I nearly died in Africa in 2004, something I would have deemed incredible in 1994.This book tells the story of how I came to be in Africa. It is a story of horses, people and the magic, power and excitement of Africa. Africa pulls on my very genes. It does this through a heady mixture of sights, sounds and smells that invigorate me as nothing else can. I am sure that being on horseback opened my spirit to the essence of Africa. It rendered me vulnerable and took away any pretense at competence or the other myriad things we use to seal ourselves off from what the world is telling us. It was in this vulnerable state that I first went to Africa and let it make its mark on me. My experiences were humbling in the sense of its Latin root, humus meaning ground. I became grounded in Africa. My story starts with my near death and then looks back over the previous decade at the experiences and events that brought me to that close encounter. This is not a travelogue, but rather what I hope is an amusing canter through many aspects of African flora, fauna, language, customs, and above all people, primarily seen from the back of a horse.