While in Africa, it's pretty safe to say you'll end up on a safari at some point. My group and I found a tour about five hours away at Masaai Mara National Reserve in Narok County, which continues on to the Serangeti National Park in Tanzania. The park took us 2.5 hours to drive through to get to our camp, the Rhino Tourist Camp.

The camp is made up of free standing tents with built in washrooms and porch structures. It felt a little bit like staying in a Yurt, where your half camping in a large tent, but half hotel accommodations with the shower and washroom attached. It was easily the most comfortable I've felt on the trip so far.

At one point this monkey broke into our tent and ate some popcorn, drank some wine, and I'm pretty sure she stole a candy bar, too. We totally would have shared, but never the less, she's a craft little thing!

We did three safaris, one coming into the park at dusk, which honestly was when we saw the most action! Every animal from A to Z was out right next to our trucks! We saw antelope, hundreds and hundreds of zebra, elephant mothers protecting their little ones and trumpeting at our truck when we approached too swiftly, water buffalo and wilder beasts, giraffe, lions, monkeys, ostrich, jackals, hyenas, and so many more strange and beautiful wild things.

I loved all the birds. I couldn't tell you the names of them, other than the typical sulking vultures, waiting at the tops of crooked trees to circle over something recently past. There were some that were the most intense colors, like a rainbow, small and proud on the limbs of lower brush. We pasted too fast to capture any of them, just a small glint of vibrant colors against the earthy terrain and then when turning, it would be far gone.

Wildebeest migration - Photo cred: Elaine Zhao

The wildebeests were in migration from Tanzania in long lines of thousands, some literally in single file, heading up to the river or just having past over it. We didn't see the magic of them jumping over and swimming, apparently they do that very early in the morning, attempting to out swing wild crocodile waiting in the depths, but we did see them. Mainly because they were impossible to miss, I'm talking thousands and thousands of them, stretching as far as you could see, mixed in with symbiotic friends like antelope and zebra, and the occasional giraffe.

Lake Naivasha Flamingo migration. Photo cred: Elaine Zhao

At one point we pulled into a sort of lion-elephant huddle. The female lions were attempting to enclose a baby elephant but the mother elephants were not having it. Our truck pulled up fast and halted to a mother lion and her cub. She crept silently past our window. No one breathed. I tried to slowly close the window inches from her face, and I could just see the headline on some travel channel reading, "Idiot tourists killed by wild lion protecting its cub." Fortunately she didn't seem to mind our approach and just meandered on, with cub in toe. It's amazing how completely calm and collected wild lions are, scared of nothing, sleeping lazily on a rock all day, knowing all too well its place on the food chain and scared not of being dethroned.

Olkaria Geothermal Spa, Hells Gate National Park

I dream of Africa now that I'm back in the states. Lucid and vivid, I dream of pools of murky water, clay red earth caked on my shoes and dusting my hair and clothes. The smell of coals burning in a fire and the hum of vibrant song. Things seem organic in a way I can't describe. It feels pure and beautiful, dangerous and calm at the same time, like the ocean. A setting meant for some not many, and so lucky I feel being one of them.

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Masaai Mara