The long rains run from late March through May, though “long rains” makes it sound worse than it is—most days have clear mornings with storms building in the afternoon, and sometimes those storms never actually arrive, just dark clouds that sit on the horizon looking dramatic while nothing falls.

The grass grows tall and green and full of nutrients, which is why everything gives birth around this time. Impalas, gazelles, topis, warthogs—babies everywhere, and predators hunting them. Lions avoid walking through wet grass when they can, so they use the roads, which means you’ll often see them right on the track in front of the vehicle.

The whole reserve smells different in April. When rain hits the wild sage bushes, there’s this smell—mint and lemon and wet earth mixed together—that you don’t get in the dry months when everything is dust. It’s one of those things nobody mentions but once you’ve been there in green season you remember it.

Cheetahs can’t hunt in tall grass because they need to see their prey from a distance, so they spend hours sitting on termite mounds scanning above the grass line. Worth looking at every mound you pass even if it looks empty because they blend into the red-brown dirt.