“She’s hungry,” our guide says ominously. “She’s going to eat soon.”
It’s the middle of the day in central Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a 90,000-acre wildlife preserve that sits between the Aberdare Mountains to the west and Africa’s second-highest peak, Mt. Kenya, to the east. We’re parked in a classic open-air Land Cruiser within whispering distance of a female lion. She’s panting in the heat of the day. This is the first lion we’ve seen since arriving in Africa a couple days ago. It’s a big deal.
The first safari drive of our two-week trip is a huge success. We’ve seen four of Africa’s “big five” game: African elephants, rhinoceroses, cape buffalo, and our lioness. Only the leopard remains. We’ve been to Ol Pejeta’s rhino orphanage, where we fed and petted a black rhino, Baraca, that was injured in a fight and could not survive in the wild. And we saw the more-common-yet-every-bit-as-amazing zebras, giraffes, ostriches, and impalas. Until this point, though, the experience wasn’t all that different from a zoo — the most humane and expansive zoo you can imagine, for sure, but otherwise a rather tame environment. And then she pounced.
Since leaving our lioness about 15 minutes ago, we’ve been observing a herd of elephants crossing a watering hole. It is a peaceful and magical scene with mothers leading their young through the water and others helping the youngsters from behind as they bog down in the mud. They lumber across, as if in slow motion. I’m standing up in the safari vehicle, shooting photos through the open roof and capturing the serenity of this moment. As our guide shouts, the lioness enters my frame from the left. She appears in full stride, chasing…something. I zoom in and try to follow her path, holding the shutter button down to grab as many shots as possible. I look up momentarily to locate her prey: a baboon. It’s darting for a tree, but the lioness gets a paw on him first. And then it’s over as quickly as it started.
To read completely go to https://www.forbes.com/sites/robreed/2018/08/06/the-african-safari-if-you-dont-want-to-plan-an-african-safari/#7f9fa1163551
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