After a delicious late afternoon tea, we went on our first game drive in the Moremi Game Reserve. Our instructions from the driver were to keep arms and legs inside the vehicles and don’t wave or talk to the animals (“they won’t understand you”). Our first sightings were of elephants, impalas and waterbucks.

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We then had our first sighting of a lion pride – these were lionesses on the hunt! They came very close to our vehicles but appeared oblivious to our presence (similar to the single-file walking safari, when we’re in a vehicle, animals don’t perceive individual humans). They were on the lookout for prey, and after a while they moved away. As we were leaving, it appears they were rewarded as we could hear animal cries in the distance.

Hmm.. didn’t quite follow the instructions for body parts…

“Do you know what the tourists are looking at?” – “I have absolutely no idea.” – “Well, you know tourists – they’ll gape at anything!”

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The sun had already set, and as we were driving back to the lodge we spotted a leopard with the aid of a flashlight wielded by our driver. These are the best pictures I could get, but we would be rewarded tomorrow morning with a much better – and closer – leopard sighting.

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A traditional African boma is an outdoor barbecue meat buffet. This evening we enjoyed a boma catered by the lodge. These pictures (albeit a bit fuzzy) show the enclosure where we had dinner around a fire pit with the buffet opposite.