When sleeping in a tent in the bush, each night I wonder what kind of nocturnal activity I may get to listen to next. At the slightest sound of munching, grumbling or digging I try to secretly peer through a corner of the window into the darkness to see if I can catch a glimpse of what it is. In my first few weeks here, I was really missing the soft, yet slightly eerie sound of the hyena calling in the early hours, which always gave me my personal confirmation of truly being in the wilds of Africa and was absent. The bugs however were not and I would fall asleep very slightly uncomfortable with the sound of fighter pilot beetles bombarding my canvas walls and giant shadows of unidentified creepy crawlies all around me! Now though the hyenas are back and I have had my own slinky little genet cat visiting almost every night to feast on those juicy bugs. Occasionally, comes the low growling and moaning of a larger animal shuffling around in the darkness, often accompanied shortly after by the alarm calls of baboons or vervets and I lie there imagining the elusive leopard stalking our little tree dwelling friends.
The classic thrill, which has become more regular in the past few days are the heavy, guttural and staccato vibrations of the lions calling, slowly getting louder and louder as they approach the river to drink. It still takes my breath away!
My most exciting night however was one where at around 11pm, in the distance began the snapping of sticks under foot, the tearing of branches and a heavy presence moving through the trees. Slowly, slowly these sounds moved closer and the source of which broke into many directions. I started to realise that not just one, but a whole herd of elephants were moving into camp and surrounding my tent. Despite their strength and potential ability to crush anything in their path, I felt a surprising amount of comfort from them being there and I couldn’t help but just sit up listening to them eat and laugh at the occasional little trumpeting from the little ones. The full moon that had lit up the night so brilliantly a few nights ago had passed and unfortunately I could see nothing outside but pitch black. Eventually, when I thought I might as well get some sleep I started to hear a strange high pitched wheezing just next to me. I wondered if one of them was in distress and started to get worried. I then finally realised that this animal was not in distress at all, but absolutely fast asleep and having a good old snore! It brought the biggest smile to my face it being so close that I could actually hear it breathing like this. I didn’t get much sleep that night in the end, but it was so worth it!