We go to Africa to see the animals. We thought we knew them well, from childhood ever onward. From plush toys, movies, documentaries, books, to Wikipedia and into the blossoming internet. But when we see them, and hear them, and smell them in their home grounds, we realize we had only a vague idea of their charisma. This is especially true of an apex predator like the lion, whose languid power and explosive grace are searingly, heart-thumpingly real.

We can’t think of a more marvelous spot to study lions than at our beautiful, beloved Campi ya Kanzi, as participants in its successful Simba Project, part of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Fund (a model program that generates more than $800,000 a year in support of local conservation, education, and health services; the Simba Project recently reported an increase in the local lion population from 15 to 52 in just 30 months). We’ll study this healthy population with ya Kanzi’s resident lion king, Samson Parashina, son of a Maasai chief and fully accredited by the Kenya Professional Safari Guide Association.

Tracking the prides with GPS, running across hippos, elephants, giraffes, cheetah, hyena, and wildebeest along the way, looking up occasionally at Kilimanjaro presiding over all of creation, we’ll have time to observe the lions at our—and their—leisure, getting to know them by name and personality and habits, perhaps witnessing a kill, which thumps the heart like few things in life. And in the evening, we’ll return to a luscious Italian-style dinner in Tembo House, cooked under the supervision of the great Antonella Bonomi. And we’ll discuss the day with Antonella’s husband, Luca Belpietro, who is the kind of guy who will listen raptly for news from the lion world.

Day 1: arrive in Nairobi, overnight • Day 2: fly to Campi ya Kanzi, begin study program • Days 3–8: studying ya Kanzi’s prides, and visits to Tsavo National Park and Rhino Sanctuary • Day 9: morning wrap-up, fly to Nairobi in afternoon, late-night flight home.

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