Got Your Attention?

When I say we got “up close and personal” with some Lions on our safari, I’m not kidding!

I’ve got the story of an incredible, VERYCLOSE encounter with a pride of Lions as they were finishing devouring their kill.

Not only were we close, they were VERY volatile – here’s a look:

Now that I have your attention, let me set up this incredible Lion encounter: we were staying at the Dinaka private reserve, which covers over 40,000 hectares on the northern edge of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

We were staying at the private Ker And Downey lodge, a terrifically retro throwback to the classic safari camps in Botswana…here is the traditional greeting as we arrived:

The name “Dinaka” means “horns” in the local language, likely a reference to the wildlife in the area.After checking in, we were walked to our tented room:

I felt like this is the kind of room that Ernest Hemingway stayed in on his safari adventures a century ago – that said, the lodge is a wonderful retreat in a very remote location, with a real sense of camaraderie. It sits in the middle of the Kalahari Desert:

The terrain is rough, and very sandy as well. But it is all about the animals, so let’s get going! Here’s what every morning was like:

We headed out every morning at the crack of dawn: Dinaka is in the Kalahari desert, which means bright sunny 70 degree days and 35 degree nights!

Our terrific Guide – knew we wanted to see some wildlife, and he didn’t disappoint! As an expert animal tracker, he not only found the tracks, but knew how many different Lions made up the pride:

Those Lion tracks told him where the pride was, and as we drove slowly up to them, here is what we saw – note, there will be a bit of “eating” underway, not too graphic but don’t click the link if you aren’t interested in that:

And here’s a look at just how close up we were – note that this video shows them eating some animal parts as well, but no flowing blood or graphic images, they are finishing up – but if you are sensitive to the idea of that, please don’t play the video:

As the feeding continues, a few of the Lions began to groom each other, licking some of the dried blood off each other!

Alex captured a number of videos and photos of Lions very close to me – here’s a video of me checking my video while a Lion wanders by!

The feeding lasted almost a half hour, and it was fascinating to watch, until Alex told me I had three Lions over my shoulder – here’s that video:

This was so cool to watch – and surprisingly, we weren’t nervous with so many hungry Lions roaming around us – and the dynamic was interesting, especially because the main Lions were not letting any of the females feed, which created this standoff!

That night at the Ker & Downey Dinaka lodge, we celebrated with a great feast and some performances by the staff – and we were all encouraged to join in!

This was such an incredible Lion encounter and celebration, but we’ve had a number of wild Lion sightings on this safari:

This Lion was one of 17 who had a raucous encounter with a Baboon!

See that here!

I also just shared our crazy encounter with an “Elephant In Musth”:

That Elephant is in “musth” – and those are our Mokoro canoes in the march in front of him. Guess who didn’t go on a canoe right that day?

Clcik here for the story, and who won the face off!

The Okavango Delta marches were also a great hangout for Hippos as well!

Yep, this Hippo was excited to see us! Click here for our cool Hippo encounter:

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Categories: Africa, Exotic Travel, Memoirs, nature, safari, Travel, Travel Adventures, Travel Memoir

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