Day 13

 This morning, we had bush clearing. I was up at 630, to make sure I didn’t oversleep! We worked from 730 to 10, and boy it got hot! Good news, I am now professional in the use of a machete to chop down trees. Woohoo. We came back, and it was a bit early for lunch, but we had a quick snack. Then Wolfgang and I joined Lukas to go hunt for some lions. It wasn’t a scheduled drive, we just wanted to go. We ended up finding part of our Makhutswi pride in the bush around 11:30, and stayed with them on visual until 12:45. Absolutely amazing. There were 3 cubs who were a few months old, and two cubs who were a little over a year. They were feeding on a recent kill, but we couldn’t see what it was through the bushes. We definitely heard audio of the feeding though!! It was an amazing morning, watching them interact and move around in silence, just listening to them. Then, eventually, they all began to move into the block of bush, and Mama started calling to her babies. The chorus of “mao’s” was so lovely, as they all walked off. When we got back, I had a few minutes to enter my data from the week before vehicle clean up.

The bush camp gang had left while we were lion chasing, so Lukas, Wolfgang and I swept out the car from TONS of leaves from the week. Then we hosed it down and scrubbed inside and out. Of course, this turned into a huge water fight as we washed the car. Wolfgang was only spared because he had a camera in his pocket! After we finished cleaning the truck, we cleaned ourselves up before the 330 drive with Andrew. We didn’t have any particular goals in mind, so we checked a few dams for the lions from earlier, and on the way, stopped to look at/discuss different trees, as well as birds. We also watched a group of dwarf mongooses, which are adorable!! We eventually went back to the scene of the kill, and Andrew walked into the area to see if he could find the remnants. He returned with a lower jaw and a leg of the kill – a young zebra. It was so awesome! The lions were long gone by then, but I was excited to see the kill after! We then went partial off-roading through the forest. I say this because the road USED to be a road, but I’m pretty sure no one has used it for years. It was overgrown with tree limbs, had an entire huge knobthorn fallen across the path, and include many large holes that the truck slid into. But we successfully made it through the block and out the other side! Wooot! Afterwards, we drove on a circuitous route back towards home, because we wanted to be home early so we could go out to dinner. On our way, we saw prints belonging either to a small female lion or a male leopard. We got pretty excited to follow them, but no leopard. A few roads later, we found one female lion walking straight towards us on the road. She was limping a bit, but was moving fairly quickly. She passed our truck with barely a second look, and continued on her way, so naturally, we trailed her. She was scent marking on trees, so she may have been doing a territorial stroll. She also appeared to be looking around and sniffing a lot, so she may have been beginning to hunt. We followed her for a good bit, until she disappeared into the block. As that time, we stopped to observe the most beautiful moonrise you could imagine. It was full moon tonight, and it rose in a gorgeous fiery orange tone. Then, we headed home to clean up for dinner. We went to Mahlahlah Lodge again, which was quite fun. There was a rugby game for Andrew, and then a soccer game for Wolfgang. Both of their teams won, so that’s great. I also learned a lot about various sports. Plus, I met two AMERICANS! Wooot! Two college students (one from Wisconsin and one from Arizona) and I met and got to talk about great American things, like REAL football and colleges. It was quite refreshing. And then, through some strange turn, apparently Lukas told one of his friends that Peter was my dad, just to mess with him. And then Wolfgang said he was my dad. So that became quickly awkward. Haha. I also met some cool kids from other countries who are working for another organization and chatted with them for a while. All in all, it was a fun night. The only downside is the 30 minute drive home in the freezing cold! We were all happy to pop into bed and warm ourselves up when we reached camp.