KUDU KINGS’: Three male greater kudu on the Namunyak Conservancy. ABOVE, ‘AMBOSELI MIRAGE’: An elephant herd shimmers on the dry lake bed of Amboseli National Park
August 1981: We hitched a ride to the Masai Mara in the back of a pickup, and camped in our homemade tent by the Mara River. Above us, a billion stars cast an eerie light across a landscape of scurrying shadows, slow-moving megafauna and countless unseen dramas. Nervously cocooned in our sleeping bags, we held our breath (and our noses) as hyena, attracted by the smell of a hippo carcass, whooped from the bushes nearby.