Dropping Naramat’s Collar

Our vehicles on game drive had found Naramat and let us know where she was. We drove out and parked next to Naramat but that is where the events diverged from what we had imagined. No sooner had the signal been fired to drop the collar, than Naramat decided to walk into the bush in front of her. The collar fell off inside the bush and Naramat decided this was an interesting toy. She grabbed it in her mouth and walked away from us, but just then was confronted by a male lion who wanted the new toy too. There was a bit of an argument between the two lions and the collar fell on the ground. We drove up to it and were waiting for the lions to leave the vicinity when the male lion decided to come back for it. He snatched it and ran into the bush to play with it. There was little for us to do but to wait. Finally, were forced to shoo him away and then one of our Masai guides got off his vehicle to retrieve the collar. A good three hours spent on what we thought would take ten minutes!