Morning at Tarangire

After a nice evening at Tarangire Sopa Lodge, we lugged ourselves from our warm beds at 5.30am in the morning for an early morning game drive. But we didn't see any animals (that we hadn't already seen) and it was dark, cold and miserable for most of it... and I got increasingly panicky that we would leave safari without having caught a good glimpse of a LION! (Unknown to me, everybody else felt the same but we just didn't say!) Karim saw LION footprints on the road, and followed it for almost a good hour, but it led to nothing except a couple of warthogs and impala. After this futile driving around for 2hours, the radio in our car started crackling to life again, announcing to us that something 'interesting' has been spotted! Karim sped to the mystery location and this is what we saw:

A Lioness had just killed a Zebra! Although we felt very sorry for the zebra, we were too happy that we finally saw a lion!!!! With fresh kill somemore. And the fact that she was sitting alone not eating could only mean a few things: (1) She was waiting for the rest of the pack to come and eat; or (2) She was resting before she feasted on the fruits of her labour. In any event, Karim said we should go back for our own breakfast, check out, and then return when the show would definitely get more exciting. So we sped back to the lodge and packed and ate and checked out in record time (31 minutes). Upon our return to the site, this is what we saw:

The lioness had her head in the zebra happily enjoying her feast and TWO CUTE LITTLE LION CUBS were by her side! Karim said they were very young and still on milk. He said that sometimes a mother would leave the pride with her children because the lion king may eat the cubs (if he is really hungry, or if he feels threatened). This made us feel that a mother lion is really very 伟大, because they are responsible for both hunting and finding food, as well as to take care of their children, and they would give up everything for their children! Unlike the lazy bugger of a lion king who sleeps all day......

So with that, we were so happy and Li Ling declared, "WAH I was thinking to myself maybe I have to come back in 5 years to see a lion!" and "I wanted to kick myself for not letting Rebec wake that first lion up!!!" And everyone made similar declarations of relief and admissions of near-panic earlier that morning.

Karim announced it was time for us to leave the park (our entry pass expired at 11am) and we crossed our fingers hoping for more luck on our way out (we were still 40km from the main gate) Altho I did more than cross my fingers - I openly hinted to Karim that we wanted to see MORE LIONS!

And more lions we did see!!

With that we happily left the park and headed back to Arusha. We made sure to leave our happy thoughts behind for all to see:

大功告成！（Big Work is Done!)

Karim and us and our trusty safari landcruiser!