Game on! Have a right Royal time on safari

IT is predicted we’ll get most of our nutrients from insects in the future.

A sustainable food source, it makes environmental sense – but I draw the line at eating scorpions.

Dangling a whip-tailed arachnid above his tongue, I wonder if our guide here in Botswana, Xuma, has a death wish.

Yet as he lowers the creature into his mouth – pinching the stinger as a safeguard – it surrenders into a pancake-flat slumber. In this heat, cooling human saliva, it turns out, is a sedative.

Belonging to a formerly nomadic tribe from the western part of the country, on the border with Namibia, Xuma and his family are staying in the grounds of the Meno A Kwena camp on the edge of Makgadikgadi Pans National Park.

Surrounded by arid plains, it feels a million miles from civilisation. Yet we’re only a 90-minute drive from the city of Maun.

Even more surprising is the fact Prince Harry chose here when he took a “huge leap” and whisked Meghan Markle away for a romantic birthday break last year.

Meno A Kewna has been welcomed into the Natural Selection portfolio, a conservation-led company co-owned by Wilderness Safaris founder Colin Bell.

Everyone associates Botswana with the Okavango Delta, an inland network of swamps that swells and evaporates depending on rainfall, providing a healthy playground for Africa’s most iconic species.

So it’s hard to believe 70% of the country is actually made up of semi-arid savannah and desert.

Former hunter-gatherers, the San Bushmen have come here to share their culture with tourists, staying at Meno for three months at a time before returning home and rotating with another group.

Meghan and Harry camped out under the Kalahari’s stars, but during my visit – when the rains are due to break – mobile camps aren’t operational.

No matter. Sandy pathways leading to nine canvas-walled rooms perched above the wending Boteti River are similarly embraced by nature. Dry for almost 20 years, the Boteti is now flowing again, although it’s supplemented by a waterhole in the riverbed below Meno.

A vital source of water, it attracts thousands of zebras during their dry season migration, along with opportunistic feline predators.

Although it’s possible to armchair-safari from the camp, where a fire burning from dawn until dusk doubles as an open-air kitchen, we drive for an hour along the park boundary, crossing the river on a simple ferry to reach the entrance gate.

Botswana is renowned for its elephant population and we see large herds ploughing through a haze of dust into the water.

Greeting each other with curious, outstretched trunks, they play like excitable children at a water park, clambering on shoulders to give their friends a thorough dunking. It’s simply joyful to watch.

Another member of the Natural Selection stable, Hyena Pan, is located in the Khwai Private Reserve, forming a bridge between the Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park – both world-class wildlife destinations.

A canopy of mopane trees shades the homely eight-tent camp, where even tree squirrels feel comfortable enough to dig their paws into the biscuit tin. A scenic waterhole extends directly from the foot of the dining area, welcoming a parade of thirsty elephants throughout the day.

Wildlife is still adapting to this area and most of the action happens a 45-minute journey away.

The rewards are worth the trip – a pride of lions closing in on red lechwe, a type of antelope, along waterways, stealthy ground hornbills, and a young male leopard basking in a glowing sunset amid dancing clouds of quelea birds.

Long journeys aren’t always necessary. Just a five-minute drive from the camp, via a stop to observe a thriving metropolis of dung beetles, we find an underground hide where we spend hours.

Providing the only water source along a 49-mile migration route, it’s a favourite spot for elephants.

Pitched at eye-level with these enormous wrinkled, plodding feet, it’s a novel perspective. Shrouded in silence, footsteps are betrayed only by vibrations rippling through the earth, although the sound of heaving breath is pounding.

Hidden from view, we’re a privileged audience to Attenborough-style scenes of animal behaviour – squabbles over whose trunk hogs the water pump have all the amusement of playground tussles.

And there’s not a single other person for miles.

For me, it’s these crowd-free connections with nature that define real luxury.

Not even a prince and his glamorous fiancee could put a price on that.

The Facts 

A seven-night all-inclusive safari with Natural Selection (naturalselection.travel) starts at £2752 per person, staying at Meno a Kwena and Hyena Pan.

South African Airways (flysaa.com) fly to Botswana from London Heathrow via Johannesburg from £1000 return.