Last Updated on May 20, 2020 by PowersToTravel
Then, in 2012, just one and a half years after our wedding, my husband Greg and I somehow found ourselves woken up suddenly in our tent on the Serengeti, in Tanzania, by the sound of lions roaring. They paced around the campsite, never more than perhaps twenty feet from us. (Hard to tell because we didn’t look out!) Our temperatures must have skyrocketed, because suddenly, although we had been cold, we were sweating hot and our hearts were pounding. We clutched each other in terror. Greg threw off the covers, and I panic’ed, even more.
No, not one of our prowling lions; we met this one on a different just slightly less terrifying night.
“Stop!” I hissed. “They’ll hear you. We don’t want to be the ones they hear and want to attack!”
“But I have to pee!” Greg responded. “They’ll have smelled us long ago.”
“If you leave the bed, I’m coming with you. I’m not dying alone out here!”
We tried to silently creap out of the bed to the attached bathroom; my arms were encircling Greg such that we could hardly move. A few moments later, Greg briefly turned on his flashlight.
“NO! They’ll see us!” I hissed again into his ear.
“I have to see where I’m peeing!” Greg hissed back.
Eventually we made it back to the bed. The lions, at least several of them, continued to pace around the camp, roaring between the tents, for at least fifteen minutes more.
Finally they moved on, having made their statement that we were on their land.
We learned the next day that a lion will not attack a person in a tent, as long as he is securely zipped in. Wish we had known that earlier. Or maybe not.
We didn’t learn why they don’t attack. Was this was due to the logistics and fear of getting entangled? Or was it a detente built on a long human-lion relationship?
