Another Day, Another Lion: On Safari in Tanzania

By Patricia Lee Sharpe



The morning I rebelled against the daily game drive routine, I sat on our tent’s verandah and watched a small troupe of elephants filing through the scrubby vegetation on the opposite bank of an arroyo.  (That's an impala out front.) My grandson tallied some 49 lions that day.  He played it cool, but I could tell.  He was thrilled.  And proud.  In fact, much of his cat count came from the afternoon drive, which I gladly shared with him, but my need for a furlough developed from something that travel brochures can't very well mention: game safaris involve long hours of pure tedium as well as wondrous encounters with wildlife. 

After the first day or so, when novelty produces spasms of ecstasy over every elegant but omnipresent impala or   weirdly-formed baobab trees, you begin to notice the draggy side of trolling the bush for bragging rights.  The sun’s a killer all day long near the equator. You block UVA and B with goop; you hunch under the Landrover’s canopy; you fall into daydreams that involve chasing polar bears.  Meanwhile, every acacia tree, thanks to its unforgettable umbrella shape, looks like every other  acacia tree (check out the zebra, by the way),   and the sprinkling of palms, marulas, sausage trees, etc., is statistically constant in very direction. 

You drive and drive and what you see is—oh no!  You see more impala, in predictable groupings distinguished by the presence  of no horns, all horns or impressive rack presiding over hornless females, distinctions without much difference, except to zoologists or trophy hunters. So you’re thinking you never ever want to see another impala—until suddenly these prime prey animals become aware of something worrisome.  A lion, perhaps.  They freeze, except for their heads, which swivel like big-eared periscopes.  And then they’re off—and you fall in love with their way of bounding over every obstacle in high graceful arcs (which this photo doesn't begin to capture). 

This safari with my grandson was my second experience in Tanzania’s Selous Game Preserve. The first time around, the logistics were cheap and simple.  We—my Tanzanian friends and I—would load a flat of eggs, a few pounds of rice and some back-up cans of baked beans, plus a de rigeur bottle of commissary Scotch—my contribution, into a barely functional Landrover of WWII vintage, along with personal sleeping bags and some faded old tents. A hunting license allowed my friends to shoot for the pot.  Although it might be dusk before the duly licensed animal was secured, we never had to subsist on the tinned stuff. 

Alone in my tent back then, I shrank from the powerfully resonant roaring of lions, and yet I never saw a lion.  Nor did I see any big cats during my visits to a baboon research camp, three hours from Dar es Salaam, in Mikumi National Park.  So I still remember the one smallish  pride we managed to approach, when a Tanzananian friend and I made a quick tour of the famous  northern parks—Serengeti, Ngorongoro, et. al. 

This month, when my grandson and I spent several days in the Northern portion of the Selous Game preserve, where hunting is tabu, the lions—and the elephants—were richly in evidence. The same was true when we shifted, for a few more days, to Ruaha National Park.  I hope this allows me to conclude that conservation efforts are working reasonably well.

With lions so abundant, we had to be careful.  We were never to stray from established paths as we made our way from secluded tents to the communal dining areas—and we needed an armed guard to do so after dark.  This was upscale travel, so I didn’t have to pee outside the tent, juggling flashlight, pistol and tp, wondering what was lurking in the darkness.  Still,  canvas is canvas.  Elephants might wander through these camps, and nothing’s proof against elephants on a rampage.  Thoughts of being stomped, skewered by tusks or turned into steak tartare for lions can keep you awake, even after a solar-powered hot shower.  

Of course, I wanted my grandson to have fun, but that was 
guaranteed. And I wanted for us a little high quality bonding time.  But above all I wanted to give him something more: immersion in the beauty of this vast, largely unpeopled savannah while it’s still possible to experience a nearly natural version of it.*  Maybe he’d be inspired to help protect this and other eco-niches from destruction under pressure from relentless human activity.  I also hoped that he’d come to view the extinction of species as a tragedy to be avoided. More viscerally, as I lay awake, not in a sleeping bag, but on 
a comfortable bed, since I no longer have Tanzanian friends to whom I dare trust my son’s son's life,  I hoped he would hear a lion’s kingly roar or maybe an elephant's high pitched piping sometime before morning.  It never happened.  But he saw lions.  And  more lions. 

And yet more lions.  Not bad.  But let’s be clear about this: nothing resembling the rawness of a truly primeval experience is possible anywhere on the planet in the twenty-first century. Exhausted, ill, endangered or just plain sick of it all, wherever you are, you can always reach the settled world by satellite phone, if you choose—and the very modern element of choice is crucial here. We transited camps in quick hops by bush plane, not by lumbering Landrover and certainly not in caravans of maltreated porters. As for those boarding passes which guaranteed good seats for the long flight home, they were printed  in a game camp office before we drove off to meet the Cessna that would return us Dar.  I could have googled the news every night we were in the bush.  I chose not to.

Meanwhile: lions.  Our superbly-educated, articulate guide/drivers knew their business, the science and the practicalities.  Most days they delivered their customers to the lions they sought.  Early on we found it difficult to spot the big cats, even when our eyes strained to follow a pointing finger.  Tawny fur blends with devilish perfection into the straw that carpets dry season savannah.  In time we learned where and how to look. And there they were, sleeping it off, all too often, as lethargic as an American  family after a Thanksgiving feast. After you’ve kept vigil over more than a few such sleep fests, a game drive gets a little boring. Two lions sleeping.  Three lions sleeping.  Eight.  Ho hum.  

Unless there are cubs to watch.  Lion cubs, like kittens, are endlessly fascinating, although they too are susceptible to naps.  Still, when awake, they're lively. They explore.  They tussle.  They gnaw at sticks.  They snack, while mama sleeps. And when lion cubs decide that a mother’s black- tufted tail is an irresistible toy, lionesses do exactly what calico cats do.  They wake up. As per feline norm, big mama bats the cubs aside, twitches her tail, rolls over and goes back to sleep.  Occasionally, though, she gets to her feet to inspect the intruders.  According to our guides, the gawkers sitting in a vehicle are integral parts of the machine, so far as lions are concerned.  Like wheels.  Or the canopy.  So she’s not salivating. She’s not licking her chops.  And we don't frighten her one little bit. In due time, she flops down and loses a very brief struggle to keep her eyes open.  In prides consisting of several lionesses and many rambunctious cubs, one lady lion usually remains on the alert, head up, eyes open, but—I’m sorry to report—all but motionless.  As reality TV, the Lion Show wouldn’t last long without lots of brutal editing.   

When a fully maned male lion is around, which is seldom, since the ladies are in charge of family life and accomplish, by stalking  cooperatively, most of the successful hunting, the routine remains the same. Gorge and snooze.  Occasionally game watchers are lucky, though.  They  happen upon lions stalking or making the kill.  Next best is finding them at a meal.  We followed some circling vultures one afternoon and discovered a pair of lionesses finishing up their supper.  One gnawed at the bloody carcass whose toothy, almost faceless grin shouted wildebeest.  The other kept an eye  out for packs of wild dogs or hyenas that might be eager to horn in on the feast.     

A sleeping lion looks as dangerous as a door mat.  On all fours, it’s transformed into a very impressive animal. And when a lion yawns, which is fairly often, given all the sleepiness, its incisors are impressive enough to humble the most blasé human.  Due attention to a lion’s oversized paws reinforces the rational shivers.  Who hasn’t been badly scratched by a panicky kitten or a Siamese diva? 

Silly people, trying for a close up shot of sleeping lions, expose themselves.  Sometimes they get badly hurt.  Sometimes a eulogy’s in order, as if zoom lenses were yet to be invented.  My grandson and I were happy to sit where we were, clicking away, confident that our guide would whisk us out of danger, if necessary.  Ha! 

Toward evening one day we’d tired of watching two cubs and a sleeping lioness. Besides, it was time to head back to camp.  The guide said, “Ready?” We nodded and he turned the key.  Nothing happened.  You know the drill. You try again.  And again.  The engine growls, but doesn’t catch.  After each try, we glanced at the lioness.  Would the raspy sound turn a narcoleptic into a wide awake beast with a bad temper?  And what if papa lion showed up?  We were marooned in an open vehicle without doors to latch or canvas to zip around us, one leap from disaster—and weaponless.  Park rules.

So what’s a driver do?  He radioed for help, naturally.  This is the twenty-first century.  Pretty soon another vehicle arrived.  Not from our camp, but that didn’t matter.  The code of the bush says that  everyone helps everyone else.  Bumper to bumper, we got a
push to the top of a rise.  Down we coasted and vroom! the jump start got us on our way. 

By then the sun was setting and the display was appropriately   sensational. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we felt ourselves lucky to be alive, but the beauty of a kaleidoscopic sky was much enhanced, I think, by the delight of bumping along in the cool evening air and—yes—the fact that we were safe and able to watch it.  That's more or less what I was thinking anyway.  My grandson was busy taking photos.  This one is his.

*It may be that the terrain we think of as the unspoiled habitat of the animals we outsiders gush over is really the result of depopulation from a variety of causes.  According to this theory, once cultivated lands reverted to something like a previous state, allowing for a return of wildlife in a way that should give hope to ecologists elsewhere.  See John Reader's Africa: A Biography of the Continent (Penguin, 1998).