August 21: 4th Day – AM Drive (6th game drive)

Heads up - Dinner is making noises, originally uploaded by Andrew & Yvette's world travel.

We saw the cheetah again today! *woohoo* but we only saw it for 3 minutes. We saw it from afar, then it came within a foot towards our car, and then a minute later it was gone. It went into thick brush where we couldn’t follow = (

Afterwards, we saw the wildebeests again. We saw them up close today and we have to say they are quite ugly and apparently pretty dumb as well. Ashleigh joked saying when the wildebeests were created, they were created from leftover pieces.

After the wildebeests, we drove some distance and then found a huge herd of buffalos. Thirty seconds later and less than 100 meters away, we found the pride of hungry lions. *yeah* Although we hadn’t given up hope, we were starting to think that our 1st lion sighting would also be our last. When we arrived, most in the pride were sleeping, such as the alpha male who was sprawled underneath the shade and another who slept with his 4 paws all up in the air. The sleeping ones looked cute and harmless and I wished we could step out and pet them. The others who were awake though, looked anything but friendly. They kept sniffing the air showing their razor sharp fangs, and despite the heat of the sun that would normally render them lazy, they looked ready to pounce.

Sure enough, when the buffalos made a low grumbling noise, we saw 15 heads pop up immediately and look towards the direction of the buffalos. The lions sure weren’t being discreet and they sure made it known to the buffalos that they wanted them for dinner. The buffalos, aware of the lions’ intentions, were also on the defensive as they put the young, old and injured in the middle of the group. As we said our goodbyes to both groups of animals, we wondered who would come out victorious tonight. Would the buffalos be able to escape the lions as the wildebeests had done 3 nights ago? Could the lions go another hungry night? We left in a state of heightened rush as we eagerly awaited the night’s decision.