Animals in the Backyard
Still inside Madikwe Game Reserve, we traveled in open air vehicles to our new accommodations, Tao Lodge. The dinning area was a deck that backed up to a man-made watering hole. The lodge had learned how to recycle gray water to keep the hole filled, and that attracted the animals. While eating lunch, I watched a dazzle of zebras grazing. Our cabins also backed up to the watering hole, and I loved sitting on the back porch watching the wild animals.
Vehicle approaches a lion den:
The young males don’t have their manes yet, nor do they roar. If they roared then the senior males would view them as competition, find them, and kill them.
Cuddling Coalition of Lions
“The baby is charging…”
“There’s a lion roaring outside our window!”
At 3:30 am: “There’s a lion roaring outside our window!”. In the darkness we could make out a light-colored shape of a lion about 100 yards away, traveling from left to right. The roar was deep and vibrated. It filled the dark air with long lasting grunts that trailed off into the night.
Last Safari: Lion Hunting
The next morning we told our guides about the roar and they were interested in which direction they headed. We jumped in the truck and started off on our last safari tracking the 2 males. Our guide occasionally got out of the truck to look for lion tracks. Gregor was first to spot the lions traversing the weeds off in the distance. It was unusual for them to have traveled so far, and we concluded they were on a “marking” mission to re-mark their territory after the recent rain. We followed them for about an hour before they once again laid down and went to sleep, for the sun was rising and heating up the morning.
Conclusion
Last safari was early in the morning, then a long bus ride, then a longer plane ride, subway, cab ride, … and… finally standing in the living room saying “wait, weren’t we just spotting lions?”
