Sleeping with lions

So, we understood the lions are sneaking inside the tent camp at night, and we as humans could protect ourselves with our tents as natural fencing. They would never come in, because they respect the tent and will rather eat other animal than having to do the effort of biting or ripping apart the tent and catch the humans. This made is feel comfortable, but we were wondering what about our horses?

Similar to our tents, at night to horses sleep in an enclosed stable with high fences and closed gates. Two staff members sleep inside the stables to survey the horses and prevent them from panicking when a lion is around. Apparently, all horses do feel safe in the stable, but they might get nervous when smelling that a lion or other predator is around.

After first night experience with the roaring lions around our tent, we heard that explicitly our tent (Tent 4) had been the “busiest” spot for lion to wander around. Apparently, our tent was the deeper inside the bush and closest to the bank river. When we woke up, we couldn’t resist examining the trails around our tent, and indeed we could confirm the lion steps we noticed. We even saw smaller paws as well from the leopard (lions have bigger paws). So scary, but at the same time very exciting!

At night it can get really chilly (10 degrees), so you better dress up warm as well. It’s slightly warmer than South-Africa but still quite cold. Just like in the South-African lodge, we received every evening a “bush baby” or a warm water reservoir to keep inside your bed blankets and night. You wouldn’t believe how happy we were to get our fresh warm bush baby every night.Read more