On Wednesday morning at 6:30 am, we left for the Mara River, a four hour drive across incredibly rough terrain, many river crossings, with views of numerous Maasai compounds and young boys herding cattle, goats and sheep.  We came to the plains of high grass, the reason the 1.5 million wildebeest and accompanying zebra, topi, and other myriad of animals risk the crossing of the river despite hordes of crocodiles just lying in wait.

After a brief leopard encounter—despite three vehicles ro...