Day 96: Rainy Day Games at Somalisa — Lions Chilling Outside Our Tent

Today was a memorable day.

We woke to a grey, overcast and rainy day in Hwange National Park. According to the Somalisa team the weather report called for a full washout — unheard of during this time of year.

Luckily Lobsy and Willa moved into our Family tent last night. Lobs would have been anxious wondering what the plan was this morning.

We still received our 5:30 wake up call with a tea and cofffee delivery and made our way under umbrellas to a 6am breakfast.

We could have gone out for a game drive but decided to stay in and wait out the weather. We huddled near the fire, read our kindles and caught up on some blogging. The team at Somalisa — especially our host Ronald and our guide David fully engaged the kids with games and activity books.

We brought out the cards and taught David steal-a-bundle and Power Dot Pro, a more advanced version of war we adapted from the Tiny Polka Dot game.

Both David and Ronald joined Willa, James and Margaret in our first game of Spot It. The game requires you to see a picture on a card and call out the name of the object if you have it on one of your cards. The cultural and language differences were hysterical. Everyone was belly laughing.

The rain continued through lunch. We were having fun and knew that the bush needed the rain so there were no complaints. We decided to take a short (and cold and a little bit wet) afternoon game drive — our last of our time at Somalisa. Many of the animals were smartly huddled away avoiding the rain.

But we did see some Kudu on high alert — apparently meaning there were lions in the area.

David taught us about “bush soap.” He picked these leaves off a plant and we all (except James of course) rubbed them together in our hands. The slimy residue acts as hand sanitizer, turning your hands sticky then smooth and clean. Amazing.

When we got back home we were immediately told that there were two male lions hanging out close to the lodge. Turns out they weren’t just close to the lodge… they were about 20 meters from our tent!

Lobsy didn’t even want to look closer so she stayed at the bar with Willa and James. Margaret, David (with a loaded rifle), Dophus (our second guide) and I went into our tent and, keeping the lights off, shined a flashlight and had a staring contest with one of the two lions.

Margaret whispered, “Can they see us?” David chuckled… yes, of course they can see us. Lions have excellent vision at night.

This was a scary-exciting end to an otherwise super chill day. One we will not forget.

The lions finally wandered off. I’m not sure what we would have done if they didn’t. I sure as hell wouldn’t have gone to sleep.

So we headed back to the bar, gitty and excited by our sighting. My mom and the kids had become new bffs with a guy named Jeff Ahearn from Staten Island. He works on Broadway a block from 25 Broad St. He was there at Somalisa by himself, having just come from Cape Town where he went swimming in the cage with the Great Whites. Nice guy. Works in reality TV. Had a bunch of tats including a stack of pancakes on his left bicep!