Safari Day 15 - The Hippo Pool

Highlight of the day: sneaking up on hippos

This morning we set out for two nights in the Okavango Delta. The Delta is a huge expanse of water, which has travelled from the Angolan highlands, spreading out to form the largest inland delta in the world. Millions of years ago the river flowed into a huge lake. But tectonic and fault movements caused the river to backup and form the delta. It takes nine months for the water to reach the delta and then stops at the edge of the Kalahari Desert, with almost 95% of it evaporating. It delta covers a range of 9,000-16,000 square kilometres, depending on the season.

We drove about 1.5 hours to reach part of the delta, where we loaded up into mokoros, traditional dugout canoes made from a single log of wood. The local guides, or 'polers', pushed us along for about 2 hours through narrow channels of water. Our young poler is called 'Salvation.' We were surrounded by reeds about 8 feet tall, and the guys were experts at winding us through the maze. It was so relaxing to just slowly wander along, listening to the birds and the sound of the water. We reached camp around noon, a random spot under some trees on a huge island in the delta. We set up our tents, ate lunch, then spent the afternoon relaxing in the shade (it was pretty hot). In our camp were huge elephant bones scattered around. We used 3 of the leg bones as benches around the fire. We napped, read our books, and played 'shithead' (our new favourite card game) before setting out on a walk around 4:00.

We were lead by our guide 'Seven.' He is an extremely smart man, who has spent his whole life out in the delta and knows how to 'read' the wildlife. He reminded me a bit of Jim from the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn books. We set out and saw a huge bull elephant not far from camp. He was out in a grassy area, eating some leaves off of a tree. We did not get too close, but suddenly we found ourselves following the two guides trough the forest, over & under bushes and ducking through trees. The elephant was tracking us, and we had to be quiet so it wouldn't charge us. It was all very exciting, if not a bit scary. In the end we managed to lose him.

We then spotted a huge hippo coming out of the trees. He walked out into the open, and ran away after seeing us. The sound of his hooves stomping on the ground was so loud, we could almost feel it. It was amazing to see such a huge, fat animal take off so swiftly. After walking for a while longer, Seven told us to take off our shoes and roll up our pants. We weren't sure what we were doing, but followed him into the reeds. We trekked through 10 foot high grass and reeds, walking through water a few feet deep. We had to be careful not to step in the wrong place, as we would find ourselves up to our heads in water! All the while we had to be quiet, as we could hear the unmistakable sound of hippos grunting. It was kind of scary since we couldn't see around us, and we didn't know what we were doing. Suddenly Seven motioned for us to hunch down and approach quietly. He split some reeds apart and beyond wss a huge pool of water, full of hippos! Thew were all swimming around, chatting to each other and enjoying the coolness of the water. It was like peering through a secret window into the lives of hippos. We counted at least 16, if not more. Two very large males had a bit of a scuffle in the water not more than 15 feet from where we were standing. They all knew we were there, but didn't seem to mind us. I was nervous when they swam towards us, but they never got closer than about 15 feet. Still, they cause more deaths in Africa than all other animals combined. But it was one of the most amazing things. It was so cool to trek through the reeds, not knowing what we'd find, and then get a glimpse of the hippo world at it's wildest.

As the sun set, we hiked back to camp, full of adrenaline and excitement. We had dinner and spent the evening around the fire. As we lay in our tents to go to sleep, we could hear hippos out there not far from us.