My first night in the bush

Now everyone always talks about how quiet and peaceful the African bush is.  People outside of the UK always assume that if you're from England that means London and they think you have traffic loads of sirens and trains going passed your window every night.  Well I'm from Norfolk and the nights there are as silent as they can be.  Let me put it this way; they're a damn right quieter than the African bush!!  

I woke up thinking I'd made it through the night.  I soon realised that I'd probably only been asleep for a couple of hours.  Seeing as we'd only gone to bed at 8pm this would only make it about 10pm at night meaning I still had to try and get another 8 hours of sleep before the sun came up.  I may have succeeded if it hadn't been for that blasted cricket.  After about an hour of his chirping I wanted to go outside and strangle the bugger.  I was then awake to all noises and when everyone else is sleeping even the smallest of sounds seem to be twice as loud at night.

I then spent a fitful night drifting in and out of strange dreams, which was probably due to the malaria tablets.  I was actually very disappointed that it was nothing interesting keeping me awake until around 3am  when I heard this huge grunt.  In my dazed state I was hoping it was a lion but Dave who had also been woken by the sound confirmed it was two hippo bulls having a scrap.  I thought, finally a bit more interesting than the infernal chirping of that cricket.  But they were so loud as they must have been in the river just in front of our tent and after a few hours I was wishing they'd get over their differences and leave me in peace.  I eventually dozed off and may have got an hours sleep before the sun came up.  And not really ready to spend another day in the bush but I had no other choice.