Safari Sunday: Grooming lions
We saw prides of lions nearly every day in Botswana; however, it wasn’t until our fourth camp that we found male, maned lions. As we set out for our evening game drive our first night at Pom Pom Camp, the guide asked us what we wanted to see, and one of our truck-mates said he wanted to see maned lions. Ha, ha, as if we can just order up what we want to see, right?
We were in luck, though, because the male lions had left tracks and were in the area. The guide picked it up, and found them. I know a lot of this is luck and being in the right place at the right time, but it felt a bit like the guides were working magic.
We stopped near one of the lions, and the second one came up and started grooming the first. These two are brothers and they form a coalition. Together they hold the territory – fighting off rivals and mating with the females (apparently they will both mate with any female in heat – that way they don’t know which cubs belong to who).
While we were watching them groom, 10 feet away, Andrew started leaning closer to me. He was on the side of the truck near the lions, feeling as if his pasty-white legs were looking like a yummy meal. “Are you scared, Kuchling?” I asked, and giggled at him. Then, a few minutes later when the lions relocated, our truck pulled up and I was the one on the side of the lions. Suddenly I knew what he had been feeling! We had been this close to the female lion prides, but there was something about the males that was just that much more heart-stopping.
