We Watched 15 Cars Surround a Lion in 60 Seconds

He was enormous — blood matting his fur, darkening the corners of his mouth — and he was lying under a tree in the early sun with light glittering in his amber eyes. We were among six tourists sitting in an open vehicle, shivering, and he squinted at us, not really bothering.

I had never seen a lion. I sat with my hands buried in my jacket, scarf up to my chin, and I was mesmerized.

Then a second vehicle pulled next to us, and a third. Our guide had been texting with his thumbs on fire — his phone seemed to be the only communication tool he had, despite the listing's promise of constant radio contact between drivers to increase the chances of spotting animals — and within thirty seconds there were ten cars arranged in a loose circle around this animal, engines idling, shutters firing.

The lion rose slowly, with dignity, and walked away. Our driver followed him off the road, over rocks the size of my head, bouncing across open ground while I gripped the metal frame with both hands and asked politely if we could please stop.

The other couples wanted more photos so we kept going.

Driving on a sliver of land

We had just crossed the width of Namibia — Cape Town to Windhoek, Deadvlei's pale cracked earth, the Skeleton Coast, Etosha's salt-white pans, then east through the Caprivi Strip, that thin corridor of land pressed between Angola and Zambia — and entered Botswana at Kasane, a small border town near the Okavango Delta where most of the safari tourism in this part of the country concentrates.

Kasane receives a steady stream of visitors, but it's a town that hasn't let tourism smooth out its edges. It reminded me of Siem Reap — warthogs trotting through the centre of town, which sounds cute until you learn they charge.

Our lodge was run by a local woman and her sister — lovely and warm people. The lodge was thoughtfully kept; we had homemade breakfast every morning and there were small luxuries that made us very happy.

That first evening we sat cross-legged on the bed scrolling Get Your Guide reviews that all sounded exactly the same. We couldn't decide, so we compromised on booking both a car safari and a boat safari, and it took about thirty minutes. I wish we had spent more time.

Freezing on safari

The guide drove to pick us up in the dark and early morning hours. Beginning of June — winter in the southern hemisphere — and even in two pairs of trousers and every layer I owned I was freezing. The vehicle had a roof and a metal frame but the sides were open, just a low railing, and the wind came straight through the fabric.

There were six of us plus the guide. We were all hunched under our blankets.

Our host had told us the day before that as a child walking to school in Kasane it was not uncommon to spot a lion on the road. She and her sister had grown up there, and built the lodge together. She said this very casually, like it was just a fact of the commute.

Once we were inside the park, the guide explained that lions perceive the vehicle and its occupants as a single shape, one large object, provided that nobody breaks the outline. The animal can't distinguish the people from the car. Keep your limbs in, stay low, and you'll be fine. I found this fascinating. We drove for hours. Giraffes at sunrise, elephants far off, dozens of them moving like grey silhouettes across the scrubland. And then mostly nothing — long stretches of dry road and low bush. What you see on a safari is largely a matter of luck. Animals are unpredictable.

We'd done a safari in South Africa already, where guides were in proper radio contact, and we'd ticked three of the Big Five. We were still hoping for a lion and a leopard.

A text arrived on the guide's phone and he turned the car.

Chasing a lion

Every morning a lion settles somewhere, a guide finds it, and a message goes out. Within minutes a dozen vehicles form a ring. The lion moves; they follow. The next day, the same choreography.

I have a master's degree in climate change. I booked a safari on Get Your Guide without doing a single hour of research. The shame was specific and earned.

Stuck on a boat, surrounded by elephants

That evening, we had a different kind of safari. A boat, with a different guide, who was a genuinely warm and knowledgeable man.

We motored along the Chobe river and the abundance was staggering: elephants at the banks, hippos surfacing from the depths with their heads bopping up and down. We pulled alongside a low sandy island where a crocodile was sunning itself on the shore, and a man on the neighbouring boat climbed to the bow, positioned himself perhaps a metre from the crocodile's head, and extended his phone for a selfie. I stopped breathing. The guides on both boats said nothing, nobody moved. I was, if I'm honest, half hoping for the crocodile to make a point.

Further along the same island, a herd of elephants had gathered at the water's edge — a baby tucked between the adults. Our boat pulled up on the shore, maybe three or four metres from the nearest animal. Other boats pressed in on either side. The adults shifted, turned to face us, and repositioned around the baby.

I could read the agitation in the set of their bodies, the way the nearest one kept adjusting her weight. I was sitting in a small, low boat, hemmed in on every side, with nowhere to go and no engine running, making increasingly urgent gestures at the guide that I wanted us to move. He didn't notice, or didn't agree.

Everyone else was taking photographs. I sat there doing the math: an elephant can crush a person without effort; we were three metres from a herd protecting a calf; and I had nowhere to escape.

We got magnificent photos — I'm not sure they were worth it.

The option we should have chosen

There is a place in Chobe — actually inside the park, right on the river — called the Chobe Game Lodge. I found it while we were in Kasane, looked at the rate, and closed the tab.

Chobe Game Lodge operates electric safari vehicles and boats. While our guide was grinding over rocks, chasing a lion that wanted to be left alone, people from that lodge were probably driving through the same park in silence.

Over sixty-five percent of their staff are women. They've held Botswana's highest ecotourism certification since 2012, one of the first ten lodges in the country to receive it.

I want to go back and do the safari with them, in one of those silent vehicles, with a guide who isn't motivated by 5-star Get Your Guide reviews.

I hope the lion got some sleep after we all left.