Safari: Pom Pom Day 1
For our flight to Pom Pom, I took my camera with me. Here’s Andrew in the plane:
I grabbed some pics of the landscape.
There were elephants dotting the way.
And we arrived safely.
We were being ushered into the lodge, when I spied this guy:
The lodge manager indicated that he could be a bit naughty, and it was best to wait a moment before entering the lodge. She grabbed our guide and he tried to get the elephant to move on. The elephant didn’t move for a normal hand-waving, but our guide then discovered that he didn’t like having water hosed on him!
With the elephant safely moved on, we entered the lodge, got our normal greeting and safety briefing, and then were shown to our tent, which was another gorgeous accommodation.
This was our view:
After unpacking, changing, and lounging for a bit, we took off again in a safari truck. Our first site was a wildebeest.
And a baboon up a tree.
And then our guide found this guy – this beautiful male lion. We’ve seen lions almost every day of this trip, but this was the first male lion we’ve seen.
Then along came his brother. This coalition of lions held the territory together. The two of them made an impressive site.
We were no more than 10-15 feet away from them. Andrew and I were in the middle seat of the truck, which meant our feet were up on the wheel wells – feeling like our legs were exposed as fresh white meat for the lions. I felt him lean a bit toward me and whispered, “Scared, honey?” He nodded yes.
The lions settled in for a moment and groomed each other.
Then the lions moved on, our truck followed, and suddenly I was on the same side as the lions. I leaned over to Andrew and said, “I see what you mean!”
These boys clearly have had a hard life. One of their canines is chipped, there are flies swarming their faces, and there were a number of scars across their faces.
One of them laid down for a moment, and I marveled at their giant paws.
Then we moved on. We spied a rainbow on the way.
And then happened upon a pride of lions munching down on an antelope carcass. Among them was this naughty little fellow.
He rolled around …
… and then re-joined the rest of the pride at the carcass, but was wholely uninterested in eating. Instead, he was playing with the antlers.
Attack the antler!
I just wanted to scratch his little ears!
Our return trip took us past a group of tsessebe – including a shy baby.
We also passed back by the male lions. This guy was just lounging in the middle of an opening with sunset over him.
We moved on to find a good spot for our sundowner. The sunsets never get old.
And again our evening ended with dinner as a large group. However, I was getting tired of so much togetherness. This time there was a group of guests who all spoke German, so Andrew and I felt left out of the conversation. We ate and then asked our guide to bring us back to our tent.