10/04/2017
If you're looking for heart-racing, once-in-a-lifetime experiences in the wild, look no further than Africa.
Here, and especially in our national parks and reserves, wildlife rules.
Like when staff in the Namiri Plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania were trapped inside their tents after a pride of 10 lions brought down and devoured a buffalo right in their midst. They just had to wait it out...
The same way Joburg campers Francie Lubbe and her husband had to stay inside their tents when they woke to the sound of lions licking the windows! They were camping in the Mabuasehube Campsites on the Botswana side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
The big cats still dominate - a lesson Tally Angle from North Carolina in the US had a front-row introduction to when she was staying at Singita Ebony Lodge in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve in Kruger National Park.
She describes the experience of a leopard setting up camp in their midst as 'utterly enchanting'.
"This 18-month-old leopard enjoyed dinner on our doorstep, camping out under our porch, and then showing up with breakfast on the tree limb 20 ft (about 6 metres) from our back porch!" she says on the official SANParks - Kruger National Park Facebook page where the photos were originally shared.
"The funniest thing he did was steal couch cushions from the main lodge and drag them into the branches of surrounding trees. Oh, he also walked in one morning at breakfast and stole an apple from the reception fruit bowl. All together it was absolutely amazing!"
Although the Angles were moved to another room after the leopard made himself at home, "he spent the afternoon watching me have a facial and massage at the resort spa," Tally says. "The staff was calling me the Leopard Whisperer...."