Giraffes are easily one of my favorite animals from our Maasai Mara safari. So cool, breezy, unaffected. They tower above everything else, including the foliage, making them easy to spot in the distance.

The experience of seeing a giraffe in the wild is surreal, like a childhood picturebook coming alive. It’s funny to realize that so many of the “exotic” animals we learn about in school all come from East Africa (with the exception of the tiger).

Sometimes they’d gather in small groups, often among many different animals, other times we’d see a whole herd walking or eating together. They seem clumsy and indefensible, like a horse walking tenuously on silts, but apparently a well-placed kick from one of their hind-legs can break a lion’s neck. Take that!