What was going on? Six lions were taking a late afternoon siesta off the road and under the trees. Impossible to see from the road, rangers were collecting an extra 200 Rupees from each jeep to go off-road and see the lions. Asked if we wanted to wait and pay, the answer was, Hell, yes! The rangers totally blew my mind when when our jeep turned into the trees; a group casually sat around a fire near the pride, schmoozing and eating with no fear that the lions would attack. You couldn’t have paid me enough to get out of a jeep next to a pride of lions!
Visitors are allowed to get out of the jeeps during game drives to pee and we’d look in all directions before alighting. With 400 lions in the park and, supposedly, many leopards (chances of seeing one in this tree filled forest is slim to none in my opinion), a person can’t be too careful. But it appeared that no one else was afraid of being on the lion’s dinner menu. We patiently sat and waited our turn while still more jeeps pulled up to wait in line.
Our turn, and there they were. Six lions spread out under the trees sleeping so soundly that they appeared comatose…View image. Two lions lay on their backs with paws up in the air…View image…while only one lion showed any interest in the jeeps…View image.
Beyond excited by a 10-lion total for the afternoon, three jackals topped off the day by crossing the road on the way out of the park…View image.
On the road back towards Sasangir town, a parade of gaily dressed locals came towards us. It was a festival to celebrate the prophet Mohammed’s death. People carried what looked like a brightly decorated paper mosque towards the river…View image. Prayers would be said and then the, whatever it was, would be immersed in the river. I didn’t really understand exactly what they were doing but still managed to snap off a few shots…View image.
Back at Lion Safari Camp, we discovered guests returning from the river where they had gathered to watch swarms of fruit bats who come out at 6:45p every evening to feed. The two of us were frozen, crippled from the game drive, and only wanted to eat and go to sleep with a 4:00a wake-up in store for tomorrow.
The dinner buffet was supposed to begin at 7:30p but wasn’t ready until 8:00p. More chicken, rice, dal, potatoes with eggplant and a dessert that I had never tasted before; Coconut Burfi (I think) was covered in shredded coconut and bound together with some sweet ingredient. More yum…
