But even with lions and other large creatures ... unseen details of familiar animals: mazes of elephant wrinkles, the shaggy geometry of a zebra’s belly, a warthog’s ecstatic expression ...

One zebra veered upriver ... or people who needed to check off the so-called “big five” (lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and African buffalo). We just wanted to savor a once-in-a-lifetime ...