Sunrise and a hungry lion

November 20 – sunrise, game drives, and sundowner

We went out this morning with the aim of photographing the sunrise for a typically African acacia tree with the sun. We stopped at a tree and waited for the sun to rise. It wasn’t until looking at my images after that I noticed the space between the branches looks like the outline of an elephant! We saw the lion cubs again, but they retreated into the bushes pretty quickly before the light was good.

We stopped amongst a herd of wildebeest as I had not really photographed them yet. One wildebeest started running and almost the whole herd followed. They are actually pretty quiet when they run, but once there were a few hundred stampeding you could feel the ground move and hear them hurtling across the plains.

We met up with the other vehicle from our group for a bush breakfast under an acacia tree.

After breakfast mom and I continued on a game drive while the others returned to camp. Our guide heard on the radio that a male lion had killed a young Cape buffalo while we were eating breakfast so we went to that area to check it out. We saw the male lion walking in the bushes and every so often a Cape buffalo would charge at him, but they never made contact. The young buffalo was in a small cluster of bushes surrounded by its herd. It felt like hundreds of buffalo walked through and sniffed, checking if the young one was still alive. When all of the buffalo finally cleared out of the area a pair of jackals moved in. We waited over 30 minutes, but we did not see the lion come back.

Mom and I went back to camp for lunch and a nap. The lodge we are staying at includes one free massage per booking, so I also thoroughly enjoyed a massage.

On our evening game drive we missed the leopard by just a few minutes. The vehicle mom was in saw her up close, but by the time my vehicle arrived she was gone. We photographed a few birds in flight and attempted some elephants silhouettes against the sunset. We stopped for a sundowner and enjoyed some drinks and snacks.

Tomorrow is our last day of safari. This trip has felt like a time warp where everything has slowed down. I can’t believe it’s almost over!

Thanks for wandering with me,

Julie