To pick any one encounter from hours watching elephants, hippos, the wild cats, giraffes, warthogs, springboks, zebras, ostriches, wildebeests, and – this is apparently a very rare occurrence we were told – an armadillo wouldn’t do justice to the mind-blowing diversity of wildlife in the Serengeti. Except for the lion hunt, that moment certainly stood out and made it abundantly clear that this was not a Lion King children’s movie.

Our jeep advanced tentatively towards a small herd of elephants, grown animals and several calves that stopped frequently and raised their trunks into the air. Their unease was palpable and with good reason. Hidden from their sight five lionesses and twelve cubs squabbled playfully under a large acacia to their left and more lionesses, hidden by tall grass, lazed directly in front of the herd.

Two cows and a newborn calf walked at little faster and slightly separated from the herd when the leading cow stopped abruptly; she had seen the lionesses in her path. With her trunk raised, flapping ears, and trumpeting loudly she stomped backwards with surprising speed and sandwiched the newborn between her and the other cow until it was lost in a mass of grey wrinkly skin. They obviously didn’t believe in the path of least resistance and purposefully proceeded straight ahead, angry and trumpeting.

Their gentleness and good-naturedness were gone. The wildcats dispersed in a flash and there was no discussion about who trumped whom on strength. But the lionesses would display their strength yet. When the elephants had passed by, one lioness after the other set off across the dirt track, even brushed by the jeep with their tail, in their sights a harem of zebras.

Every lioness moved to its designated position in a circle that drew ever closer around the zebras, but for the last lioness that followed the dirt road, then crouched low behind a small mound of debris alongside the track out of sight of the zebras but in plain view for us. We followed her at a surprisingly close distance but she was completely unfazed by us and fixated on the first zebra instead. The prey was completely oblivious to the danger and trotted right into its death. I wanted to scream and warn the poor beast of its imminent doom but was afraid the other tourists would then throw me to the lions instead.

Seven metres separated them, and then six, five, and the lioness hurtled head-on towards its prey with lightning speed. The zebra doubled back horrified and tried to make its escape. The lioness jumped on the zebra’s back but couldn’t drag it to the ground. Yet it stood no chance and in blind panic raced straight for the other lionesses that were waiting patiently.

The second attack brought the zebra down in a large cloud of dust. For minutes we watched it trash about helplessly in its death throes with legs sticking up into the air, until even the little twitches stopped and the struggle was at long last lost. The mood in the jeeps was suddenly solemn, drained of anticipation and excitement, but we had gained a newfound understanding for the ghoulish ‘Great circle of life’.

As soon as the zebra stopped fidgeting two lionesses went to fetch the cubs that came running in single file for their lunch. As the young were playing with their food a hippo suddenly surfaced in a pool next to the feast, darted malignant, ‘What the hell is that commotion?’ glances towards the cats and leisurely set off to the next, quieter water hole.

I was done with seeing death for the day but then we spotted a leopard high up in the crown of an acacia lying on a branch, its legs and tail dangling in the air. And this leopard in turn spotted two warthogs and their young in the distance, elegantly darted along the branch, and stalked up on them cautiously. Leopards are solitary hunters and usually attack young or sick animals.

This time it was a baby Pumbaa that the leopard raced towards at breakneck speed. When Joe pointed out that the baby had most likely lost all its siblings in a very similar attack, I was all the more pleading for the leopard to be unsuccessful. And indeed, the leopard, it seemed, had not reckoned with the fury of Mum and Dad Pumbaa that darted for the attacker and rammed the leopard with their fangs.

Meanwhile Baby Pumbaa galloped across the plain away from the danger as quickly as never before. But then again, it probably had galloped this fast before and, in this way, outraced its siblings several times. In the face of this much anger, the leopard surrendered and slunk off towards its lookout point with its head hanging.

The excitement of the day melted away when the sun dropped off the horizon and the warm golden yellow spot left in its wake spilled out into expanding halos of orange, dark red, and violet halos. Soon after, the whole sky flared up in a garish pink and by the time we went to bed the black night sky was studded with bright stars – the Great Kings of the Past looking down on us, and one zebra.