I have survived... again!!

September 10

Well, I made it out of the bush alive... so where do I begin??

I survived the 7 nights in the Kenyan bush on safari... and now I have seen it all!! To complete the big 5, I saw a leopard a couple of days ago... And MUCH MUCH more...!! To cap off the experience, we went for one last game drive this morning before going to the airport, and on it we saw not one, but two lion kills... IN PROGRESS!! If you have not been, this is the Wholly Grail while on safari. It is kind of gruesome but, that's nature for you... I know, not a very Buddhist way of thinking about it, but it is nature. It is very rare to get the chance to see a predator takedown it's prey, and we saw it twice back to back. The lionesses were teaching their young cubs how to hunt so they were taking down as many wildebeest they could. It was also rare to have only 3 safari trucks at the site, but since we were on the private Maasai conservancy, it is limited to only a few camps. Just for comparison, days before we were in the National Park watching the leopard with it's kill (post hunting) and there were as many as 20 trucks watching. The leopard got pretty upset with all the attention and tried to drag it's meal away from the circus. Not to mention, everyone was snapping photos like paparazzi at the oscars.




They may look cute & cuddly, but they will eat you...





...and no, that's not makeup he's wearing... and yes, that is the side of our truck; after eating, this little cub came and hung out by our back tire and was about 4-6 feet away from me... oh, did I mention, our truck didn't have any windows on the sides and was open to the surroundings.



Anyway, it was a great experience and I hope to do it again sometime. And I love lions even more... but I have a great respect for them too...

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Location:Nairobi, Kenya