I’ve always loved going to the zoo. Every time I go I stare endlessly at the animals. What would it be like to get behind the glass? Behind the bars?

We have family friends who owned a farm. The joy, excitement and pleasure I got petting and handling the animals was like a fisherman at blast off for a tournament. It was a pure rush of adrenaline.

When Pete and I made the decision to go on safari I couldn’t wait to get a glimpse of each member of the ”Big Five” -- lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo and rhinoceros. We knew that our guide and friend Steve Yatomi of Adventure Travel Alliance would put us in position to see some incredible things. Every adventure we take with Steve is top notch.

We didn’t have to head into the bush to see wildlife – in fact, we saw monkeys at the airport. No, we weren’t people watching, these were actual monkeys and they were not behind bars. They were out in the open, like squirrels in my backyard. That immediately put me on the lookout. I was sure we were going to see the big five.

Our first safari site was The Hide at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. On the first morning we saw beautiful birds, impala, waterbuck, giraffe, elephants -- lots and lots of elephants -- and then we got an urgent call over the radio and off we went. A lion had killed a cape buffalo (dead or alive, it’s still a cape buffalo, so it counted toward my list) and by the end of the first morning we only had two more of the big five to go.

We arrived at the lion and saw something out of National Geographic. As the lioness watched over the cape buffalo carcass and one of her cubs, another lioness and cubs took shelter from the sun under our open-topped safari jeep.

African big five cape buffalo the hide hwange zimbabwe

Although the temperature reached over 100 degrees, I could have spent all day out there just watching them. When everyone else got tired and wanted to go, I still needed more time.

When the heat was so unbearable the lioness couldn’t stand guard any longer the vultures swooped in. The monkeys in the trees congregated and squawked, waiting to get a few scraps. Two circling jackals made their move and that scared the vultures away. From afar, a herd of over two hundred cape buffalo, sable, zebra, and a dozen different types of birds all came. It was like a scene out of The Lion King or The Jungle Book. Were they there to mourn?

How could anything possibly top that?

On a canoe trip later that week at Old Mondoro Camp in Zambia, while dodging hippos, we saw, from start to finish, a lion kill and dismantle a cape buffalo.

The lions in that area heard the group of cape buffalo from a distance, ran down a steep hill and injured one of the herd. Then the buffaloes joined forces – they tried to run from the lions, but several stayed behind to block the lions so that the rest could get away. It was close to sundown, so we needed to canoe back to camp before dark in order to avoid ending up with a hippo underneath our canoe. Upon arrival at camp we sped away in our jeep to see if we could find the lions and cape buffalo and see who prevailed.

Without giving you all of the gory details, I’ll leave you with this: There is a reason they call the lion king of the jungle.

Another day, new discoveries. We fished, we bird watched, we saw more elephants. It didn’t matter how many more elephants we saw. Each time it was as if we were seeing them for the first time. They are just amazing creatures.

Herd of elephants in Africa. Three with tusks, one baby

By our last day in camp we had seen over 50 lions, which apparently is unheard of during that time of year, but we were still missing two of the Big Five: a leopard and a rhino. We’d gotten to three so easily and then stalled out. At lunch there was a lot of whispering going on among the camp staff, and then they approached us to tell us that we could either finish lunch or go try and find a pack of rare Painted (Wild) Dogs.

I love to eat, but Painted Dogs? There was no question which one I’d pick.

I pushed back my chair, grabbed the camera bag and hopped into our jeep. So on our way to track down these Painted Dogs we were told that there are fewer than 2,500 left in the world. Luck was on our side -- their bellies were full and they were napping. While they napped, we sat for three hours waiting for them to digest their food and move around for a photo session. I could have stayed longer but the group outvoted me and off we went.

Rare painted dogs in Zambia old mondoro chiawa

I may be pretty stubborn, but I know that sometimes it is good to listen to others. Had we stayed longer and watched the Painted Dogs we might have missed the lion trying to climb the tree to get to the leopard who was there protecting its kill. In real life the leopard was even more beautiful and more agile than you’d expect, leaping from one branch to another, taunting the lion who just wanted to share in the goods.

After eight-thousand five hundred pictures that only begin to do justice to the wildlife so close we could almost touch them, it was really very hard to say goodbye. As we took off in our six-seater plane, I looked out the window and saw a herd of elephants surrounding a tree. It felt like I was watching a scene from a movie. As amazing as that sight was, and even though I realized I’d viewed things only a small percentage of people will ever see, I just didn’t feel complete.

What was it? What could I be missing?

Number five! A perfect reason to go back.