After an early breakfast, we set out around 8 am for a full day game drive. Right after we began driving we spotted a huge caravan of trucks all looking at the same spot. Someone had seen lions mating in that very spot and the lions were still there! We read up on lion mating rituals in Jodi's book and found out that lions will have sex every 12-25 minutes for a day straight, resting in between. We decide to wait around and see if we would be able to see anything. Unforunately, after 30 minutes of waiting, we saw 0 lions (they stayed in the tall grass) and began to leave...until we saw a male lion stand up and begin walking into a different bunch of tall grass. While disappointed we hadn't seen more, we were glad that our 30 minute wait hadn't been completely in vain.
After that, we drove to a watering hole and saw about 20 hippos hanging out, before finally spotting... TWO elusive cats!! At two different spots there was a leopard hanging out in a tree! They were SUPER far away, so unfortunately no solid pictures to show, but happy to have found another of the Big Five!
The Big Five are the 5 animals who are difficult to hunt on foot and who were sought after for their prized features:
Elephants - for their tusks
Lions - for their manes
Leopards - for their skin
Buffalo - for their horns
Rhinos - for their horns
Now only the rhino remains for us to find!
After a while we decided to check out the mating lions to see what they were up to. And they were basically just chilling by the road, hanging out for everyone to see!!
Us with lions!
We watched them for probably like 30 minutes. At one point, the male tried to approach the female and she growled, which was pretty awesome to hear. While they didn't do anything exciting, it was amazing just to watch them sitting there together.
After leaving the lions, we ate lunch at a nearby spot and then we resumed driving around in search of rhinos, more leopards, and potentially cheetah. And what we ended up with instead?? A big ole fat NOTHING. TWO HOURS of driving and we legitimately found NOTHING. NOT EVEN BIRDS!!! Adam told us it was because it was so hot out that all the animals were basically taking an afternoon nap. WHAAAATTTTT. Needless to say, we all began to fall asleep in the car!
After only being on safari a few short days, I'd already be interested to know what it's like to come here during the dry season when there's no tall grasses. The grass is SO high at this time of year that there could legitimately be a lion 5 feet from you and you could pass it by. It's pretty insane.
So yes, for two hours we kind of wondered what we were doing there and why we even bothered going out on a drive in the middle of the afternoon.
And then we saw another caravan of trucks.
And then we saw the pride of lions.
And then we saw the reason why :(. A dead elephant they had been feasting on.
While it was extremely sad to see a dead elephant, it was also fascinating to watch the lions - 3 lionesses with 4 cubs - interact with one another, and eat their meal. They were so content, full, and seemingly happy as they ate. I had to keep reminding myself (and singing to myself) "it's the circle of lifeeeee".
During the 30 or so minutes we were with them, we saw a hyena approach from afar. Hyenas are usually scavengers, looking for dead meat and prying it away from other animals in order to feast - even lions! While we were really excited at the prospect of the hyena trying to encroach (and maybe seeing an animal kingdom fight!), here is NO WAY that a lone hyena would try to take down 3 full grown lionesses!
Around 5:30 pm we began our drive back to camp and it seemed like everyone was finally waking up from their seista! On the way back we saw lots of gazelles, topis, and beautiful, brightly colored birds.
When we got back to camp, it was time for dinner - this time pumpkin soup, fried fish, veggies, cole slaw, and potatoes.
Before bed I tried my hand at doing some star trails but was running into a few complications. (Not to mention Jon was anxious for us both to get into the tent after the previous night's lion and hyena raucous!) Hopefully I'll get to try again tomorrow night when we're in the Crater!
Jess' highlight of the day:being so close to mama and papa lion for so long
Jon's highlight of the day: watching the lions at the kill and seeing the hyenas creeping on them
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