the present, and quietly relaxed about the future.

• Africa is slowly opening up, and there is an invigorating breeze of expectation growing! I’m looking forward to riding down that wind. Your presence in Africa in the past and the future is a powerful force for good. But a cautionary word: as anxious as we are to get that African dust on our boots, please be careful who you trust and what you read. There’s a lot of inaccurate information about Africa travel out there, a lot of pie-in-the-sky hope and conjecture. Our best guess right now is that some of Africa will open safely to you by October…and maybe only later. Please book and travel only with people you really trust. There will be deals in the short term through the Green Season (November 2020 to March 2021 ) but note that next year is very busy with bookings being moved from 2020, plus the usual, and growing, demand. However, we have always created deeply compelling safaris, whatever the pressure on availability is, no matter what the lead time may be

I sincerely hope that you and your family are well. Africa connected us, and I look forward to meeting you again..in Our Africa

Warm regards
Lloyd
(The Mudd Buffalo) 🐃