We finally decided that we needed to give them their space and started to drive off. The dominant king lion must have thanked us for making his competition from the other two go away. But just as we started off we heard excited human voices and knew they were headed for certain disaster. We revved off our car towards the noises and found four Maasai women chatting animatedly as they made a beeline to a river, 100m between them and the mating lions.

Maasai co-exist with the wildlife

We were about to leave when I noticed their surprised look. Like we didn’t understand that lions are part of their life. Like we needed not to have bothered them with the obvious. That’s when I realized how much the Maasai have learnt the art of co-existence with the wildlife. I wouldn’t have been amazed if they had walked right passed us, as we watched the lions like there was no danger. I imagine them walking in between us and the pride, chatting and laughing at this group of tourists huddled silently, scarred stiff and almost immobilized by the sheer might of the African lion at a mating contest.

The million dollar gaze of the lion

This was an experience that I always relive when I look at the photos taken on that safari. It’s what an African lion safari does to you. You get to be in the presence of his highness the majesty king of the Jungle…in his tuff. Nothing beats that glaring look and the thrill that goes with it when your eyes lock into his menacing, unblinking and threatening stare…That’s the African lion stare….humbling it is.

African Lion coming of age

The African lion matures at the age of 4-5 years. A fully grown male lion has a very dark mane while the youth grow a mane gradually, which then darkens as they progress in age. The males are pushed off their families when they become sexually mature by the king of the pride. African Lions usually sleep and rest for 16hours a day only getting up to hunt in the early mornings, late evenings and at night. Usually the King-lion of the pride commands between 5-10 lionesses including the cubs. This male will aggressively protect its territory against intruding males who contest for the females.

Overthrowing the Lion King

There are a lot of coup d`e’tat in the lion kingdom and the male constantly gets into territorial wars with invading lions. Once in a while a female becomes disenchanted and leaves the pride to seek out younger and more aggressive males. Once a lion has successfully overthrown a dominant male, they set upon establishing their kingdom immediately by making the females submissive. How they do this is what will surprise you.

Conqueror males kill all Cubs One of the most bizarre behaviour of lions is that a conqueror male often kills all young cubs fathered by the defeated former king lion of the pride. The lioness will fight, sometimes to death, when the male lion goes for her cubs. There are two reasons for this behaviour, one is to establish a lineage of his own and secondly to as quickly as possible make the females come to oestrus and ready to mate. It’s always a rush before other male lions come to undermine his authority over the pride.

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