The Eye of The Storm

DAY 16 - Feb 20

It is brutally hot. We are driving out of the park in an open-sided Land Rover.  A long sweltering day mostly behind us and our eyes fixed on an African sky fluffy with cloud where an angry dark knot is tightening and blooming on the horizon; occasional flickers of distant lightning, whispers of thunder.  A sky slowly moving towards us as we bump our way lodge-wards.  “It’s a big storm but we’ll miss it” says Masood.  We stop to admire a lion basking in a tree and then a family of elephants chewing. We linger in the golden light and when we turn again what had been a distant intimation is now a present natural wonder.  Long incandescent streaks break earthwards, thunder bangs loud and as we pick up speed – our progress urgent now - the sun goes out and every breath is suddenly heavy and humid.  It is pretty clear we are going to get wet before the first few drops splash into the dust and the smell of rain fills the air.

The instant cool is welcome.  And then the real rain comes as a thick curtain through which we careen into a wild wet adventure.  Lightning strikes incredibly bright, incredibly close and the thunder is instant and shattering; so so loud it physically moves us in our seats.  Masood shouts out - I look round and his eyes are all white, a white grin gleaming in the near dark, cackling with laughter.  Jo beside him cowering and laughing.  We are in another mad country – all wind, water, crazy lighting and bolting giraffes.  Taran is looking on the brink of something – dumbstruck.

At a command from Masood we pull over and I am thinking that a catastrophe correspondent to the heaven’s quakings has overtaken us - Is the driver all right? Could thunder so loud give us a puncture or break something?  The rain is “phenomenal” in Taran’s hard won words. 

We are stopping to put on plastic macs conjured from the driver’s glove compartment.  The roof protects us from above but water sprays into the vehicle regardless.  The wind and commotion and the urgency of the soaking puts me in a spin and laughing I put my head through an arm hole and get in a terrible tangle.  Jo shouts above the noise that I am like Mr Bean. And before I sort myself out I am sodden.  We all are.  


Taran retreats singing into a raincoat nest.  
The road is filing with water.  It is impossible that what had been so dustily dry is now a river in a field of mud.  And hard now for the driver to see the way.  The potholes are brimming.  The culverts overflowing and the park gate still a ways away.  
















We press on through the heady maelstrom but now soberingly we are cold in our flapping macs and the rushing wind.  The thunder and lightning move away but we must race to beat the flood.  Newly paved road is washing away and the driver has to tiptoe through eroding flows but as the rain fades it is clear we will make it.  Masood relaxes and we settle silently into a cold and soggy journey.  Jo asks him with deep interest “Is there hot water in the lodge?”  We take comfort from his reply and count the kilometers home.