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Published: July 17th 2008
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Lioness
Thirsty lioness, probably deciding which of us safari goers looked tastiest. Zimbabwe's problems were too serious for us to visit, and we had to cut directly from Malawi into Zambia instead. But imagine my delight in finding out that the national currency here was also called Kwacha!
The change of plans worked out well for us though, as we had a few extra days to kill and decided to make our own way North to check out South Luangwa National Park. This would turn out to be one of the best decisions we made, because the game drives we did were nothing short of spectacular.
We stayed at Flatdogs campsite which was lovely, right on the river with a nice bar and with trees that had ladders leading up to platforms where you could set up your tent if you wanted. There wasn't even a fence to separate the grazing hippos (or the elephants!) from the grounded tents, so this proved to be quite exciting for us. A big bull elephant decided to check what all the fuss was about soon after my group arrived, and scared the whole campsite into running for shelter and climbing the trees. No harm done though, except all the tree platforms were snapped up quickly
Another Lion
Just looking at the menu soon after.
If that sounds like a scary thought, imagine this: when I was walking from my tent to the bar after dark on the first night, I was stopped by a nightwatchmen with a big torch. He told me that I must be escorted any time I decided to walk about in the night, even if I was just going to the toilet. As we walked, with him swooping the giant light back and forth through the trees, I asked him why we had to be escorted. He told me it was because there were hippos all over the place, and they get very angry and territorial when they think humans are in their way. I looked at the guard, and noticed he was armed only with the torch. I had to ask. "What are you going to do if we see a hippo?" He looked at me and simply said "Run."
Much comforted by this thought, I went back to my tent that night (which was on the ground!) and decided there was no way I would be leaving again until I was sure the sun was clearly up.
Anyway, the highlight of this trip
Hippo Skull
Jumped out of the truck to check this one out, didn't stay long, was slightly scared of lurking lions. for me, and perhaps the highlight of Zambia itself, was the game drive we did in the dark on the first night. For 4 hours, we drove around in a big jeep with no roof or walls and enough room to sit 16 people. There were big blankets to snuggle up in which was lucky, because it was freezing cold. The driver had an assistant who had a massive spotlight which he continuously moved back and forth across the landscape, searching for that telltale reflection in the animals eyes - aka cat's eyes.
Although we did spot a couple of leopards, the best bit for me was when we came across a pride of lions with a handful of lion cubs. The driver pulled up fairly close to them, and turned off the engine so we could watch them quietly for a while. I was sitting in the back row of the vehicle in the corner, on the back of the seat looking over everybody's head feeling quite safe with the thought that there were about 15 people between the lions and I.
Well, for some reason, one particularly big lioness wasn't content just sitting around with the
little ones, and decided to come and see what we were all doing. She left the group and walked directly up to the front of our jeep, so close that she probably touched it as she passed. The driver reacted straight away and turned on the engine, I guess in an attempt to keep the lion away from us, but it didn't work. She stayed by the truck and walked up the same side that I was sitting on, then she just stopped and looked straight at me. Now, I'm not exaggerating here at all, this lion was about 2 metres from me, and all of a sudden I realized that if she wanted to - she could rip me to shreds in about 3 seconds.
I was still sitting high up on the back of my seat and suddenly felt very vulnerable and unprotected. The girl next to me had shrunk back towards the other side of the truck and whispered at me
Get down. I noticed everyone had shrunk down into their seats now, and I slid down into mine, remembering not to lose eye contact with the lioness just in case she was hungry and felt
Pride of Lions
In the spotlight - I think the mother there was the one who came to check us out. like a bit of Australian meat.
I crouched down in the seat a bit, and waited to see what happened. Surely lions wouldn't attack people in a big car, otherwise they wouldn't do the safaris... right? Why the hell do they do night safaris anyway? How quickly could I jump behind the girl next to me if it came to it? Many thoughts like these were rushing through my head, and I was completely alert and figuring out what I'd do if she leapt up and tried to bite my throat out. I'll admit it - I was scared, but thrilled too.
Then, all of a sudden, she turned away and took a step or two, and then she did the strangest thing. She stopped only metres away from me, facing away from us, and she started breathing
really heavily. She let her shoulders rise and fall, rise and fall as if she was really angry about something. I could see all the muscles in her body flexed and strong, ready to spring into action. It seemed (to me anyway) that she was fuming about being disturbed by the spotlights, and was calculating whether it was worth the
Elephants
You should have seen the little guy running to keep up. effort jumping in and clawing all 16 of us to death.
Now remember I said there was no roof, and there were no walls on the truck, so the only thing separating me from the lion was air. I remember grasping around for a sort of weapon in case she decided to attack me, and the best I could come up with was an empty glass bottle of coke. I was sitting there, not making a sound, not moving at all, and hoping she didn't kill me all the while thinking: what the hell kind of help is an empty bottle of coke going to be?!
Luckily for me, the lioness changed her mind soon after and walked off into the night. Perhaps she wasn't hungry, or perhaps she just thought there wasn't enough meat on my bones (thankfully, I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, so she wouldn't have been able to see my enormous muscles). But, it was a definite reminder that when it comes down to it, one on one and hand to hand, there is no way a human is going to last against a lion. At all.
It was such a wonderfully
memorable experience for me and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it. If you ever decide to go to Zambia, I highly recommend you check out South Luangwa National Park. Apparently there aren't many National Parks in Africa that allow the night drives, so you'd be mad not to come to Zambia if you're interested.
At the end of the day, all I can say is that coming close to wild lions in the night time in Africa is definitely something to do before you die.
Or should I say, before you get ripped to shreds. Who knows.
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Justine
non-member comment
Wow !
Hey ! I'm Julie Tilman's sister, she showed me your blog a few weeks ago when she visited us in Brisbane. I've always wanted to go to Africa and after reading your amazing stories and looking at the pictures I really really want to go ! Hope you are still having a nice time around the world ! Justine