Guide Alex tells us her wonderful story about seeing two beautiful male lions in Savuti

Our BT14 - Botswana Wildside stays two days in Savuti where we do wild camping.  There is nothing better than camping in the wild with no one else around.  You feel so close to nature. Savuti is actually part of Chobe National Park but what I love about the National Parks in Botswana is that there are no fences so the animals are free to roam wherever they like to, following normal migration patterns and even crossing borders to Zimbabwe without a Passport.  It is no problem for them and no queuing up to get a permit like us humans have to.

While in the national parks we spend our time game driving and on this day we drove into the Savuti Marsh. We heard from another guide about two male Lions which he saw not far from where we were, so we went to check it out.

At first we couldn’t find them, so we continued further into the Marsh for Game Drive. On the way back out we suddenly came across the lions, two beautiful big males, who belong to a group of five males which rule the Savuti Marsh area. One of them was laying down a bit further into the bush and the other one was busy scent marking around some shrubs.

Our Botswana Guide (who is very good at mimicking animal noises) ' talked' to the lion by giving a roar – only once  and the one lion promptly answered with a roar. He was about 10 meters away from our open game drive vehicle. He roared once and looked right at our car but looking at his face closer he was looking 'through' our car, focusing on what was behind and deciding what other Lion was calling to him in the first place.

He roared a few more times and came closer to our car, but with no one answering, we could clearly see the confusion in his face. He came to the other side and still roared, keeping a lookout for any intruder. After a while, probably thinking he must have imagined the first call, he flopped down next to our car and relaxed there for a while before getting up to join his friend under the tree.

What a wonderful sighting and experience.