Saiwa Swamp National Park

Papyrus closes overhead as the boardwalk narrows. The swamp keeps its hush except for the wet rustle of something moving through the floating vegetation — an antelope that walks on water. Saiwa is three square kilometres of wetland protecting one of the continent's rarest encounters.

Saiwa is Kenya's smallest national park, gazetted for one animal: the sitatunga, a semi-aquatic antelope whose splayed, elongated hooves let it cross floating papyrus as if the swamp were lawn. The whole park works on foot — boardwalks thread the wetland and tree-platform hides let you sit above the reeds for as long as patience lasts, which is the entire technique. De Brazza's monkeys, a central-African species at its range's eastern limit, haunt the forest fringe with their white beards and orange brows. No vehicles, no convoys, no engines: just papyrus sway, turaco calls and the slow art of waiting. Small park, singular reward.