My First Kill

4.30am in Kruger Park - dawn is just breaking - Ester and I climb into the (extremely open) ute with our guides, Erik and Geven, and two bloody HUGE (and very comforting) rifles (.458 Winchester magnums - bullets the length of my fingers), heading off for a walking safari (leaving our camp mates snoring).
The first thing I see is the giraffe's head - laying eyeless - just a few feet from the road, then we spot the lions surrounding the disembowelled carcass - just a few feet farther. Apparently they eat the soft organs first and then later, when that meal goes down, they eat again.
We stop and watch them watching us and try and take photos in dark.
We drive past later with a gang and they are still there, the carcass is now smelling really ripe, flies are swarming over the spilt entrails and the male lion is lifting the head and tearing at the neck - again all within a few feet of us.

We CSI the scene - after generations in the park predators have adapted their hunting styles and the lions have learnt that giraffes can't run on the paved roads without slipping. Hence they will separate a single animal and run alongside to steer their victim to the tarmac where they lose their footing and fall. We can see the dirt when the giraffe stumbled and the drag marks to where the lions made the kill.