By Peter Gardiner

Tooling around on a chartered DC-3 from the '30s is a grand way to travel. Ours was truly the most wonderful trip to Africa with a great group and outstanding wildlife encounters. Everyone had multiple leopard sightings -- and I mean full-on sightings, strolling along beside the Land Rover -- along with countless elephants with calves, hippo, giraffe, zebra, impala, kudu, lechwe, baboon, and prides of lions including cubs. In the Okavango Delta we witnessed a pack of rare wild dog take down an impala right in front of our Land Rovers. We literally could feel the vibration of the running pack through our seats, and feel the dust they kicked up as they took off. A second impala fled across the grass into some bushes and re-emerged, running across a grassy flat and splashed into a pool, leaving the dogs looking at each other and panting on the water's edge, since they don't go into water. But the instant the impala hit the water and began splashing deeper into it, the crocs launched in. Inexorably, a large croc closed in on the doomed impala, opened its jaws and took it down; it came up once more before being pulled under. All this in perfect, golden morning sun before brunch! Hey, travel with World Wildlife Fund.