Awe-inspiring moments on an African safari

Globe photographer Essdras M. Suarez headed to Africa to photograph a safari through the savannahs of Kenya and Tanzania. He describes his experience for The Boston Globe as a trip which was both jarring and breathtaking. Here are some photos that Suarez captured of the wildlife and the majestic landscape.

Pictured: A herd of eland antelopes grazed on the African savannah at the Masai Mara Reserve. The eland is one of the few game animals the Masai tribesman will eat. According to locals, the eland’s meat has similar taste to cattle.

An agamidae, a.k.a. agama lizard, sun bathed on a rock a top of a koppie, a small hill rising from the veldt at Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. These creatures are ubiquitous in this area of the park with their Spiderman iridescent skin colors.

A young giraffe hesitantly tested her next step after she fell behind while following her mother at the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The youngling had stayed behind grazing, and when the animal looked up it saw its mother had crossed an open area.

A lioness gnawed at the remains of a water buffalo after the latter was abandoned by members of a different pride at Klein’s Camp in Tanzania near the border with Kenya. According to the ranger, the lioness was one without her own pride and was forced to scavenge for her food.

A lion cub practiced his predator’s skill on his mother’s rump at Klein’s Camp. The young lion and its siblings had previously been cavorting around the carcass of a warthog their mother had caught for them.

Lion cubs frolicked under the watchful eye of their mother after they had their fill with a warthog caught by the doting lioness.

Red and orange hues of the dusk hours painted the African savannah as a herd of giraffes retired for the night along the outskirts of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.

Essdras M Suarez was ready for his African safari.

A buffalo graced peacefully at Klein’s Camp, which is a private reserve. Buffaloes, which can weigh up to 2,000 pounds, are unpredictable and considered to be very dangerous. African buffaloes have never been domesticated.

An adult male leopard, which is a nocturnal animal, kept an eye on his surroundings from a koppie as daylight started to fade at Serengeti National Park.

Adult female elephants grazed alongside calves at the Masai Mara Natural Reserve during their mid-day foraging.

An aerial view from a hot-air balloon showed female elephants grazing alongside their calves at the Masai Mara Natural Reserve in southern Kenya during the early morning hours.

An adult lilac breasted roller flew back to his perch after having caught an insect crawling on the grass at the Mara Triangle area in Kenya.

A Nile crocodile, an opportunistic top-of-the-food-chain predator, stealthily waited in the waters of the Grumeti River in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park as he and other reptiles waited for the wildebeest and zebra annual migration.

A zebra among hundreds of wildebeest is not an uncommon sight near the Grumeti River in Tanzania.

An elderly Masai woman went about her daily chores at a village in the outskirts of the Masai Mara Reserve near Bateleur Camp. This area of Kenya became world renowned through Sydney Pollack’s film “Out of Africa.’’