We ate lunch overlooking a lion's buffet. About 30 antelope were grazing at the lake's edge, their plump hides contrasting gold with the salad-green lily pads. It was deliciously quiet. I thought about the predatory lioness we had been tracking just ten minutes earlier, but I bit my lip and perched near the bonnet, occasionally scanning the grass for a twitch of feline ears.
Just as I was starting to drop my guard, there was a smudge of tan and white — the entire herd of impala bolted. The lioness sprang out of the mopane scrub in front of us, muscles wrestling under her blonde fur. Seeing us, she darted into the bush, maybe six metres away from a thicket, where one of our group had nipped for privacy. Shouts of 'get in the car!' mingled with impala barks and the cry of worried birds. Louise emerged, tucking her shirt in calmly, completely unaware of the cat she'd crossed paths with.
Chances are nothing would have happened. But thoughts of mauled intrepid travellers and wild stories of near-death experiences were swapped and exaggerated in the Land Rover for the rest of the afternoon. We were in the right location for big, emboldened tales. We were in East Africa, where violence and romance blur like wind through long grass.
I had flown into Kilimanjaro International Airport, where, even close to midnight, the air felt the same temperature as my blood. The aptly named Kia Lodge is ten minutes from the airport and yet feels a world away from the anaesthetised corridors of typical airport hotels. Here, elegant Masai men wrapped in crimson blankets, or shuka, escorted me along winding pathways fringed with lush aloes and blossoming bougainvillea.
My room was an individual chalet with a simple shower and a vast mosquito net. I went for a stroll and found the rustic bar, where I sat next to the resident dog and sipped my first Kilimanjaro beer. Most other travellers were stopping over on their way to tackle Kilimanjaro, Africa's 5,895m-high mountain, which lurches independently out of the surrounding balmy plains.
