When one goes on a safari, we often long for an up-close encounter with a wild animal. But Hannetjie van der Westhuizen couldn’t have dreamt of a more personal experience as this lion climbed the car’s window!
When you ask frequent Kruger Park goers what the top road for lions in the park is, they will most likely answer “the S100.” It is an open road with open plains, attracting lots of prey, thus, has lots of lions.
On the 14th of August 2018, the S100 didn’t fail to deliver. Hannetjie explains to LatestSightings.com:
“There was a sighting of a pride of 5 lions, but, this pride in Kruger is famous for “interacting” with the cars. There was a young male who was especially curious.”
“We were very excited and scared at first, but then we realized that lion was more curious and playful and was merely investigating.”
At the beginning of the video, you can see how this lion finds the side mirror to be a nice chew-toy. But after getting bored of that, it suddenly sees the people inside and it almost looks as if it is waving at them. He climbed onto the window with two paws, and tried to bite the glass!
“He was seriously chewing on the tyres, and I thought those sharp teeth may damage them, so we decided to move on.”
In the park, tourists are allowed to drive with the windows open, and it is actually recommended to hear the sounds of the bush. But… If you get to a lion sighting, where the lions are really close to the road, it is recommended to keep the windows closed in case this happens!
This sighting could have ended quite differently if the windows were open.
Hannetjie commented: “Most of my 48 years of visiting the park, I have had to use binoculars and a lot of imagination to spot a lion, never ever had an encounter like this!”