10 July 2012

Day 4, Chobe National Park safari drive. The pride of lions.

The jeep slows. We all look around.

looking for lions

"There! John points."

first view of lion pride

See that small dark cluster in the center of the above photo? Below the giraffes? It's hard to tell, but that's the lions! John and the others have the benefit of binoculars. I only have my camera. I zoom in the telephoto.

lions

The giraffes do not take their eyes off the lions. Lions are able to take down giraffes, our guide tells us. The giraffes close ranks.

giraffes by lions

giraffes by lions

I zoom in on two of the lions:

lions

Here is the entire scene, as we saw it from our jeep. There are three lions, two together and one a little to the left and closer to us. By this time, the giraffes had crossed behind the lions and are off to the left, outside of the range of the photo.

lions

There is still another lion off to the left:

lion

I panned to the left to check what the giraffes were doing:

giraffes by lions

giraffes by lions

The lion over on the left got up:

lion

Now there are three lions together, with one looking left towards the giraffes and the other two looking to the right.

lions

The lion to the left is on the move:

lion

The giraffes are watchful:

giraffes by lions

Now three of the lions settle in together.

lions

lions

lions

We have to leave. The sun is setting and we will have to race to get out of the park in time. We hunker down and cling to the seat-rail for the bouncy drive to the lodge. We don't talk much on the trip back, we huddle in our jackets and let our minds re-play and absorb the scene we had been lucky enough to watch: a wild African lion pride hanging out on the savannah.

sunset



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