Even the humblest African author tries to do justice to its extraordinary light. A thousand adjectives and prose acres are willfully sowed daily, yet few (Including this) do justice to this remarkable phenomena, yet it performs every day, especially in East Africa.
It is an almost visceral thing: from the false-dawn silhouettes to the first flush of sunrise as cat’s pantone values are gilded by early warming rays. Then the searing blue midday ceiling overtures a malevolent matinee, when seismic convection turns billowing fair weather cumulus into angry thunderheads whose payload puts whole conservancies into violent spin cycles.
People talk of ‘the golden hour’, they’ve clearly never stayed in a Conservancy where this high carat light can last much much longer, the whole wilderness palette oiled by the distant escarpments, fertile soil, studded plains and big, BIG skies. Any animal found in these circumstances is worth thousands truffling around in messy thick bush.
Then the calm, long sunny afternoons where precious little moves before that imperceptible moment when the temperature dips, the light softens and patient quests are rewarded.
The late colours are often the most vivid, final brushstrokes to the vivid savannah canvas, with the plains sentinels seemingly queing up for the sunset box office money shot. Finally distant storms crackle with faraway concussion, their trident bolts bisecting the anvil nimbus.
It is intoxicating: an unshakable narcotic which varies from A to C every day. There is rarely a dull sky in the Mara or Laikipia but, these coruscating and colourful crown jewels do require some patience.
Yet again it has proved way beyond my words and indeed pictures, but, do any Kichechians out there get the feels with seeing or reading this?
