Lions!

Today was yet another day of great wildlife...we are off as the big red sun rises, the light is soft and it's blissfully cool. Our safari vehicle travels over the sandy road and we have seen bushbuck, mongeese, impala, elephants and the fresh tracks of a leopard
( and LOTS of birds!) when we come to the place where an elephant has died 3 days ago of natural causes, and there were the lions laying in the shade nearby. Keeping the other scavengers from eating. The marabou storks (called nature's undertaker as they eat anything) in great numbers are waiting their opportunity. There are 7 lions with 2 males, one very young. We were thrilled to watch and take pictures, even though they weren't doing much of anything, and then the big male got up and very slowly moved right toward us and the other few cars who were in one area watching. He came straight toward us-hence this photo- and passed within several feet in the midst of the cars, and kept going another 50 ft or so and lay down in a shady spot. Very cool.

At our mid day break H and I took a walk on the little golf course and saw warthogs and baboons and signs to watch out for crocs in the water hazards! Don't know how anyone could last long to play 9 holes in this heat.

Later today we had another sundowner cruise on the river, watched 1 lone elephant swim across, and many baboons playing as well as all the antelopes, Cape buffalo and birds. It was HOT. But a great day!

Tomorrow we are off even earlier to try and see the leopard! The lions will probably give up on this elephant as it's not exactly fresh and the next in line will get a chance. Elephants don't put elephant high on their priority list for a tasty meal, but they do like something large that will feed the whole pride. Apparently you can buy elephant meat in the grocery store and eat the thigh and buttock muscles but it's tough nd takes 6 hours to cook. It's too bad as some of the elephants are for the second time around being culled as they are destroying the vegetation. It looks like some bad disease has devastated all the trees and shrubs-a very serious problem.

And I did try to put photos on my Flickr sight but couldn't get them to go- it kept timing out or getting an error message every which way I went about it. So I'm afraid this will have to wait - not sure why it let me put a few up earlier in the week. A mystery. Sorry. ( also for the lack of commenting....)