Dawn had just broken when the convoy of black 4x4s swept up to the grand High Commissioner’s residence 12 days ago.
Surrounded by lush African plants and whitewashed walls, Boris Johnson - rocked by two by-election defeats - told broadcasters he wouldn’t quit.
“You want me to undergo some sort of psychological transformation?” he scoffed. “That is not going to happen”.
Then he trooped into the High Commissioner’s living room, where more journalists were lying in wait in a rare opportunity to fire a question each to the PM.
After the by-election catastrophe, one question was on my mind - and it had two parts. “Will you lead the Conservatives into the next election…” I began.
Leaning back on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other, the Prime Minister interrupted: “Will I win? Yes!”
“And would you still like to serve a full second term to 2028/29?”
Mr Johnson had previously suggested he’d go on and on like Margaret Thatcher. Surely now, humbled by the by-elections, he’d fudge his response.
Instead the answer left the travelling pack baffled.
“Well look, at the moment I am thinking actively about the third term and you know, what could happen then,” he mused.
“But I will review that when I get to it.”
Still battling to process it, I told the Prime Minister it was “intriguing”. “What are you thinking actively about?” I stumbled.
“About the third term - you mean this is the mid-2030s,” he replied. Later he was forced to deny being “deluded”.
We gathered afterwards round a senior aide to the Prime Minister, who told us that surely, we could all see it was a joke.
Except no one laughed. Including the senior aide.
And if it was a joke, it was one of the most revealing incidents yet of Boris Johnson’s character.
Rocked by defeats, a resignation, anger in his party, polls putting Labour in the lead, his refuge was in humour, boasts and - essentially - trolling the media.
His first reaction to by-election results had been to go for a 6am swim at his hotel in Kigali. Barely had he towelled off when his party chairman resigned.
But quitting, it seemed, never even came close to his mind. Waiting in Stansted, he’d already suggested we were “crazy” for asking the question.
And when faced with the reality in Rwanda, he called a 7am meeting with his aides where he told them it was business as usual - he’d carry on.
He was on pure, unadulterated Boris Johnson form on the trip, joshing about dancing at a business forum where he compared the Commonwealth to fertiliser.
He stayed upbeat despite a clear sign of Britain’s fading influence - when his bid to oust the secretary-general of the Commonwealth collapsed.
His confidence continued in spades when he left us in Rwanda, flying to the G7 in the Bavarian Alps and the NATO summit in Madrid on an eight-day jaunt.
He joshed with world leaders, saying they should take off their shirts like Putin, and compared the size of his… jet with Emmanuel Macron.
On foreign trips, the Prime Minister is in a bubble, having his ego massaged by world leaders, and safely insulated from chaos back home.
And why not feel safe? Until the by-election results, the biggest story had been his clash with Prince Charles over his asylum plans, a damp squib in the end.
Even the by-elections were in mid-term, with a cost of living crisis - why should they be cause to quit?
But hours after he landed in Britain, events unfolded that would finally lead to his downfall.
It emerged his Deputy Chief Whip, Chris Pincher, had been accused of groping two men in the Tories’ Carlton Club watering hole.
It was No10’s catastrophic response at 11.30am on Friday which turned it from a “normal” sex abuse scandal to a matter that would bring down a PM.
The Prime Minister’s deputy spokesman, left to field the briefing after colleagues rested from their travels, read a pre-prepared line assuring us the PM hadn’t been aware of “specific allegations” when he made Mr Pincher Deputy Chief Whip.
Except he was. He’d been told of an upheld complaint against Mr Pincher in 2020, but later promoted him.
And he was informed of separate allegations during his February 2022 reshuffle, but promoted him anyway after an ethics team couldn’t substantiate them in the space of four hours.
For Tory MPs tense about wave after wave of questions about the PM’s integrity, it was the final straw.
For those who clung on, his trip to the tearoom - insisting the MPs in the Carlton Club should’ve stopped Mr Pincher getting so drunk - finished them off.
So what now for Boris Johnson? His attitude on a trip abroad gives an insight.
But on the plane to Madrid with another group of reporters, the Prime Minister gave a glimpse of, perhaps, where things might go in future.
Since entering No10 he’s had money worries over his divorce (despite his £150k+ salary), two new children, and an expensive flat refurb.
“Do you know what? I've realised where I've been going wrong with all this,” he told my colleague Ben Glaze as the plane cruised at 38,000ft.
“I've got to recognise that years and years ago, I used to do the kind of jobs that you all do now, and it was a great, great life and a great privilege.
“What you are able to do is offer opinion, commentary, analysis, predictions about politics, about individuals and so on.”
The PM, who earned £275,000 a year by writing a weekly Telegraph column, twinkled: “It’s very lucrative sometimes.”
The only question remains, will someone pay him this time?
You may not like the answer. But if his career so far is anything to go by, the answer is almost certainly yes.
