It’s our last day on the Masai Mara Nature Reserve and we have time for a final early morning game drive. Our hope is to spot a leopard, the most elusive of the Big Five animals — we haven’t seen any yet and we’re quite eager. The best time of day to find them is either early morning or dusk, as they tend to avoid mid-day heat by hiding under the shade of a bush or up in a tree.

Right off the bat we encounter lions.

It soon becomes clear they have their eyes on something in the distance… possibly breakfast…

See those zebras a couple of hundred yards away? This lion has its eyes peeled for a weak one. Once it spots an easy target — a young or injured member of the group — it will stalk the creature, moving silently and slowly until it’s within reach.

It’s highly unusual to spot the moment one creature attacks another to death (called ‘the kill’), but more common to stumble upon a predator feeding on their prey after the kill. Our group gets really excited… are we about to witness this lion go after a zebra?

Unfortunately, several safari vehicles pull up behind us and give away the lions’ position.

A few more highlights from this early morning game drive…

See that juvenile zebra below? It’s stripes are fuzzy, but they’ll turn more bold as the zebra grows up.

A jackal roams looking for a bite to eat.

This is a kigelia tree, more commonly referred to as a ‘sausage tree’ for obvious reasons:

This tree produces an oblong fruit which hangs on rope-like stems. The fruit is fibrous, pulpy, and contains seeds — it’s eaten by wildlife and also used in herbal medicines around these parts.

As we prepare to return to our camp for breakfast, we run into dueling rhinoceroses! I’m still rather new to this safari thing and only with hindsight will I realize how rare it is to see this TWICE — on two of my first several game drives, no less. We’re further away than the first time I witnessed rhinos go horn-to-horn at Lake Nakuru, but it’s no less thrilling.

We pause for one more elephant herd as we near the park gates.

One of our tour mates did not join us this morning — instead, Cheryl elected to go on a hot air balloon ride over the Masai Mara. She loved it and her photos are incredible. I mention this activity because there are two places where it’s popular to go on balloon rides in this part of Africa — here, and in the Serengeti. The terrain is similar in both areas but depending on the time of year you might spot more wildlife in one over the other; check out a Great Migration ‘calendar’. It’s also $100 cheaper to do it in the Masai Mara — it costs around $450 here, and $550 in the Serengeti. (Both of those prices are far more than what you’d pay for a hot air balloon ride in other parts of the world, but there are very few companies offering this service in Africa so they can charge what they like.) The price might be steep but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and you might want to consider it if you’re in this part of the world. I go on a balloon ride in the Serengeti a few weeks after visiting Masai Mara and it’s a really outstanding experience — I’ll write more in-depth about that soon.

Thanks to Acacia Africa for discounting the 18-day Mountain Gorillas to the Mara tour in exchange for blogging and photography. Opinions are my own.