If someone asked me, which is my favourite animal, or which one I liked the most on the safari, probably I’d be in trouble choosing any. Each of them has something special about them, something absolutely unbelievable. From the zebras’ unique stripes, through the giraffes’ skyscraping neck, to the trunk of the elephants, or even the vervet monkeys’ impossibly bright blue balls, the buffalos’ imposing horn which is like a shield, or the hyenas clumsy torso which slopes downwards toward their rumps, we find something particular and exceptional in every one of them. However, there is one animal, which has such undepictable magnificence that radiates across the entire savannah. I, of course, talk about the lion, or in Swahili it’s called simba (the naming of the Lion King is not a coincidence! 🙂 )
On our second safari day, we headed to the famous Serengeti National Park. We drove in the park around 3 in the afternoon. It is not a hectic part of the day, just like the people, animals have their silent hours around this time. So I didn’t have high expectations towards seeing much more than grazing zebras and wildebeests. And then it came, from the distance straight towards us! A male lion! I didn’t even grasp it first, he was still far from us, and even so, I couldn’t believe that it is here at this exact hour of the day, exactly in this tiny spot of the huge Serengeti? Is it really true? We stopped on the road, and he just kept walking towards us at an easy pace, not caring about us being there. Or any of the other cars who arrived there after us.
As the lion got closer and closer to us, we were standing in the car in complete silence, holding our breaths, and we were just looking at him trying to figure out his next move. Isn’t it great that an animal can have such an effect? It appears from the rangeland, and the man, who is said to be the top of the food chain, becomes speechless, and gets lost in the animal’s magnificent steps, its wind-blown mane, and tries to search its eyes to guess what this simba is doing here. The lion of course knows exactly that he has the power, he is the ruler, and even if he now rather fancies an afternoon siesta in the sun, the land freezes around him. His emission spreads like a robe after him, and you can feel it on your skin, as probably the small insect on the ground or the grazing zebras in the distance can feel it, too.
Then he was right next to our car, and I could directly see his glossy hair on his body, his fuzzy mane, and his tufted tail. The thought rushed through my mind that how many fights he must have had? How many zebras, wildebeests or buffalos have already been caught by him? What does he think of the car standing in front of him, and of me who’s standing in the car without any particular defence? How does he perceive us at all? Would it not come to his mind to suddenly jump upon the car? Because he could definitely do that if he wanted to, there are no bars or safety net between us. But why would he do that at all, since we didn’t do anything that could give him a reason for that, and he’s not like the humans, he doesn’t attack or kill just for the sake of it.
Amid such thoughts, I kept watching with excitement how he walks past our car, and heads towards the rock on the other side of the road. He stops in front of it, measures it with his eyes, then easily jumps upon it to take his righteous place on the throne. It’s almost like a movie scene, the way how he stares into the distance on the top of the big rock. Then being satisfied with the place and the scenery, he lies down, and though he is looking around for a few more minutes, or just holding his head against the sun, at the end, he gives himself over to relaxation, and stretches his body completely.
This is the encounter which sticks in my mind forever. After this, we saw lions quite many times, that I will tell you later about, because they showed us so many different faces, but this was the perfect first encounter. Peacefully, calmly, magnificently, imposingly, indicating who’s the king of the Serengeti and the entire savannah.
