Kgalagadi: Lions! ...

So, now that we're ensconced here in Mossel Bay, I'm going to work on documenting our last big trip -- a two-week safari in the Kgalagadi and Namibia, South Africa's neighbor to the Northwest.  We went with the Glass family and it was quite an adventure!

I think I'll do the big cats first, because this trip was chock-a-block full of them.  Once again, I have to express how lucky, lucky, lucky I feel to have seen these magnificent animals in the wild.

The first we saw was on the third day; a lazy girl napping by a bush:

We stayed with her for a while, but she seemed determined to nap the day away, so we kept going.  A bit later that same day, we ran into a pride of 7 lions!  Unfortunately the light was crap.  It was raining pretty heavily.

This is what most of the pictures looked like:

It's almost like they're in black and white, right?  So I decided to not be lazy for once and actually play on Photoshop.  Voila:

Here's the beautiful alpha male.  Look at his black mane:

But the absolute best part of this sighting was the young male.  He was incredibly playful and while everyone else laid down, he crossed the road (where the light was much better) and he proceeded to climb trees!  You don't often see lions up trees, so it really was a treat.  I mean, look at this character:

Then on our last day, we saw a pair of girls.  They were pretty lazy too:

Of course I don't blame them.  They had taken down and consumed a whole heck of a lot of gemsbok:

I mean a girl needs a nap after that, amiright?

She was still pretty alert though, didn't want anyone stealing her hard-earned meal.

We were like a meter away from her.  Did I mention lucky?