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Published: October 19th 2009
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Entertainment - Lion Style
Waking up revealed new lion stories from overnight. In the middle of the night, Joel got up to pee, unzipped his tent door and was a few steps outside his tent when he discovered lions sleeping around our campfire, about 10 metres away. When one big male looked right at him, he decided to wait for morning, backed slowly into the tent and zipped up the tent door. Chris had told us that unlike bears in Canada, lions will not disturb you if you are in an enclosed tent. They see it as a solid object. This gave some of us a tiny degree of comfort, but miracle of miracles it turned out to be true.
However, we were also told 'never turn your back and run from a lion' because then you become two-footed prey. So good for Joel to have the presence of mind to slowly BACK UP into his tent.
By dawn the pride had moved on. We ate breakfast at 5:30 AM and were packed up and away to our next camp at Khwai River by 6:30 AM. We stopped to view the buffalo kill once more and were delighted by the
antics of all the vultures. It had taken 36 hours to reduce the buffalo to nothing but a few scraps of meat on the bones. Everyone had their turn - first the lions, then the hyenas and lastly the vultures.
After we left, our support team broke camp and loaded tents and cooking gear into the second truck. It was just 11 tourists, our suitcase gear and our guide Chris, that left at 6:30 for an early morning game drive.
We drove slowly on deep soft sandy trails to Khwai air strip to wait for Duncan, a late arriving guest being driven in from Maun. On the way there we stopped at 3rd Bridge public camp where we found the Third Bridge Pride resting in the 40 C heat around the staff quarters. When the park staff returned in their truck they had to wait for the lions to move on before they could get into their rooms. Three big males, two big females and many immature males and females - all ignoring the trucks with photo shooting tourists. One was even leaning against the door to the staff quarters.
At one point, a male rubbed himself
on one of the safari vehicles full of tourists. At another point, a self-drive tourist pulled right in front of vehicles already there - a big rude NO NO in safari land. We also noted some garbage left at the public campsite when one young lion was playing with an errant plastic bag and another was walking around with a plastic bottle in its mouth. Very sad. We were glad that self-drives will not be allowed in the national parks after 2009. It's too bad that a few irresponsible tourists spoil it for others.
At Khwai air strip we picked up Duncan and added ice to our drink cooler, both brought in by Penduka Safari. We drove slowly to our next camp site, and again found it all set up by the support team. Eight tents in a semi circle around the camp fire with three toilet/shower tents behind, and Chris's tent off to the side of camp.
Along the way we saw elephants in a mud bath, lots of impala, tsebe, kudu, red lechwe, giraffe, lots of birds (too many to list here), zebra, monkeys. We began to make jokes about seeing yet another wart hog, but
Dix Preparing Toast
Our camp chef Dix prepared amazing things over an open fire. He also had an oven and baked bread every day. the impala, although they were everywhere, kept us quite entertained and we never tired of watching them.
Supper was a gourmet delight with wine and dessert on a table cloth covered table under the eating canopy. That night hyenas were very loud around camp.
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Ron and Carol Borsos
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