Aranya- in the wild —Linden

5-12-22 Linden Post (Machaba Safari Camp) Botswana

We found my spirit animal in the wild, the lions! As you may remember from my Mom’s writing is that my spirit animal was a little female lion named Aranya. She lived with a male lion named Dash who protected her. Now, she was found in her natural habitat. As we were out on our morning safari, Albert, our guide, stopped the car and looked out onto the dusty ground. He pointed out some lion tracks that were right beside us. We all clamored to look and yes indeed, they were lion tracks. Everyone got situated again and we started driving but none of us knew if we were going to the lion or not. Albert kept going while frequently poking his head out the side to look for more gigantic paw prints. After about a minute or two, we took a sharp left turn off the road, and into the bush. That was when I thought that it was pointless, and we were not going to find the rare lion. Right at that point, a smell we know quite well filled the air. A subtle smell, but the same smell we know. Dead animal. It smelled particularly like dead elephant. Albert then started being very alert. To every movement, smell, and footprint. Once leaving the trail, we went about 100 yards off to god knows where, while the stench got closer and closer and stronger and stronger. Then, in between the trees, two ears appeared. Round, tan ears. Lion ears. We came around the tree and laying right in front of us was Aranya. About double the size, but still my spirit animal. She kind of just stared at the car as we circled around her to get a better angle. We approached on her right side and when we got to her left, through the trees was another two set of ears. Albert explained that these two were young males, ones without manes yet. They both just sat staring at us in wonder of how we found them, of which I am still trying to figure. As we approached that one, a faint image of a big gray lump appeared on the other side of the trees. And there it was, the reason that the amazing predators were there and staying there. A dead elephant. But not only that. Another lion, a female was ripping it apart. As we looked closer, we realized that there were more. Another female about 15 feet away from the elephant. The car again moved for a better angle on the elephant and two more fuzzy faces appeared. One was another lioness lying in the tall grass after having had a big meal. The other was a small face, right smack dab on top of the big gray body, a cub. The cub was standing there like she owned the world. She posed while we all took pictures at the maybe 20 pound lion cub. She had the most beautiful markings on her face. While we were all in awe, she silently walked down the face of the elephant back over to Mom, the one in the tall grass. What I thought was that this was Aranya in her perfect place. The cub made it down and moved her small legs through the grass and plopped down next to Mom, who was about ten feet away from our Land Cruiser. The about 3 month old cub kept looking at us. I didn’t even know if she had ever seen a human before because she was curious, while the others were passed out from eating an elephant, literally. Albert got onto his walkie talky to tell others to come, and soon, there were 3 more cars circling through. At one point, the cub crawled over the mother to get to the other side, which was adorable. The lions each also took turns gnawing on the elephant, so each got their fill. This experience was amazing for me because I had never seen a lion in the wild until then. We stayed, studying every movement of the cub for about 30 minutes. It was funny to see all the lion tummies because all were plump and very round. The pride in total was 6 lions. Two being males, three females, and one female cub. Four Aranyas and two Dashes. This was one of three prides known of in the area. They are such majestic animals, but sadly, we had to keep moving, so we all waved bye and as quickly as they appeared, they were gone once more. Into the wilderness where anything can happen.