The great thing about Africa is that an afternoon siesta is advised as it is too hot to do anything else during the mid day heat. Although I still find it hard to sleep during the afternoon it offers me a great opportunity to hide away in my tent for the afternoon. I'm a bit aggitated because Dave caught a gecko in our tent earlier and tried to make me hold it and I just froze, it's tail started thrashing and it just reminded me of a snake and I literally couldn't make myself take a step towards it. Dave has gone off to see if he can help fix one of the cruisers so I'm trying desperately to calm myself down again. Finally I go towards the toilet as I just cant keep it in any longer. Now I'm taking really slow steps and I flick on the light really quickly and just as I let out my breath this gecko darts out from under the sink to go under the bath. I didn't scream. I cried. So I go and lie down again and by now a whole troop of monkeys have moved in and are sitting on top of the tent and throwing things at me and one even throw himself at the door. Thank goodness they cant turn the handle.
I'm still quite worked up when Dave finally comes back to the tent. He reassured me that the monkeys weren't actually throwing things at me but munching on the fruit in the sycamore fig trees above and just dropping the bad fruit or the rind of the ones they were eating. So Dave finally calms me down again and persuades me to leave the tent and we go and sit on the deck by the main lodge to watch the sun set. It is stunning here so I start to feel a bit better again.
We watched two hippos swimming up stream to find somewhere to come out over the river to graze all night, the monkeys had finally gone to roost so after supper we went back to our tent to sleep. The generator, which amazingly is running again after being fully submerged under water goes off at 8pm so we keep early hours here, which suits me perfectly.
So at the end of the day I am still alive but then statistically that is hardly surprising as I've spent most of the day hiding in my tent. I've achieved my first day in the bush and I can actually go into the bathroom without flinching now as Dave has reassured me that my gecko friend is not as ferocious as I thought.
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