Dangerous Beauty – Life and Death in Africa: True Stories from a Safari Guide –

“On March 1st, 1999, American safari guide Mark Ross was camped with four clients in Uganda, searching for endangered mountain gorillas. By days end, two of these clients and six other tourists were dead at the hand of Rwandan rebels slipping across the border from Congo. As a man who loves East Africa, Ross felt betrayed by this horror that made headlines around the world. He writes, ‘The continent has always been the love of my life. Now there is trouble between us.’

Dangerous Beauty is the story of that love and that trouble. Ross is one of the most seasoned and skilled safari guides at work in Africa today, and he writes here about his close-hand encounters with danger and natural beauty in Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. He describes his walks in the bush and the way he teaches his clients to read the unearthly silences and stillnesses in the wind that signify trouble. He writes about deadly charges by elephants, encounters with lions, cheetas and Cape buffalo, and the electric excitement of witnessing the mass migrations of wildebeest and zebras. He writes in detail about the terrible events of 1999 and their aftermath. Ross also conveys the tranquility of dawn in the wild, and the times when the extraordinary loveliness of the land and its power bear down on the guide and his safari companions.”