Panthera Leo

09.21.10

I just watched someone remove a jigger from his own foot. It was disgusting.

We have lots of jiggers here. They just bury themselves in your toes and ... blah ... mature and lay eggs and ... sorry. Don’t worry, I haven’t had any yet. Jinx?

Ok, focus Carrie!

Yesterday, September 20th, 2010 at 11:45 am, I saw my first lion in the wild.

We took a trip to Tarangire National Park yesterday for our Wildlife Management class. We had learned methods of mammal transects the previous day, and took road counts yesterday. How it worked was we went out in our land cruisers, which have removable hatches on the top. We had a recorder who took down all our data, and two people on each side who scanned the landscape for mammals. We would record whatever we saw, the number of individuals, and how far away they were. Woohoo! We saw elephants and zebras and impala and wildebeest and giraffes and dikdiks and steinboks and waterbuck and ... even two carcasses (one zebra and one giraffe). So I was definitely ready to see a predator.

And we found the most amazing Boabab tree. I mean, they’re amazing as is. But this one had a big hole on the side so you could see the hollow inside. It was gorgeous! I felt like a giant owl should’ve live inside.

Anyway. Kioko, our driver, has eyes like a hawk and saw a male lion far off. We took a break from transects, clearly, and made our way down the hill. The first one I spotted was a lioness making her way through the riverine. I saw her just briefly. The male was further than she was, but was right in the open on the riverbed. Oh. My. Goodness. He was so dark, meaning old. He didn’t do much, but honestly, he didn’t have to. He just stood there. But he was so beautiful.

We drove back up the hill after a while, and could see him from the other angle. He walked off right to where we were positioned before. Grrr, thanks buddy.

But but but ... we were driving along later, and saw a lioness walking right along the road. She was just circling, but then she fixed her eyes on something. She got realllllly low and starting to stalk something. Goodness, she blended right in with the grass. She just glided away until she disappeared from view.

We drove across the river and spotted her again, and this time we were to her left. She was probably 250 meters from us, but we could see well enough. Ah she was sooo good! She was moving ever so slowly, and didn’t rise an inch. Just moving like molasses across the savannah. She slowed to a complete stop, her eyes glued to whatever she was stalking. Frozen. Frozen. Frozen. Then BAM, she just erupted. And so did the warthogs she’d been watching. Unfortunately, she didn’t catch any. But man, it was so cool. So cool.

BAH. Not only did I get to see a lion. I got to see four. And a chase. What a complete day. And the perfect way to see something I’ve been waiting for for years.