I had to avoid treading on two animal species on a meerkat watching trip. The first and most important were the baby meerkats, because they were so used to having research scientists around and easily missed by newcomers like me. The researchers, I was firmly told, don't like it if you squish their subjects under your boots.

The second were the puff adder and the Cape cobra. These two snakes are very common in the Kalahari where meerkats - the heroes of several TV documentaries - live out their busy lives.

Puff adders are not dynamic. They sit around, fat, sluggish and fabulously camouflaged, just waiting for a meerkat or another tasty mammal, like me, to blunder by. Being bitten by a puff adder is not a pleasant experience. The cytotoxic venom destroys tissue, causes haemorrhaging and – because the bite is so deep – can lead to gangrene and other problems.

More than 10,000 deaths are attributed to this snake in Africa every year. Yet puff adder bites can be treated. So many people die because they are poor and lack access to hospital care. Poverty is the real killer.

The beautiful Cape cobra, however, was theoretically more dangerous. Although shy, it was most likely to be active when I was watching the meerkats early and late in the day. And it knocks out a fearsome dose of neurotoxin which, without rapid treatment, can cause death by respiratory failure in an hour or two. It even eats puff adders.

So why, you might reasonably ask, did I go to see meerkats in the first place? The fact is that I was at greater risk of being killed in a car accident in the UK than I was of being bitten by a snake in the Kalahari.

At dawn, sitting down to soak up the wildness of this tough semi-arid, semi-farmed landscape, I soon found a meerkat climbing onto my shoulder. Rather than watch out for snakes myself, the meerkat was doing it for me. From this vantage point he would warn his family about incoming eagles and hostile serpents. It was like having a miniature security guard hanging out by my head.

The Kalahari is a vast undulating sand dune, carved by an occasional dry river bed. Some of the area is bordering on being a desert but, in most places, there is enough rainfall to sustain a wide variety of plants and animals, from golden moles to mahogany-red topi – a high-shouldered antelope with an extremely long and morose face.

The Kalahari Meerkat Project is one of the most fascinating studies of wild animals anywhere in the world. On TV, you get the impression that meerkats are constantly at war with their neighbours and bickering with their relatives. In reality, meerkats spend most of their time digging in the dirt. They walk a sort of tightrope in life. Nights here in the Kalahari are chilly, so during the day these mongooses have to consume enough to keep them warm after dark. With their dark eyes and skinny bodies, they appear to have a perpetual eating disorder. Yet the search for insects, bulbs and other snacks is incessant. The food has to be dug up but, at the same time, meerkats have to avoid being eaten by jackals, wild cats, eagles and snakes – and that’s tricky when your head’s down a hole.

So, meerkats have adopted the closest thing to Communism seen in non-human mammals. They share in looking out for each other and raising the offspring. A dominant female takes the lead: as George Orwell observed, some animals are more equal than others.

The Kalahari, despite its aridity, is full of such fascinating animals. At one waterhole in the distance, I spotted a caracal slinking out to drink, flicking it's tufted black ears. This medium-sized, incredibly secretive cat is so scarce that the nearby ranger, sharing beers with South African tourists, didn't believe me. When he looked, he almost fell over. In 14 years in the Kalahari he had never seen a caracal. Minutes later, it melted away. And that's the hallmark of a wild place. Everything is transient and unexpected, but always magical.