Botswana: Lion Sleeps, Leopard Strolls and We Get Stuck

For our final game drive at Nxabega Camp, Botswana, our Guide Botsile Mdosie, aka "Bee," suggested we head for a distant location where two male lions had been sighted at first light.  We all agreed it was a good plan, even though the lions were far away and one of our fellow safari-mates needed to be back earlier than usual to be shuttled to the air strip.

So we raced through the woodlands...

and through the deepbush...

over the Okavango river channel...

...and around several dry marshes...

to find the king of the jungle sleeping off an active night in the middle of the road.

We slowly drove around his comatose hulk, without raising the slightest response...

You don't tug on superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind and you don't wake up the king!  Time was getting on and the air strip was calling when Bee got word on the radio that a leopard had been sighted not far from the sleeping King.

So off we raced to find the leopard, which was supposed to be up a tree, the usual place to view them, as once they hit the ground, you typically only see them if they want you to see them.

We were extremely lucky, as within seconds of finding the leopard tree, this female climbed down out of the tree and slowly strolled away.

Bee slammed the Land Cruiser in gear and followed her through the bush...   

...keeping us just ahead of this magnificent cat, giving us the best view...

...(because she tolerated us) until reality intruded and it was time to retrace our route to camp and ultimately the airstrip...  

and the leopard wandered off.  And we raced back towards camp to find another safari truck in the middle of the dry marsh watching the male lion.  We agreed to delay a few minutes to see the lion again.

It was hard to find the lion in all the tall grass...

Can you see the lion in this picture?

For perspective, the lion is no more than ten feet from the truck and our safari-mates Anna and Scott.   Eventually, nothing to see here, keep on moving...as first the other Land Cruiser leaves and we start to pull away.  Of course as we start to move, Susan leans over and whispers to me, wouldn't it be funny if we got stuck at precisely the moment that we lost traction... 

Looking over the back of the truck, skid marks and just to the upper left in this photo, the lion continues to sleep.

Bee radios to our companion truck that he needs help and cautiously exits the truck to connect a tow strap...

All eyes are on the lion and hopefully our successful tow.

Our tracker "Equator" keeps an eye out for the lion, while we hope to get unstuck, when the lion roused himself and checked on all the commotion going on around him.  My heart was in my throat thinking the king was going to come visit our exposed Ranger and Tracker.

Don't mess with the king.   And then Susan's prophecy comes true, the other truck gets stuck too!

Bee and Equator jack up the truck and add some tree limbs to gain traction, keeping an eye on the lion who is on the other side of the truck 15 feet away.

As luck would have it, Bee and the other Ranger jockeyed the towing truck into a better position and got us out of this tense situation.

...there was the part about returning via the dry marshes, over the river, through the woods and the dense bush.  The flight was held and unluckily our safari-mate made his flight onward and we had a good story to tell.