Well Hello There!

I shared this photo before: a Lion with a devilish grin resting VERY CLOSE TO US as we tracked him in the Okavango Delta of Botswana!

Perhaps the most surprising thing about our safari adventure last summer was just how many Lions we encountered, and how CLOSE we encountered them!

Remember this one, who was clearly unhappy about something:

And as I looked through all of the photos and videos I shot, I found this one – of a Lion with hay fever!

See? Lions can sneeze too! I’ll point out again that these wild Lions just walked right past our Jeep, sometimes less then ten feet away!

Here’s another example: Alex and I had an incredible safari adventure in the Okavango Delta of Botswana….we stayed at the Wilderness Qorokwe camp, which was stunning in every way – here’s a short tour of the main lodge:

As you can see in the video, we are perched right over the Okavango Delta marsh, and on our last morning, Alex woke up to this outside our room:

Yes, those are pelicans, wild birds, deer and water buffalo wandering around outside – here’s video:

I mean, with the safari literally outside our door, how could we leave?

But leave we had to, as we were on our way to another incredible lodge along the Linyanti river in northern Botswana….so we packed up, got in our jeep, and took what we expected to be a routine 20 minute ride to the landing strip…well, until this happened:

A Pride Of Lions Block The Road!

Yep, our short drive was made longer when we came across a pride of Lions ambling along the road and into the brush….take a look:

What A Sighting!

Our incredible Guide Jacob expertly shifted into tracking mode and we followed along as this pride of Lions took us on an amazing, and unexpected detour…and remember what I said about his close the wild animals got to us?

Check this out!

This was “all day every day” at the incredible Wilderness Qorokwe lodge in the Okavango Delta of Botswana: this is an never-ending “wonderland of wildlife” everywhere you look!

Here’s what it’s like to sit in the Jeep and track the Lions as they move!

We were tracking them as they were tracking some Impala, who were far enough away not to trigger the Lions to attack..this was just another wild life encounter that was fascinating to see, like when we came across a “dazzle” of Zebra – yes, that’s what a large group is called and they are indeed dazzling!

There was wildlife everywhere here!

So many different species intermingling, safely away from predatory Lions…but we also realized we had angered a baboon as we were filming – watch and listen closely – Jacob explains about 30 seconds in and you hear a Baboon yelling at us too:

After this incredible detour, we got to the airstrip and were on our way…but this just reinforces how important these private preserves are…animals roam freely and the lodges work with the Botswana government to protect them!

See that story here!

I also shared this story of a solitary Lion alone in the Okavango Delta..click on the story to find out why:

We also had a close encounter with some very hungry – and violent Lion in the Kalahari desert – see how close we were by clicking for incredible video here:

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

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

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

The Okavango Delta marshes 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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