A leopard, a lion and a very memorable encounter with a hyena
A leopard, a lion and a very memorable encounter with a hyena
Kateyn Mensah - 1 October 2026
RT’s KATELYN MENSAH takes in the sights, sounds – and the occasional stare – of Africa’s wildlife
There is something unnerving about being watched by a hyena.
I know this because, on my sixth day in Kenya, one stopped, looked directly at me from the darkness and held my gaze for 15 long seconds. I had been staring at it through binoculars; now it was staring straight back.
Eventually deciding that I was neither edible nor interesting, it turned and trotted away into the evening.
It was an oddly intimate moment, and one that summed up my week tracing Kenya’s classic safari triangle, from Nairobi to Lake Nakuru, then Lake Naivasha and finally the Masai Mara.
I was travelling with the experts – National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures (gadventures.com/travel-styles/national-geographic-expeditions) – and had been thoroughly briefed, but nothing could prepare me for the way the landscape seemed to rearrange itself in front of us, producing another animal just as we thought we had taken in the last.
A safari, old hands will tell you, is about patience. But, I learnt, it’s also about having somebody who’s really good at spotting things.
My group was accompanied throughout by three expert guides, who seemed capable of detecting an animal at a distance of approximately 14 miles. I would still be admiring the landscape when one of them would point out a lion, giraffe or something else I hadn’t noticed.
And from day one, sightings came thick and fast: baboons, buffalo, then a group of lion cubs tumbling around with two lionesses.
Before long, we found ourselves watching a male lion in a stand-off over a zebra carcass with a gang of hungry hyenas, the lion eventually charging his enemies and scattering them before settling protectively beside his meal.
It was a scene that could have been lifted straight from Africa: Earth’s Wild Home, the new National Geographic series, in which the animals’ struggle to survive is captured brilliantly.
In the opening episode, in fact, a hungry hyena searches for food around the lakeshore at Soysambu Reserve, mere miles from our location at Lake Nakuru, before attempting the (almost?) impossible: hunting flamingos.
The next day, still in Lake Nakuru National Park, my party came across a troop of baboons making its way along the road, tiny babies clinging to their mothers while older animals ambled purposefully through the morning light.
Some stopped to inspect us, others barely seemed to notice that we were there.
The instruction from our guides was simple: stay quiet and let them pass.
It’s hard, when you have travelled thousands of miles to see a wild animal, to keep your excitement non-audible, but the most memorable encounters came when we kept our gasps to ourselves and allowed the animals to go about their lives undisturbed.
Across seven days and three camps, we saw elephants, giraffes, rhinos and lions – as well as great stretches of grassland and sky that made our Land Cruiser feel very small indeed.
Yet there was one conspicuous absence.
Despite all those expert guides, powerful binoculars and increasingly frantic scanning of bushes, we didn’t see a leopard.
Spookily, though, at least one leopard had definitely eyeballed me, explained our guides – the notoriously hard-to-spot big cats can see a human miles off.
That was around Fig Tree Camp, in the Masai Mara, which we reached on day five.
Set beside the Talek river, the camp perches directly above an active hippo pool, which means the hippos are not merely nearby, they make sure you know about it.
For two nights they splashed, grunted and generally conducted what sounded like a robust disagreement immediately below my accommodation.
Sleep, consequently, became negotiable.
COME MORNING, HOWEVER, any tiredness disappeared as we headed out into the Mara itself.
The landscape seemed to stretch without end, golden grass giving way to distant hills and pockets of bush, with the possibility of something wild emerging from anywhere.
And on our final evening, just as the sun had slipped away and we were heading back towards camp, we spotted that solitary hyena.
At first it was little more than a shape in the gloom.
We squinted through binoculars, took some wildly overzoomed photographs and gradually established what we were looking at.
Then it began walking towards us, until suddenly the creature and I were looking directly at each other.
For those remarkable 15 seconds, it felt as though the rest of the Mara had disappeared – before the hyena scampered away.
Much like the animals in Africa: Earth’s Wild Home, it had no idea the cameras were rolling or the shutters clicking.
It was simply trying to eat, just as the lion at Nakuru had simply been protecting its meal, and the hippos simply going about their noisy business.
That stayed with me: the feeling that, for all the expertise and carefully planned routes, the animals remained gloriously indifferent to our itinerary.
Sometimes you see everything you came for. Sometimes the leopard refuses to cooperate. And sometimes, if you’re patient enough, and lucky enough, something wild looks you directly in the eye before disappearing back into the dusk.
Africa: Earth’s Wild Home Saturday and Sunday National Geographic and Disney+
There is something unnerving about being watched by a hyena.
I know this because, on my sixth day in Kenya, one stopped, looked directly at me from the darkness and held my gaze for 15 long seconds. I had been staring at it through binoculars; now it was staring straight back.
Eventually deciding that I was neither edible nor interesting, it turned and trotted away into the evening.
It was an oddly intimate moment, and one that summed up my week tracing Kenya’s classic safari triangle, from Nairobi to Lake Nakuru, then Lake Naivasha and finally the Masai Mara.
I was travelling with the experts – National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures (gadventures.com/travel-styles/national-geographic-expeditions) – and had been thoroughly briefed, but nothing could prepare me for the way the landscape seemed to rearrange itself in front of us, producing another animal just as we thought we had taken in the last.
A safari, old hands will tell you, is about patience. But, I learnt, it’s also about having somebody who’s really good at spotting things.
My group was accompanied throughout by three expert guides, who seemed capable of detecting an animal at a distance of approximately 14 miles. I would still be admiring the landscape when one of them would point out a lion, giraffe or something else I hadn’t noticed.
And from day one, sightings came thick and fast: baboons, buffalo, then a group of lion cubs tumbling around with two lionesses.
Before long, we found ourselves watching a male lion in a stand-off over a zebra carcass with a gang of hungry hyenas, the lion eventually charging his enemies and scattering them before settling protectively beside his meal.
It was a scene that could have been lifted straight from Africa: Earth’s Wild Home, the new National Geographic series, in which the animals’ struggle to survive is captured brilliantly.
In the opening episode, in fact, a hungry hyena searches for food around the lakeshore at Soysambu Reserve, mere miles from our location at Lake Nakuru, before attempting the (almost?) impossible: hunting flamingos.
The next day, still in Lake Nakuru National Park, my party came across a troop of baboons making its way along the road, tiny babies clinging to their mothers while older animals ambled purposefully through the morning light.
Some stopped to inspect us, others barely seemed to notice that we were there.
The instruction from our guides was simple: stay quiet and let them pass.
It’s hard, when you have travelled thousands of miles to see a wild animal, to keep your excitement non-audible, but the most memorable encounters came when we kept our gasps to ourselves and allowed the animals to go about their lives undisturbed.
Across seven days and three camps, we saw elephants, giraffes, rhinos and lions – as well as great stretches of grassland and sky that made our Land Cruiser feel very small indeed.
Yet there was one conspicuous absence.
Despite all those expert guides, powerful binoculars and increasingly frantic scanning of bushes, we didn’t see a leopard.
Spookily, though, at least one leopard had definitely eyeballed me, explained our guides – the notoriously hard-to-spot big cats can see a human miles off.
That was around Fig Tree Camp, in the Masai Mara, which we reached on day five.
Set beside the Talek river, the camp perches directly above an active hippo pool, which means the hippos are not merely nearby, they make sure you know about it.
For two nights they splashed, grunted and generally conducted what sounded like a robust disagreement immediately below my accommodation.
Sleep, consequently, became negotiable.
COME MORNING, HOWEVER, any tiredness disappeared as we headed out into the Mara itself.
The landscape seemed to stretch without end, golden grass giving way to distant hills and pockets of bush, with the possibility of something wild emerging from anywhere.
And on our final evening, just as the sun had slipped away and we were heading back towards camp, we spotted that solitary hyena.
At first it was little more than a shape in the gloom.
We squinted through binoculars, took some wildly overzoomed photographs and gradually established what we were looking at.
Then it began walking towards us, until suddenly the creature and I were looking directly at each other.
For those remarkable 15 seconds, it felt as though the rest of the Mara had disappeared – before the hyena scampered away.
Much like the animals in Africa: Earth’s Wild Home, it had no idea the cameras were rolling or the shutters clicking.
It was simply trying to eat, just as the lion at Nakuru had simply been protecting its meal, and the hippos simply going about their noisy business.
That stayed with me: the feeling that, for all the expertise and carefully planned routes, the animals remained gloriously indifferent to our itinerary.
Sometimes you see everything you came for. Sometimes the leopard refuses to cooperate. And sometimes, if you’re patient enough, and lucky enough, something wild looks you directly in the eye before disappearing back into the dusk.
Africa: Earth’s Wild Home Saturday and Sunday National Geographic and Disney+