Kgalagadi: The Case of the Elusive Lions; OR: Why the Heck Did We Come Here?

So, till now I’ve shared how amazing the trip to the Kgalagadi was.  But I gotta keep it real folks, and tell you that it wasn’t all cheetah kills and giraffe sightings.

And here’s the photo that illustrates it best:

What’s that you ask?

Ah, well, that was our first lion sighting.  See:

The Kgalagadi is not an easy place, and I mean that in so many ways:  the temperatures are extreme, its facilities are basic, the roads are rough, and unlike other game parks (or so I’ve been told) you have to be really, really patient about seeing game.

It’s like a huge game of Where’s Waldo; except that in this case, there are multiple Waldos – some more rare (and therefore more coveted) than others (in our case the big carnivores).  But these Waldos may not be on the page you’re looking at.  They might have wandered on to other pages or have left the book altogether.  

This is one of those cases where the journey is the destination.  You have to enjoy the search.

And then of course there are the people who come up to you in camp and tell you about how you JUST missed 20 Waldos … if you had only been there a few minutes earlier …

So you get up at 5 am every morning (the gates opened at 5:30) so you can get out there are early as you can to see as much as you can.

And kids, I ain’t a morning person.  AT ALL.  AT ALLLLLL.

Every day at about 5:15am this is what would be running through my head:

Why the hell are we here?  Who cares about frigging lions?  How did sand get in there?  Early-morning forced game-viewing should be prohibited by the Geneva convention…

Have I mentioned I’m a touch on the dramatic side? 

Poor Aaron.  To his immense credit, he was super patient with me.  And he knew that by 8am or so I’d be yelping with happiness at seeing a giraffe or whatever. 

The thing is though, that even with all that, it was amazing.  All the crap was worth it.  The hair pulling and tears over JUST missing another pride of lions, the seeing fresh leopard tracks leading into the fields … All of it.  And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

So in the end, did we see lions?

Well, we saw half a lion head in the distance:

Does that suck?  YES.  Not gonna be gracious about it, we were bummed.  We wanted to see a whole pride frolicking in the golden sunshine in perfect range for beautiful pictures.  But Mother Nature reminded us she’s not at our beck and call.  We were lucky to see what we saw … and besides, that means we gotta go back and try again …