This wasn’t exactly on my bucket list, but in hindsight, maybe it should have been. Having a wild, full-size male lion take a leak on your safari vehicle sounds pretty badass, doesn’t it?
Well, here’s how it happened. After an amazing few days in the Serengeti National Park, we drove down to the Ngorongoro Crater (which is also one of the coolest places we have visited in Africa). We spent the morning checking out rhinos and wildebeests before we stumbled upon this scene.
A male lion was devouring a fresh kill while the females waited patiently for the leftovers (sorry, ladies that’s how it goes in the animal kingdom). The interaction between the pride was interesting to watch as the hierarchy of the lions ate one by one without much fighting in a regimented fashion.
After the dominant male was finished, that’s when it started to get interesting for us as we watched the lions eat from the safety of our safari vehicles.
He passes the meat to the next lion in line and starts toward the driving path where our land rovers were parked. We are all hanging out of the pop-up tops and windows of our trucks as he approaches quite quickly.
I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking this lion could easily find his next snack in one of us, plucking someone from the truck as we gawk at him. Thankfully, he must have been full. He had other things on his agenda.
Alpha lion chose to continue his dominance, this time on us, literally. He non-nonchalantly marches up to the back of the Land Rover and lifts his tail over the spare tire hung from the back door, and proceeds to mark the truck as his territory.
After marking the truck as his, he shows us that he is the boss and lies down directly in front of one of the trucks. He seems to be saying, “you’re not going anywhere” to us as he sits in the shade cast by the hood of the truck.
If you are looking at taking a safari on your own, we’d recommend booking with Tour Radar and getting on an Acacia Africa operated overland.
*We would like to thank Acacia Africa for inviting as guests on such an amazing opportunity. As always, the content & opinions expressed here are entirely our own.*
