Today was a slow start to the morning but paired with a beautiful sunrise. The landscape was stunning with the clouds painted with pinks and oranges and the arid savannah coming to life with golden light. We came across two male ostrich right off, hanging about and giving us the stink eye. Moving on, we came across a yellow banded mongoose in the road with a kit! It was adorable and for some strange reason they weren’t running from us! The mom was about the size of a small cat and the kit was the size of a chipmunk. The kit kept playing with mom and just running around in spastic circles while mom put up with it patiently.
After that we searched for awhile till we found a pack of lions. This pack had a whole bunch of little ones, a few adolescents, as well as a few aunties of course. They were mostly just hanging out under some bushes, doing what Lions do best, sleeping. After watching that for a bit we headed back to the lodge for lunch deciding to come back in the afternoon when they might be more active.
Fabulous lunch, way too much good food at this place. During our afternoon break we got to see a giraffe and Oryx hang out at the lodge’s waterhole, both incredibly suspicious of them humans watching them! Then out on safari again!
This time on safari we got the pleasure(?) of a rare fall rain storm. Luckily it only rained a bit along the way to the lions and we were provided ponchos. Once at the lions we watched the young ones perk up and start to play with eachother until the rain returned with a vengeance! We waited for a bit, but then when the lions started to hide our Guide Richard drove us, as best can be described, into a small tree. The tree provided a little shelter but we had ponchos and our tracker Fez had proper rain gear. Richard was not so lucky, he got drenched in cold rain and we only later found out it was his 39th birthday. Ouch.
Once the rain cleared the lions came out and started getting to work cleaning the rain off their coats. Once accomplished, the little ones were ready for some play! They started hunting and springing onto eachother, slowly stalking the others around the bushes. They were having a grand ol time and pretty soon got the adults joining in. Mom was getting pounced on by three cubs at a time and her nephews’ we’re stalking eachother. Magical, just like house cat kittens.
We watched them for quite awhile and then went to look for another lioness from this pack that had just taken down a kill for her four cubs. We raced across the savanna, trying to get to them before we lost the light. Around us a glorious sunset was playing across the sky and mountains. Incandescent oranges and pale blue clouds followed as until we finally found them, all hiding in a shrub, the cubs gorging themselves on Pumba, oops, I meant warthog. Sadly they were rather hidden so off to the airport 30 meters away for G&Ts amongst the chattering weavers. When leaving we got a surprise, momma was out sleeping in the road right in front of the gate to the airport and the gore covered cubs were playing in the grass. Our Guide had to put a spotlight on the lioness’s eyes so our tracker could unlock the game gate to get us out of the airport. It was a tense couple minutes, all of us holding our breaths that should would be night blinded enough for long enough. An exciting end to a lion of a day! Ha
5/6/21