Frits rescues his hat and a hog loses its toupee
The early morning wind that comes in through the open roof of our minivan is still cool but holds a hint of the heat the day will bring. We drive slowly past endless fields of long, yellowed grass. Our driver, Yahaya, is on the lookout.
It's easy to miss a lion that hides in the long grass |
Frits stands up to have a wider view across the yellow fields of the Serengeti. "Oh, my cap," he yells and grabs for his hat. He misses, and the gust of wind lifts it straight off his head and deposits it somewhere behind us. Yahaya stops the car; before he can take any further action, Frits (who happens to sit beside the sliding door), unlocks the door and jumps out of the vehicle to search for and rescue the wayward headgear.
On male lions a mane covers the head and neck, varying in color from black to tawny |
Some thirty meters away, on the side of the road, the white cap lies waiting patiently for its owner to come and pick it up. Yahaya backs up, following the careless tourist close on his heels. He doesn't comment, but Helma tells Frits that jumping out of the car isn't the smartest thing to do in a National Park in Africa.
The cap is recovered; the tourist safe back inside with the door secured and Yayaha sets the car in motion again. Fifty meters further on, Helma is proven right. Yahaya breaks and we all know immediately he has seen something. We get up for a better look and he points. We gasp and no doubt Frits swallows down a lump.
There are some 1,500 lions in the Serengeti alone |
 
In the wild, male lions live an average of 12 years |
Hidden in the long grass, about three meters away from the road, two young, male lions crouch over a fresh kill. They are barely visible to the untrained eye and without Yahaya's experience we would have missed them completely. One of the lions raises his head a bit and appraises the vanload of white meat. But he's not interested. He and his buddy find a much surer meal in the warthog beneath their claws.
Yahaya switches off the engine and over the snickers about Frits risking his life to save his hat, we hear a strange noise. "Hear that?" Yahaya asks. "Hear the crunching?"
The sound of lions' teeth scrunching bone is loud in the silence |
It's hard to miss in the silence that follows his words as we all listen. Scrunch, chomp, munch. The lion's jaws gnaw on the bones of the warthog. Scratch, scratch. A rough tongue chafes at the coarse hair that lines the hog's back. At last the big cat manages to tear the hair loose and discards it. It looks like a big toupee.
The other feline approaches. With a growl, he demands his share, grabs a hog-leg and pulls. The lions snarl and paw at each other, each with his teeth clamped securely around a part of their prey. The dead beast is not up to this sort of mistreatment and with the sound of rending flesh it tears in two. Both lions now possess half a pig and they settle down for more crunching and gnashing.
The next time Frits looses a hat, he'll think twice before going to its rescue.
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