Plain tales and the lion who roared
Two lions woke us at dawn, roaring just down from the tent. It was less a command to zip up the canvas, more a warning not to interfere with the kill they’d made that night. We rose and dressed as the light cancelled out the night and walked to the mess tent accompanied by a camp guard for pre-dawn coffee and biscuits. Mpatiany and Kararei the spear carrying warriors, Lorna the guide and myself set out into the realm of the lions. The marks of the hyena passing by our tents still fresh in the wet mud.

In the soft light of morning we make our way through the knee high red oat grass into the shallow valley beyond the camp. Umbrella styled acacia trees stand picturesquely against the illuminating sky and a small river trickles over basalt red rocks. The hyena, a large male appears out from the grass, whose lopsided run and distorted smile makes him more comical than a threat. He lolls along beside us, keeping his distance. The warriors are unperturbed and chat and laugh as they always do. He crashes through some scrub only to reappear a little while later in the same gap that we are making for. He turns, grinns, and with a sigh trots off.

Teeming with the exotic
We walk up the far side of the valley weaving through thorn scrub and granite boulders. We alarm brilliantly white bottomed Grant gazelles high knee their way out of sight and reach the wide expanse of open plain where we’d seen the cheetah sit last evening. The grass teems with the exotic. There is no cover here save for the odd isolated bush or tree and the huge panorama of moving life, of twitching ears, working jaws and swishing tails is there to see. My eyes flit from a group of elands, their dewlaps rocking as they move, to the balletic impalas earth brown, to the gazelles, jittery and sartorial, and over to the gnus, flighty and black resembling Spanish bulls against the sky. We glass the plains and frame a male elephant, quiet and distant, as it gently lightfoots across the never ending plains. There is breeze which carries grunts and bleats and smells of cattle, rich and full.

We pause on a slab of rough basalt letting the sun warm our bones. I lie looking up at the sky and see in the corner of my eye, a leopard tortoise doing the same on another rock nearby. The guides continue with their talking. Our thirst is strong and we drink chilled water from our flasks. Through the knee high grass again we walk, avoiding the silvered thorns of acacia and pass a pile of elephant dung which the guide says can be boiled and drunk as tea to heal a wound, or to be put in hives to calm the bees.

Too much Hemingway
After making a broad crescent path on the table top flatness of the plains, we return back down to the valley. I walk and sometimes stumble behind the ease of the two young warriors, who chat as they go, never stopping to look beyond their feet, nor to re-gain breath. In this declivity with its silver light on the gentle stream I will an animal to surprise us. I note the wind - or its lack today - and wonder in which direction I should go if the elephant should appear from behind the scrub. I practice my walking backwards in case I should meet the lion (never turn around and run) and look for the tree I must climb should a buffalo charge. Awareness is all out here. Senses are on alert. I’ve been reading too much Hemingway and I will something to tingle the nerves of alarm, to see how we’d shape up, my guides and I.

On re-gaining the ridge a giraffe peers down from its great height, its markings like cracked mud. It is chewing in a measured way and languorously decides to move on as we approach, taking that enormous body away with surreal grace. A jackal, more hieroglyph than dog, sits alert and still on a termite tomb. An ostrich dances in its plumes. Nothing risks our approach. The sun’s up high and strong and we return back to camp where Daniel has prepared a breakfast of pancakes, sausage and beans. The coffee is strong. The weaver birds weave noisily. I eat, and read, and sleep. The day passes over me.

Later, near dusk, we walk again and the plains are empty. We walk for an hour and see nothing other than a troubled sky. Eeriness and uncertainty loom in the fading light. A distant thunder vibrates in the air. We walk fast now as a curtain of rain draws across towards us. We startle a mongoose which darts away.

And the bliss of night
My guide tells me that some clients are disappointed on walks like these. ‘They have expectations. They are disappointed if they don’t see what they came to see.’ The leopard spotted light blurs to flame and then to black, as night encroaches and Jupiter shines high and untouchable before the cover of cloud hides it from our view. We jog back down the track racing rain, to a fire already lit and the rising slow motion yelp of the hyena across the way.

The rain comes torrentially, putting out the fire. Dinner, carried from the kitchen to the mess tent through the storm floats upon the plate as it’s set before me and the frogs croak their song in the bliss of night.