Friday, June 8, 2012

19 lions in Botswana...




We bid a find farewell to the Royal Livingstone hotel after an amazing buffet breakfast.  We boarded a small 5 seat Cesna 203 plane and flew off to Botswana. we landed 20 minutes later in Kasane which is the main border post in Northern Botswana.  We cleared immigration and jumped onto a 12 seat caravan for a 45 minute flight to the Linyanti Swamp.  




As we flew I took note that we were in one of those rare areas of the world where several countries come together at one point.  In this case it was Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Angola...how cool is that? 


Landing at the Chibe airstrip we were met by Ona, our guide from Duma Tau camp.  We were escorted to camp and served a lovely lunch overlooking the Linyanti wetlands.  After settling into our rooms we set off in search of a pride of 19 lions.  It took us about 1.5 hours of rough driving to finally track down these beauties.  They were lounging in the shade and polishing off a zebra that they had caught earlier.  Wow! I had never seen 19 lions together in one place - just amazing.  We got some great photos and watched the two cubs (who were several months old) play in the grass.  Their little yelps and pretend roars were so cute...on our way to sundowners on the Savuti Channel we saw zebra, giraffe, cape buffalo, warthog, wildebeest, and many many elephants.  




We capped off a great drive with some gin and tonics while watching the sun set red fire into the bush and the nearly full yellow moon rise behind us.  Two cranes flew past just at the prefect moment to silhouette against the purple sky - another magical day in Africa!

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