Outsiders in a foreign land, two brothers strut brazenly across the plains, eagerly trying their luck. Narrowing their gaze on a lone waterbuck, the cheetahs move purposefully, scattering nervous oribi like bolts of lightning in the electrifying morning light.
For centuries, nomadic travellers have passed through this crossroads in East Africa, where mountains meet grasslands and arid soils rise into fertile slopes. Tucked into the northeastern region of Uganda, on the border with Ethiopia and South Sudan, the Kidepo Valley National Park has long been an important resting place for pastoralist tribes and transiting wildlife – yet it still feels like a far-off, forgotten corner of the earth.
Guarded by the ghosts of ever-receding ridgelines and the stooped shadows of contorted shea trees, a gaping savannah sweeps into palm forests and seasonal rivers fluctuate between trickles and floods.
The sense of space and scale is enormous:
