Wednesday August 18, 2010 – Twelve lions before lunch

Wednesday August 18, 2010 – Twelve lions before lunch


James picked us up at a very civilized 8:00 for a lion hunt. The Danes are having a sleep-in and Siefert has other business to attend to, so its just the 4 of us. James heard a signal up by Katwe, so off we go in that direction, stopping from time to time to double check the signal. And we hunt, and hunt, and hunt for the lions. The signal comes and goes as we do a major cross country run – through heavy brush, round mud wallows, through the acacia scrub, and along the edge of a crater. Very close to the edge of the crater. Eventually he says ‘ah ha” and he sees the lion, and then with a bit of prompting so do we. A young male sitting in the shade of a small patch of scrub, eyeing us. But that’s not all – James has another signal and it comes from a female who he things may have cubs. And she does. Just a hundred yards away. There are 4 tiny cubs that come walking out of the brush across a clearing, and then after them a group of 3 slightly bigger cubs. There are the two moms sitting in the bushes, one of whom is the daughter of the other. We sit and watch them, I sit on the edge of the open car window taking pictures when I hear a noise not far and turn around – and there is the male lion walking a bit of a distance, but not too far, along parallel to the car towards the females. I pull myself back into the car pretty smartly I can tell you. Turns out there are two other young males in the scrub nearby – the three males jointly stay with the females and presumably all of them think they are the dads, so everyone is apparently happy. So 12 lions all in one group, and before lunch even. We watch them for a while, until cubs wander off and the females start to get edgy, and then it’s time to go back. We stop for more elephants on the road, take a detour to view and listen to a pod of pretty contented hippo , pass a big heard of buffalo, and then it’s back to Mweya and the rest camp.
The rest of the day is less exciting – Sarah naps, Elizabeth and catch up on odds and ends, and in late afternoon we walk over to the fancy lodge for drinks and snacks to last us until dinner at 8:00. The lodge is up high and looks over the Kazinga Channel, which runs from Lake George into Lake Edward. It’s a marvelous site with a magnificent view. The bathroom even has individual terry towels to dry your hands on! The bar lounge has two sets of absolutely enormous elephant tusks as decoration, as well as a really big buffalo head. We order up samoosas for the girls and some cold drinks, attempt to get on the internet – such a great location – how can we not have signal?, and have a visit by a troop of mongoose who come up on the terrace, circle the tables, and then make a march right through the bar to the other terrace. Sarah is not keen on the mongoose, I think she thinks they are going to go for her ankles. I’m trying to convince her that they are like a herd of African pussy cats and not to be feared but I’m not sure she’s buying it.
It kind of falls apart after that- our late afternoon game drive and hyena call is cancelled due to lack of diesel in James’ vehicle and dinner is not until 8, so Sarah and I go for our own sunset drive and check out the campsites along the Kazinga channel. She’s happy in the front seat – holding the map and the birdbook. She is my little birding assistant – looking at birds and as I list off the major identifying characteristics saying “Oh, I see, I see”, Quite cute – she likes being the VIP in the car. We pick up Elizabeth and head to the Tembo canteen for dinner, but it turns out that the Danes ate early and Siefert doesn’t show so we dine alone and then head back to our accommodation for the night. The night drive may not have worked out but we sure got those lions!