The 90 minute bush flight from Arusha takes me to the Kogatende airstrip — to my final destination in Tanzania — the northern section of Serengeti National Park. This 14,763 sq. km. wilderness park is where Africa’s mystery, rawness and power surrounds you. Meaning “Endless Plain” in Maasai, Serengeti was named a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1978 and an international Biosphere Reserve in 1981. The ecosystem here supports some of the most plentiful mammal populations left anywhere on earth. The sense of vastness and expanse of short-grass plains is broken by occasional rocky outcrops or elegant solitary acacia trees — that would remind one of giant bonsais.

The unending horizons and limitless plains, the wildebeests and zebras, cheetahs and leopards, lions and buffalos, is a humbling experience as it is a reminder of how small my place is in the ecosystem of life.