This morning we did not go out until 8am and decided to stay close to the lodge. First stop was the hyena den but no sign of movement but the hyenas are still around as there was the remains of a meal on the ground that was not there last night. Our guide then took us to the cut line between Zimbabwe and Botswana and for a short time we were game viewing in Zimbabwe and all without passports. You can take for granted the work of your guide but when he finds a set of paw prints and tells you that a few lions passed this way recently and points out that they were lying down here and then having a bit of a playful fight there, you look in amazement and then when he continues to drive following these tracks and next moment you are looking at a group of six lions, you are in awe of your guide.
With the great work of our guide we had come across a group of lions whose territory is in Zimbabwe but who often cross over into the territory of the male lion we saw yesterday. This pride consists of two older females and four young males and what a beautiful pride they are. They were very nervous of us and we had to be patient and wait and follow them until they relaxed a bit and allowed us to sit with them. It is hard to explain the wonderment of watching these magnificent creatures in their own environment, it is truly magical. Another great morning and we even got to see three hyena running across the open plain.
After a very relaxing afternoon we headed out again around 16:30 to see what was around and to have sundowners and as the cloud cover had broken up it promised to be a good sunset. Our first stop was back to the hyena den but still no sign of the hyenas so it as off to see what had happened to the lions and truth be told, not a lot. The pride was still in roughly the same place so we were treated to a second sighting of the Zimbabwean lions. It is astonishing how fast the time goes when you are sitting on an open vehicle only a few metres away from any animal and before you know it the sun is about to set and we need to move on. We managed to get to an open area just as the sun was setting and it was a typical African sunset, red skies and the silhouette of acacia trees against the night sky. The weather tomorrow promises to be a warm sunny day and let’s hope so as it has been a bit on the cold side for the past few days.
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