My life: Peter Allison

W I grew up in Sydney and, when I was 16, got a scholarship for high school in Japan. I spent a year there; that's probably what gave me the travel bug. I lasted two years back in Sydney before deciding to take a short trip to Africa. That was in 1994 - and I'm still there. Like most boys, I've had phases where I liked cars, motorbikes, airplanes and girls - and they were all too expensive. The only two passions I've had my entire life are animals and books - and that's why I chose Africa. South America has great wildlife and so does Asia, but there's nowhere like Africa for animal watching. I backpacked for six months and then got a job in a safari camp, serving drinks. No one needed me behind the bar if they were out on safari, so if there was a spare seat I would jump on. Everything the guides said I absorbed. I was a parrot at dinner and, when someone asked a question about the animals, I would crawl over the guides to answer. I was so enthusiastic that after six months they said, "You should be guiding." These days there are all sorts of courses and certificates you have to take - safari tourism back then was still in its infancy.

I was in the bush for almost 10 years, guiding and teaching guides. I started off in an area called the Sabi Sands, which is part of the Kruger National Park (in South Africa), and that's a breeding ground for young guides. You are guaranteed to see the animals you want to see, but it's a little more developed and the parcels of land are a little smaller. And then I got to Botswana, which is vast, and I thought, "Now I get it." And that still feels more like home than anywhere else. I worked at a place called Mombo, which has undoubtedly the best game viewing in all of southern Africa. Twice I saw five leopards on a single game drive.

The camp was on the ground then - it's raised now - and I was in my little house: four poles in the ground with canvas wrapped around. It was a hot day and I was lying on the bed in my boxers, reading. The monkeys were noisy so I knew there was a leopard around and, when they went quiet, I thought it had wandered off. Then I saw a movement under my book - the leopard had walked into my room. It was so focused on checking out my clothes in the corner it hadn't noticed me. All the books you read and the tips guides give you are about what to do when you encounter a leopard on foot, not what to do when you encounter one flat on your back. Do I play dead? Do I stare it down? Or look away? The leopard turned and saw me, flinched a little and did a slow turn, not taking its eyes off me. It stopped at the door and gave a flick of its tail as though to say, "Huh, you're boring," and out it walked. That was the most scared I've ever been.

I stayed in Botswana for years and loved it. I worked in various lodges in the far north. The last rhinos in the world that are free-roaming are in neighbouring Namibia, in an area where there are villages. None of them have been poached because there are four properties run by Wilderness Safaris and they are staffed 100 per cent from those communities. Every single person in that community benefits from the survival of those animals and they are the most vigilant anti-poachers. That is what pays for their children's education and health care.

My mother was a journalist, her father was a journalist, and I'd always wanted to write. As a safari guide, you tell stories around the campfire or the table at night. I wrote a story about getting drunk with members of the British royal family, playing strip poker and then one of them disappearing into the night. And then I wrote another story and another, and realised it was a book. My first two books were about life as a safari guide in southern Africa. The second one is also about my travels in the region and me doing silly things. [For example] in 1996, I was in Mozambique. The civil war had just ended and I saw these baobab trees with fruit hanging off them. I stopped the car and took 12 running steps to the baobab, then thought, "Why in an impoverished country is there all this fruit?" Mozambique had unexploded landmines at that time and I had to turn around and try and retrace my steps. They were the 12 longest steps of my life.

I was 34 when I went to South America. I thought I'd have nothing to write about but I found myself in Bolivia with a rope around my waist and a puma on the end of it, running in the jungle. OK, I had something to write about. The puma was called Roy. His mother was poached and he was confiscated from the marketplace by an organisation that believes no animal deserves to live its life in a cage. For a month I exercised Roy for 25km every day through the jungle. I was with him one day when I got lost and stumbled into an area that was strangely monoculture, then I realised what the plant was - it was coca. I got out of there fast.