Last Thursday, out of the blues that engulfed Nairobi after tensions from the General Election, I got an urge to return to the Nairobi National Park to shoot wildlife. I shared the idea with friends from Onetouch and Friday morning, we met at the NNP Lang’ata Road Gate at 6am.

JW, Paul, Mumbi and I jumped into one car and started the hunt for the one thing we were hungry for… lions!

I’d always wanted to get an iconic shot of a lion with the Nairobi skyline in the background.

I thank God that getting up at 445am wasn’t in vain.

Shortly after, the sun rose in an equally iconic way, piercing through the heavy clouds for just a few minutes.

After just a few clicks, it disappeared behind the clouds. But not before I managed to squeeze-in another silhouette.

Not too far from where we caught the sunrise, we saw three lionesses and six cubs walking towards us.

It was a joy to see this family, especially the cubs, playing with each other and following their mothers.

We didn’t know where they were going so we followed them at a distance.

It turned out that the lionesses were taking the cubs for a breakfast of freshly prepared zebra.

We left them having breakfast and continued with our tour of the park.

It was a very quiet day in NNP. It was apparent Nairobi was still in post-election-holiday mode and residents, including tourists, had chosen to stay home. During our five hours in the park, we met only three other cars, which is unheard of, even for a weekday.

Animals however hadn’t had elections and didn’t mind roaming the park, reminding us of what a privilege it is to have a National Park in Nairobi.

White rhino.

Marabou stork.

Zebra.

When sleep and hunger started calling, we answered, exited the park, and started making plans to return soon.