During my trip Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, I made time to do a safari. We first visited Lake Manyara, then the Serengeti and at the end the Ngorongoro Crater. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was going to see a lion kill. But that’s exactly what we got to see. We saw two of them in progress, one with a solo lioness in the Serengeti and another with a trio of lionesses working together in the Ngorongoro Crater.
Lion kills are a slow thing with the beast slowly and deliberately moving to not alert the prey to their presence. The trio of lionesses was way too slow and after like 45 minutes of watching them without them getting an inch closer to the target group, we moved on. But the solo lioness was a different story. Though it was taking a long time too, at least she was moving towards the target group (wildebeests, or “gnus“) so we hung in there. And we were rewarded with quite a sight. And the weird thing was, there were vehicles like ours all around (all of us silent, of course) and the presence of the vehicles did not seem to distract her from her focus on the target group and her cautious approach. That probably was the most amazing thing for me!
So here is a series of photo from the moment we saw her until her moment of rest when it was all said and done…
