My heart will always belong to the forest. There is something soul stirring to me about walking among the trunks of large hardwood trees under sunlight filtered by a green canopy. However, I occasionally leave pieces of my heart in other terrain. It happened when I hiked the Rockies. It happened again these past few days as I toured the savannah.

We spent the last few days exploring Maasai Mara, a national reserve here in Kenya. It is hard to put into words such a surreal experience. The landscape itself is breath taking. Unlike the limited panorama you experience from the middle of the forest, the expanse the eye is able to take in at a glance from almost anywhere on the savannah seems endless. You can see rains that will not reach you for days and mountains that are so far away they seem as mere mounds on the horizon. It seems as if the distance you can see is only limited by the actual curve of the Earth.

But the wonder of Maasai Mara is not only to be found in it’s vistas. It is heavily populated by animals I have only ever seen in zoos. Roaming freely here you see zebra, giraffe, elephant, lion, wildebeest, what seems too many species of antelope/gazelle to count and many others. It is beyond surreal to drive around and just stumble upon such creatures or have a herd of them surround your vehicle. My mind swam in awe again and again.

How could wonder and awe not flood you as you sit looking at an massive elephant ten feet in front of you and watch it eat grass? To look at a lion resting after a long night hunting and see its massive paws, capable of killing you with one swipe? The most chilling moment for me came as we observed a group of hyena finishing off the remains of a warthog (head still intact) and listen to our guide John describe how they hunt. He told us “How they kill is the worst. A lion will kill to eat but not the hyena. The hyena eat to kill and begin ripping their pray apart while it is still alive. You cannot stand to watch it.”

My heart will always belong in the forest, but the savannah has captured not only a piece of my heart it has also filled me with a wild, untamed majesty I had not known before. I will miss it’s fierce beauty.