Lions!

I think she's smiling for the camera.


So, as you can see from the last post, René and I drove to Etosha National Park on Saturday. We got up at 5am and drove an hour and a half to the park. The drive there was a bit dodgy, as cattle, donkey, goat freely roam the roads and you have to be very vigilant driving in the dark before the sun rises. But, we were so glad we arrived at the park early! We went through King Nehale Gate and were instructed to drive to one of the camps (Namutoni) to pay our entrance fee. When we got to Namutomi we were checking the log of what animals had been spotted that day and the days before, and we happened to meet a guide who had just seen several lions. He told us where they were and we set off to find them! The general area where the lions were was pretty easy to find because there were three other vehicles there watching them! BUT, at first they were pretty impossible to spot! We thought we saw something that might be the color of a lion, but it was hard to say. Then, the big male stood up! He was kind of far away and he was pretty well hidden, as you can see in the last picture. He was under a tree seemingly by himself (though René mentioned that sometimes the males sit with the cubs, we didn't see any cubs, but they may have been hidden by the tall grass). And then, right in front of us, we noticed there were at least four female lions under another tree. We got the best pictures and views of the female lions because they were literally about 30 meters away! It was amazing! We were in the car, but the windows were down because it was so stinking hot. But, we both assumed we were safe because the lions didn't want to move in that heat any more than we did! They were just laying around in the shade. We watched them for at least an hour, and none of them did more than stand up and adjust their positions. One of the female lions was laying on her back and you could just see her paws, she was swatting at something, maybe a fly, maybe just playing. It was really neat. The park in general is pretty amazing, it's a huge park with tons of dirt roads and the main rule is that you can't get out of your vehicle unless you are inside one of the camps (which have huge fences around them).



It's hot!

Female lion readjusting her position. You can see the other female lion underneath her.
These are two of the female lions. The one laying on the ground hidden by the grass was the one whose paws were swatting around playfully.

This is the big male lion under the tree by himself (seemingly).