Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
This time we left Maun and headed North East rather than West. It was a short and interesting drive to reach Khwai National Park. On entering the park my eyes were greeted with what I believe paradise must look like. I was in the front of Tony's car and as we rounded the corner I saw a flowing blue river, the bright sun in the sky accompanied by the odd cloud, the beautiful greens and yellows of the bush and all around the stunning landscape I could see elephant, impala, zebra, hippo and all kinds of birds flying in the sky. It was a sight I won't ever forget, it was like something from the Lion King! Tony said for me to get out the car and he'd take a picture so out I got (a true Botswana girl now - no shoes on and not a care in the world). I posed for a picture and got back into the car. On returning to the car Tony pointed out what he had noticed while taking my pictures... Eight lions on the hunt for food across the river!! I was in slight shock that I had just been out my car in front of them but I still felt quite safe I was across the river - lions aren't great swimmers! We stopped and appreciated this moment of paradise and took plenty of pictures so we would remember it forever. I don't think the pictures were necessary however, I'll never forget the beauty I witnessed that day.
We went to set up camp with the intention of returning to that spot later to watch the animals. While we were setting up camp I said to Lisa the two things I'd like to witness in the bush was; some kind of chase and or kill and a leopard sighting. Lisa and I agreed these were two unlikely things to see but we'd of course be on the look out. We'd just finished setting up camp so Justin and I sat down in two camping chairs to watch the elephants grazing by the river in front of our campsite. All of a sudden Justin jumped up out of his chair and shouted that he had seen a buffalo being chased by some lions. Lisa's guide instincts kicked in, she remembered the eight lions we had seen earlier and how hungry they had looked and she just knew we had to go and find the lions - there was a high chance of a kill!!
We all jumped in the car and in all the excitement I had only remembered to bring my binoculars, not my camera. For about a minute I was extremely annoyed and sad but I soon realised it was a fantastic thing. I could simply live in the moment. I could truely enjoy and appreciate what I was about to witness. Lisa drove slow so she didn't attract the attention of any other campers, we wanted the sighting all to ourselves! We drove a little way along the river until we spotted the lions on the other side. We watched them as they debated whether the potential buffalo for dinner was worth crossing the river and getting wet for. After about two minutes of hesistating and half hearted attempts the lions clumsily crossed the river. Even big cats don't like the water. They crossed one by one and shook the excess water off themselves when they reached the land on the other side before hurridly rushing after the lone buffalo.
I feel truely blessed to have witnessed this experience with Lisa - she really is phenomenal! I'm told she's one of the best safari guides in Botswana and my heavens did she prove to be that. I learnt so much from her, she really helped my knowledge of the bush and she didn't lose her enthusiasm for it once. Lisa explained that a pride of lions wouldn't typically attempt to kill a buffalo because buffalos are very large animals with extremely large and dangerous horns and they are found in large herds. It would be a death wish for a pride of lions to attempt to kill a strong buffalo from a herd. This buffalo, Lisa said she could see, was very old so had been left behind by his heard because he was too slow to keep up with them. These lions were extremely hungry judging by the size of the stomachs so they wanted dinner, even if it was risky.
The pride of lions that we were watching was a pride of females and their cubs. The cubs were just old enough to begin to learn how to kill but weren't strong enough to hunt by themselves. We could really see this as we watched the mother lions take the lead with the cubs learning as they went along. Lisa informed me that the lions had three ways to weaken and kill the buffalo since they were unable to bite the buffalo's neck or head due to his massive horns. The horns could kill the lions easily. The three ways were; pulling the buffalo's intestines out through its anus, biting through the animal's spine or biting the buffalo's balls so that he bleeds to death. Gruesome, I know, I'm sorry but I personally didn't find it that gruesome - this was the food chain live in action! The lions were hungry so they went out in search of a weaker animal that they could kill to satisfy their hunger.
It took the lions a total of an hour and a half to kill the buffalo. We were so incredibly lucky, no one had seen the chase or us watching the chase so for nearly an hour we were the only car watching this once in a lifetime sighting from only ten meters away. We couldn't actually believe that no one had spotted us, we had driven off the tyre trackroads and we were sitting in the middle of a large grass area. To add to that the buffalo was crying out in pain as the lions attacked. The noise it made was similar to a cow's moo however you could tell, without a doubt, that the animal was in pain. It made three attempts to escape, but all three attempts failed. At one point it seemed like the buffalo was coming towards us, it was looking right at us as if it wanted us to help him. This made Lisa slightly uneasy because if the buffalo came towards us the lions would too. Thankfully for us the lions were too strong and the buffalo failed to get away. Eventually they tired it out so much that one of the lioness was able to bite it's neck and finally put it out its suffering.
I was surprised by what happened next. The lions didn't begin to eat their kill straight away. Instead they lay down to rest because they were physically so tired. While others pulled the intestines out and burried them underground to try and disguse the smell of the kill so's not attract the attention of any other preditors or scavengers. The chase and actual killing of the buffalo had tired the lions out so they had to rest before they could feast on their kill.
We returned to camp in awe of what we had just seen. It was absolutely fantastic, real Africa. I was almost shaking I was so amazed by what I'd just seen. We all couldn't stop talking about it over dinner either. The lions had finally killed the buffalo only about 100 yards from our camp so we could see all the trucks still watching it and we could definitely hear the noises of all the animals. The vultures were watching and the hyenas were approaching...
- comments
laura oh my its done it again. . .the moment I click on a star it does not allow me to continue. . so sorry... Loved reading it and reliving both episodes !!
elsie hi Victoria - great stuff, Keep it up. Tony was looking forward to your fishing experiences story... After all, you turned out to be very much a pro after the first few trial casts on the beautiful Okavango. He still talks of how well you mastered the art of casting a rod. Laura, I clicked on the last star as I noted them rated from 1 - 5, but only 3 hi-lighted in red.... We are in the same boat - true rookies...