Wildlife in our room at the Thebe River Lodge, Kasane, Botswana (April 2018), started with a couple of quite large spiders. One quickly dealt with, the other hiding, potentially in our luggage. Hopefully not in the bed before putting out the mosquito netting! A wakeful night; awake at 5am. Power failure at 5:10am (a usual occurrence here). Phone alarm set to go off at 5:15 anyway in readiness for our 5:45 early morning Chobe National Park game drive.

We enjoyed the luxury of a “private tour” with just the two of us; another larger group staying at the Thebe River Lodge went all together in one other vehicle.  

We didn’t see many new animals, but we did see numerous new birds, including the red-billed francolin and blacksmith lapwing. Hippos in the water flats. Crocodiles in the low parts of the river. As usual, there were plenty of the ubiquitous impala as we drove around Chobe National Park and near the Chobe River.

No animals from the Big 5 list to be seen (lions, leopards, elephants, African buffalo, and rhinoceroses), until a vehicle in our convoy saw a lioness in “stalk” mode down by the river. Our driver, Shimi, quick on the walkie-talkie, found out where she was and drove to higher ground to see if we could see her prey. We spotted a warthog or two. And then, the lion!!

Now, for the sake of the story, I’m going to call our lioness a lion. Yes, I know that this will probably offend a few of you who will say “She’s a lioness!” However, whenever we’ve told this story, we’ve found we end up saying “lion”. And she is a female lion. Not sure if she would be upset that we aren’t using the appropriate gender-specific term, but also not sure if she is all for equality and would want to be called lion (like actor v. actress).

Anyway, I digress.

The chase was on! Our vehicle stopped in perfect viewing position on top of a hill, looking down towards the river. We could see the lion and the warthog down on the lower slopes.

Not being into photography with a high-end camera, we take all our snapshots with our phone cameras. It does the job for us, and we are happy with the results as we show our friends and families the snaps when telling our stories.

If we had a high-end camera we may have had some exceptional quality shots zoomed in of the animals. These will have to do ….

With our high ground advantage, the warthog, followed by the lion, ran directly for us! Here they come!

Thwack! That’s the sound of a warthog running into our vehicle. “Thud, the vehicle shuddered as the warthog struck the front left tyre” would be more dramatic, but in reality, a warthog striking a solid jeep is far more of just a “thwack”.

The warthog lay on the ground, stunned. The lion? She overshot the front of the vehicle, and suddenly appeared around to the right.

The advice about what to do in case a wild animal was nearby suddenly became so much more relevant. Don’t stand up! Don’t wave your arms around! Don’t wear bright colours (OK, maybe not so relevant here). Don’t do anything which would make us appear separate from the vehicle.

Tom thought “Is she going to jump over the vehicle? Will she make it across? Will she land IN the vehicle???”

Louise thought “If I don’t move too much, can I take another photo?”

The lion thought (perhaps) “What happened to my breakfast? Mmmm, that knee looks tasty.”

Looking a little disorientated, and after a heart-stopping seemingly lengthy pause, the lion eventually turned and retraced its steps around the front of the vehicle.

Not so much terrified, but more mesmerised, we watched as she found the still-stunned warthog. A second lioness appeared and, after a brief scuffle, together they dragged the warthog behind a tree to begin their breakfast feast.

And we too headed back to the lodge for breakfast.