Leo the ballsy Lion.

Because the road from third bridge to Chobe was awfully bad, by reputation, and we had not been granted a booking at the ‘forever fully booked’ campsites on the way, we had no other option but to drive back to Maun and head for Chobe via a longer alternative route.  However! On our way back to Maun, whilst gas bagging in the car, completely blasé towards the wildlife we driving past ‘bla bla bla, there goes some zebra, no its ok we don’t need to stop for them anymore, bla bla oh look another giraffe, bla bla careful of that elephant, Stuart’ we were completely unaware that we might see new animals.  And so what happened? We did see new animals. Lions.

 The 3 of us were enjoying conversations with a new member in the car, Clare, who was riding with us while her husband, Paul, followed a few hours behind, with their broken down rental Discovery being towed back to Maun. Suddenly, someone saw a lion walking down the same track that we were driving. The present conversation was suddenly drowned out by something like this:

 “And so, Clare”, (-lion) what (Lion!) do you d –“LION!!”

LION LION!

What?

LION!

WHERE?

THERE! (pointing by staring two gigantically enlarged eyeballs instead of hands makes spotting the animal tricky for the others on the safari you know, but you can’t help it! You are so frozen by the sight of the animal, that you can’t do anything else except yell ‘THERE!’ with both arms absolutely rigid and useless by your side)

‘WHERRRE?’

‘RIGHT THERE’ (eyeballing, stiff arms still not working) ‘ON THE ROAD!’

‘O SHIT HE’S RIGHT THERE!’ …

‘Wowwwwww.’  (Silence for a few seconds as we watch him strut his stuff down the Moremi catwalk).

‘OMYGOD, holy crap its walking right towards us. Ok, can you please wind up your windows now guys – (me).

He was fantastic, a real lion, right there, walking along the grass not even taking a second look at our foreign animal shaped… vehicle.  I have to tell you, seeing a picture of a lion is pretty impressive, but being able to take a photo of one out the window of your car is something else. Imagine actually being the person who got to take that photo of the lion. That was us!