There’s a very shallow, clear puddle where a spring seeps up out of the ground. The kids wallow, splashing and watching the hippo in the river, a short but safe distance away. Once the sun begins to burn, we drag them out of their shallow puddle and back to camp. We still have an hour until lunch, so one of the camp guides takes the kids on an insect hunt around camp and I sit down in the shade to read my book for a while.
The peace doesn’t last very long as they come running back, holding up their latest treasure and waving it in my face: “It’s elephant poo! But look, it’s completely dry and just like a ball of grass and seeds! We can play football with it!” The poo football doesn’t last long before breaking apart into what looks like bits of straw, but while it does, they enthusiastically kick it around the patch of lawn in front of the al fresco dining area.
After lunch, my youngest dozes off and is grumpy and surly when we wake him up, as we’re about to set off for a late afternoon drive. We are incredibly lucky to find a pair of cheetah hunting and we watch them chase and kill a gazelle. It is exhilarating but also a little upsetting for the kids, so we have a long chat about the cycle of life and how everything fits together and the pyramid of plants and herbivores and carnivores. We don’t notice the black clouds rolling in and suddenly the rain is upon us. Our guide scrambles to pull down the protective canvas sheets to enclose the open sides of our game drive vehicle. The track we are driving along temporarily turns into a miniature stream, but the squall passes quickly and before long the evening sun breaks through the clouds again in dramatic fashion.