Tires burn through the bushwhacked pothole roads. Eyes dart from zebras to lions to elephants. A camera locked in my hands, auto focus on. Core braced as the Jeep thrashes me from left to right, trying to throw me to the lions. A smile infiltrates my face as the African sun illuminates my happiness. This is it, my dream has come true.

Ever since I was a kid watching lions hunt on my TV, Planet Earth rerunning for the 20th time, I dreamed of making it to the Serengeti. Wildebeest kicking up river water in the thousands and the zebras a mere blur of blacks and whites as they race north from Tanzania to Kenya: The Great Migration.

It didn’t sink in - the fact my dream was going to be reality - even after it was booked and paid for. By the way, my dream did not prepare me for the ghastly cost. Even as I climbed into the six-seat Jeep with a pop-up roof, a bag packed for five days in the Tanzanian parks, though mostly full of camera gear, it still didn’t feel fulfilled. Even as we rolled past the “Welcome to the Serengeti” sign and headed into the wilderness. The true moment the world stopped, my heart skipped, my eyes dilated, my fingers trembled over the shutter, and my mind went blank, happened as 12,000 lbs of wrinkly grey skin stomped past our car. At that moment, reality hit me dead in the heart. I was inside my TV and Planet Earth was rerunning for the 21st time, just 10 feet in front of me. I knew the next five days would defy all expectations because though the TV opened my eyes to the beauty of the African wilderness, it didn’t inject this adrenaline into my bloodstream.

We spent the next five days surrounded by the common animals: zebras, wildebeest, elephants, giraffes,buffalos. We had to hunt for the rare ones: lions, cheetahs, leopards, and rhinos. But the most important day was the one dedicated to the foundation of my dream, The Great Migration. The moment when the weather shifts, the rain seizes in the south and floods the north. Zebras and wildebeest migrate toward the water, the sum of them exceeding one million. You’d think that finding a group of one million animals is an easy feat, but the Serengeti stretches over five-thousand square miles. To complicate it further, the time the animals decide to forge onwards is different every year as our climate changes. But after three hours of driving, we ascended a hill and upon our descent into an open field, were met by a sea of brown, black, and white as far as the eye could see. Zebras and wildebeest blanketed the land into the horizon, babies attached to their mother’s hip as calving season was in effect.

Like Moses and the Red Sea, we split the ocean of mammals to get to the other side: a daunting task as we could not see the road beyond five feet in front of us. But alas the dense animals became sparse and the sight in front of us was less appeasing. However, we didn’t know what lay in wait for us. Fifteen jeeps with tourists of every colour, their cameras pointed in the opposite direction of the Migration, because camouflaged in the tall beige grass lay three lions. Their eyes fixated on the young calves, their claws out, and their beastly legs ready to chase. But the chase never came, though we waited an hour to watch it happen, the lions had other plans. Less than a mile away rested the corpse of an animal, which had already been devoured. All that was left were bones and a patch of black and white skin, the only identifiable feature left of the zebra. The lions that lay basking, plump stomached, were easily made suspects of this massacre as the blood still stained their mouths and paws.

And at that moment I concluded that though this was the second day of the five day safari, it would be quite hard to top this. And that it was because for the next two days, nothing tainted my memories as strongly as that experience. Zebras and wildebeest became a regular sight. No second glances or picture snapping. Though the lions always took my breath away, especially when five cubs lay next to a lake and I was overcome with the urge to pick one up and cuddle it, there was nothing that made me sit in awe. Until our last day.

We had left the expansive grassy plains and immersed ourselves into jungle territory. Acacia trees blanketed our jeep, providing shade from the brutal burning sun. Our tires tracked across the clay banks of Lake Ndutu, pastel pink flamingos to the right and the king of the beasts proudly ruling the land from a mound to the left. We sped past them with no intention of stopping; one-hundred feet ahead was a scene straight from a documentary on the circle of life. Perched in an Acacia tree, camouflaged against the beige bark, rested a leopard. We rolled to a stop though our fascination inched us as close as possible.

The spotted feline sat 20 feet above us and let us gaze into its narrow, daring eyes. But something with the picture in front of us looked off, there were too many limbs in the tree. And one of them was brown with a hoof. Half a head rolled into our view, and the predator gave us a bloody mugshot. If I looked enough through the blood and intestine remnants, a devilish smile could be discerned. Though I was in a trance watching the murder unfold, I instinctively took a step back as the killer delivered a fierce bite to what was left of the baby wildebeest’s nape. We observed the feast until the bones were polished clean and the leftovers were stored in the top shelf of the tree; it preserves better the higher up in the tree it is, according to the leopard. The plump leopard sat horizontally on a branch, cleaning the evidence from its paws. We knew that was the end of our demonstration of the circle of life. We gave the leopard one last glance of intrigued admiration; that concluded the safari.

I spent the five hour drive back from the national park surveying the grass and trees we passed by. I knew we were nowhere near the lions and leopards, or even elephants for that matter, but that didn’t stop my heart yearning for more. Seeing the wonders of the Serengeti wildlife unfold in front of me changed the chemicals in my brain. It opened my eyes to a whole new world. A world of big and small, wings and hooves, life and death.

About the Author

Born in British Columbia, Canada, Katrina Chen knew she was born to travel. She worked as Media Coordinator for a school in the Dominican Republic. She has since taken her skills and her camera to Hawaii, New Zealand, Tanzania, Honduras, and the Pacific Northwest. Next stop, France. katrinacchen.myportfolio.com