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Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Pictures by Jo & David Spinney

March 8th 2018

We had some terrible rain through the night and everything was a bit wet in the morning but we still go ready to go out for our game drive. As we left the driveway to the main road the road was like a lake. The vans are pretty good at getting through a lot of sticky areas but with the rain we got the night before and the waters that run off constantly from Kilimanjaro it just stopped us all in our tracks. One van tried to overtake us and got stuck in the waters. We sat there for just over an hour waiting for the waters to subside (which it did), but it was very interesting watching around us. Children and mothers were still walking through the knee-high waters to get to school and motorcycles were still pushing through the waters so they can get to work. Amazing how we sit here and say “roads closed no way to get out so we’ll just stay in” and you go to a country that must make it through to work (or they don’t get paid) and go to school (because in Kenya the parents get huge fines for their children not going into class). There is no stopping these people getting things done with not a single complaint and it makes me angry that we complain as much as we do and wish we wouldn’t take so much for granted.

We got through the gates and within a half hour we were parked up watching 2 lions mate. This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. HA The female lion lies down and shows interest for the male. The male will then give her 10 seconds of his precious time and then she’ll roll around. After about 10 minutes (or when she’s ready) she will lie down for the male again. This will continue on until she has enough (and most likely impregnated) We must have sat there for just over an hour until they walked off together into the bushes. That happened on the first day around the park and the second day we had a twist. Now I don’t know if the same male and female lion were finding frisky time in the bushes but when we returned they were there again but today there was another female lion. Ohhhh drama! The couple started running away from the lone female and went to another section of the bushes. The lone female still followed. What is happening is the lone female wants the male’s attention but she must push out the dominant female. In order for the partner of the male to keep him is to resist and stay strong, holding her ground that this male lion is hers and hers only. Pretty exciting watching how nature works and thinking they have the same dramas as we do.

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