Paint the land red. A dazzle of zebra on the move on the edge of Botswana’s Makgadikgadi saltpan after the first rains
GREG HARTMAN
Our leisurely game drive takes a dramatic turn when a new lioness shows up. We’re busy cooing over two fuzzy little cubs, the mother and her sister relaxing in a nearby thicket, when the outsider appears, cautiously. “She’s not from —” our guide Dabe starts to say, but the two lionesses have already spotted her. They give chase. We follow the felines, our vehicle careering across the saltpan. The sisters are hot on the heels of the trespasser, swiping at her haunches.
A startled family of bat-eared foxes leg it as the lionesses streak towards them. The pair pursue the lioness right up to the edge of their territory, where the sparse grassland fades into a vast plain of crunchy salt. She turns to face her pursuers, and they launch into her in a flurry of dust and teeth and giant paws.