My Favorite Night Game Drive

One of my favorite night game drives experiences took place in Zambia’s Kafue National Park on the Busanga Plains.  After enjoying a lovely sundowner cocktail we were making our way back to camp for dinner.  The night sky was brilliant with the stars twinkling above in the saturated black sky. It is such a pleasure to escape the light pollution of my everyday life and see the night sky.   

The vehicles headlights were showing us the way as we cut our way through the still grasses that had grown up during the wet season even along the center of the dirt road.  And then we came to a wonderful sighting.  A large pride of lion feeding on a kill.  The lion seemed restless and agitated by our presence and the fact they we had interrupted their feast.   They were very vocal so we backed off to a safe distance and that’s when our guide did something a bit unexpected.  Off went the engine, off went the headlights, off went the spotlight, ON went the NIGHT. 

We sat in pitch darkness and listened, listened to the lion’s mealtime conversations and terrible table manners.  The crunching of bones, the roaring argument over who got the last leg, not to mention the chorus of insects who provided that background music.  It was probably only 30 seconds but it felt much longer – and I will never forget it.