It was those eyes. Large and beautiful, and lined with thick, long lashes. They had stared back at me, with a keen but gentle curiosity. Our contact this way, eye to eye, though brief, was an indelible one. For me atleast. This image stayed with me long after my travel trip. I had never expected to so commune with a giraffe. "It is one thing to be so amazed at a gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist, but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinocerous or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't". - G.K Chesterton, British author. There had been giraffes seemingly everywhere over here, the way stray cattle might appear back home in my native India. This was because I was on a safari route in one of the few countries on Earth were such profusion of fauna still abounded ; Kenya in Eastern Africa. Memory throws up a kaleidescope of images. Below, are a few. Amboseli National Park, our first destination, had been the land of the giants ; the great tusked African elephants. These African elephants were taller, wrinklier, and had bigger ears than their Indian counterparts, the Asian elephant. And unlike the latter, all African elephants had tusks. At Amboseli, there had been one parade of elephants after another, across the grassland, with the adults watchfully flanking their young ones. An elephant herd crossing the road within meters of our jeep had been an aha! moment. The excitement among us lent animation to the mood. As these gentle giants marched purposefully swaying their bums, the tune of Henri Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk" from the 1962 movie classic "Hatari", began playing in my head. A cloud of pink flamingoes at a marsh , taking to flight in aerial formation, at dusk, was another unforgettable Amboseli sight. Lake Naivasha, a 139sq. km freshwater lake, had been our second wildlife destination. It could rightfully be called "home of the hippos" with a very large population residing in the Lake, along with many bird species. Hippo herds are called bloats. Hopefully they dont mind the term. Maybe they do, given the somewhat sullen expression they had as they looked our way from the corners of their eyes ,their bodies still submerged in water. An interesting hippo fact is that they can snap their jaws open to a whopping 150 degrees angle. These semi-aquatic herbivores can in fact be quite dangerous. Lake Naivasha is a protected ecosystem and the resort there was adjacent to the Lake, owning 150 acres of grassland. Animals such as giraffes, zebras, colobus monkeys, water buck antelopes, and even hippos at night, roam the resort grounds freely. Indeed there were signs posted at the resort, warning guests to keep a safe distance from the wildlife. It was a surreal sight to see some of these animals stroll around nonchalantly on the resort premises, just like human guests at leisure! At Masai Mara National Reserve, that quintessential safari destination with its iconic, rolling yellow grasslands dotted with the umbrella shaped Acacia trees, the big cat kingdom did not disappoint, bestowing us with a bounty of sightings. Mama cheetahs with their playful cubs, a cool leopard, and a handful of lions all allowed themselves to be spotted. A highly popular moment was when a lion with his lady lioness were found mating under the shade of a tree. They went about their act even as their human guests almost fell out of their safari jeeps to get a better look at the pair. Another heart tugging visual was of baby elephants being bottle fed milk at an elephant orphanage in Nairobi. Similarly, was getting to feed endangered giraffes by hand, totally upclose, at the Rothschild Giraffe Center in Nairobi. Which is where I had encountered ol' friendly eyes, described at the beginning. Back home in India, I flip through pages of a telephone directory searching for animal shelters, for volunteer work. Before the Kenya trip, I had never seriously considered signing up for animal related volunteer activity. In my mind's eye, I look into those large eyes again. In my mind's eye, they wink back at me.