Dropping In For Coffee: Kalahari Lions

“Lions!” The word sort of stuck in John’s throat, coming out a choking growl, but conveying a clear message of alarm nonetheless. It was mid-morning, and we were lazing around camp after breakfast. Drinking coffee, washing dishes. Hannah had out her drawing journal and was working on faces; the shape and shading of noses, I think. Marlie was headed to the cab of the truck to retrieve something electronic: a kindle or iPod or such. I looked to where John was facing, and three lions were looking at us, squeezed together as if they were peeking around the corner of the outdoor shower enclosure on a dare. Emerging as if extruded on our side.

John and the girls were all close to the passenger side of the Land Rover, and scrambled directly in the doors. I had been washing dishes in the kitchen where a galley pulls out from the tailgate and expands to offer a stove, table, and shelves. The end of the truck that was facing the long drop (or pit toilet as we call them in the states) and the shower enclosure. Each a round spiral wall, beside the one on the right three very large cats were coming into camp.

As I leapt toward the driver’s side of the truck, I reminded myself “slowly!” and the second step was a walk. The number one lesson everyone tells about safety and lions, or most any predator for that matter, is don’t run or they’ll think you are food. Except crocodiles; they will always think you are food unless they are not hungry.

So, I walked, holding my breath and carrying a large pan full of dirty water to the far side and climbed in to the safety of the vehicle. I could have gone in the tent camper, as it opens out the tailgate and was closer, but having learned camping safety for dealing with grizzly bears, I don’t put the same faith in bit of canvas that everyone around Africa does. It also explains why I took the food laced water with me.

It still baffles us, lions will not bother a person in a tent, even with just the screen closed. I guess because they are hunters, they don’t see a man in a bit of nylon as food. The Africans could not understand our concern until I started to explain the bear thing like a baboon the size of a small car. Then they understand. Baboons will rip into tents if they smell food, but unless they are very desensitized to humans and bothersome they can be chased away fairly easily, unlike a bear.

We’d noticed the tracks earlier where a large cat had wandered past our camp in the night, and we’d heard them roar a few times during in the darkness; a sound that is distinctly out of Jurrasic Park. Now an older and younger female and a young male wandered into the camp, flopping down here and there to look at us. Sadly, my big camera and the keys were in the camper.
We sat with the windows mostly rolled up as they smelled the truck, laid down in front of it and watched us inside, sprayed the brush over by the path where the tracks skirted our camp, and wandered off down the trail. The whole thing felt a little like teenagers going up the hill to check out the man camp. “Let’s go see what’s going on up there… I dare you!” “OK, I’m in.” Then mom tagging along to keep the kids from getting into too much trouble.
Later, as we spent our day in camp looking over our shoulders, I could see the pride in the trees at the edge of Sunday Pan below us, lounging through the day. A large male sleeping in the shadows. Females lifting a head to look around from time to time. Watching them through the binoculars was comforting. If they were down there, surely they would not come into camp while one of us was sitting on the long drop.