Mathematics in Finance at Kruger Park

Academics in general, but especially financial mathematicians, are known for holding conferences in exotic places, such as beach paradises or mountain tops, but nothing I have attended so far beats the sheer exuberance of the Mathematics in Finance conferences at Kruger Park in South Africa.

Starting in 2002, these meetings happen every 3 years and bring a large number of international and local participants to the heart of the African wilderness. The high quality talks taking place at the Berg-en-Dal compound have to compete for attention with all sorts of impressive animals surrounding it. 

And to cap it all, while most conferences have boring banquets with unbearable speeches over food of debatable quality, this one treated us to a bush brae - an African style barbecue in the middle of the bushes, complete with a ring of fire and armed rangers protecting us from the observing leopards.

Here is photographic evidence: