Its day 17 of the Great Trans African Lodge Safari and still we have not seen a male lion. We have seen females though… But the clients want their male!!! Just as we cross the Khwai River on a game drive we picked up a fresh male lion spoor. Might be luck…
We started driving and slowly following each and every spoor. About 50 meters another set of spoors joined the first tracks and those are from a heard of buffalos. It’s clear we following the lions and they are following buffalos. Everyone is getting excited now. At this stage we have not seen the buffalos or the lions. But evidence is there. As we stopped we discovered that there was a faded track heading the same way as the buffalos and lions were heading. Without wasting time we followed it.
About 200 meters down the line it became so thick in the bush that I was sure we had lost them… But then I saw a usual movement on the ground about 20 meters into the thickets. And guess what? We found the lions. There were 6 females here! We totally forgot about the buffalos and started watching the lions. Sad thing is the male was not there. Again!
We then noticed the buffalos from the other side of the thickets… and they were moving towards us and the lions. Maybe we might get some action… So, we decided to sit in our vehicle 4 metres away from nearest lion and have our lunch. It was very funny how everyone passed the plates around and tried to be dead silent. While we were eating I heard strange sounds and looked behind the truck and there was a massive bull. How long he been there? We had no idea. Slowly I pointed at him and everyone else saw it.
“That’s it. We are finished – no road in front of us, lions next to us a big bull elephant behind us” a lady on tour said. I looked at her and did not respond… Wanted to laugh though. Our bull elephant friend did not hang around for long. He broke a few branches and left. Phew! I could see relief on her face now. We then left and started driving to the next river.
We stopped to look at a fish eagle and saw some vultures circling in a distance. We drove closer to take a look and guess what? We found the male lion. Big smiles in the car. We did not see what the vultures were eating as it was only scrapes left and no clear evidence. We started game driving back towards camp and it was just an abundance of wild life. An amazing day we had in Khwai.
– Blessed (one of JENMAN Safari Guides)
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