Are You looking at ME?

What do you do when the wildlife you are watching is watching you back?

It was a late afternoon gamedrive in the Manyaleti Reserve and we had stopped to observe a lioness and her almost adult male cub chew on what was left of yesterday’s kill. Note: you really don’t want to be downwind. But back to the story, we were stopped less than 100 feet from the lions when the male lion lifted his head and stared at us.

His eyes were quite beautiful, as I watched through my zoom lens. Then, he slowly got up and started approaching the vehicle. Wow, what a great photo opportunity. And he kept coming closer. And closer. And I began to get nervous (mildly understated, but I wasn’t the only one.)

He got to about 30 feet away and then settled back down into the grass. PHEW! And two minutes later, he was up again and coming closer. Our ranger moved our vehicle about twenty feet forward and stopped. The lion again came to within about thirty feet of us and dropped back down on the ground. And two or three minutes he was up and again approaching the vehicle. Our ranger moved the vehicle forward again and lion followed us and then stretched out over our tire tracks again about thirty feet back. At this point, there was a hurried discussion as to our options. One suggestion was for us to plow a path through the thicket and vacate the area while an opposing recommendation was to nudge the lion with the vehicle – the latter was not my suggestion. Thankfully the young lion became distracted by something which scurried by in the grass and he moved off in playful pursuit. I don’t know that it would go down as a typical gamedrive at Tintswalo Safari Lodge but it certainly was an exciting one.

I was ready for a stiff sundowner! (More on Tinstwalo next time).

Richard Haas-Winkelman

richardh@africantravelinc.com