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The answer to your first question is no, I wasn’t ever frightened. Cautious, yes. Somewhat intimidated, sure. Adrenaline pumping, you bet. But scared? Never. Our lion encounter began with a lecture about lion conservation and preservation. We learned our lions, acquired when they were orphaned and were now two years old, would be under the…

Here I am on South Georgia, amid roughly 300,000 nesting pairs of king penguins humming to each other. Yes, the sound is not a squawk; it’s more of a buzzing. Each of the seven species we encountered in numbers had distinct voices so even we could distinguish between species. Somehow, the parents and their chicks…

Rwanda: genocide museum–volcanos—mountain gorillas. Impossible. And yet, there we were. The steep fee for visiting the gorillas covers guides, bearers, walking sticks, and a tracker to keep base camp apprised of the location of the various groups of gorillas, which are continually on the move. To get to any group, one climbs a volcano. The…

At our first walrus haul-out, we were cautioned that walrus are skittish around humans, so we must approach stealthily. “Stealth” meant crawling on our bellies through purple squishy vegetation up a tall hill and peering cautiously over the edge. We looked down on a heap of pink and black blubber—and ivory. The tusks were amazing,…