This is a memory of my travel to Africa. We travelled in a group across all the continent. Finally we arrived to a place called Maun near the Okavango delta, which is a superb wildlife area. Around half our group signed up for an excursion by plane into the delta, but I said I would just hire a canoe for the day, and go paddling around.
The problem with paddling around African rivers are hippos. Most
Americans have a pretty benevolent image of a hippo, shaped by Saturday
morning cartoons, but hippos kill more people in Africa than any other
large animal (malaria-carrying mosquitos are the deadliest animal of all,
of course). Hippos are not carnivorous, but they are easily scared, and
an attacking hippo can easily take apart a small boat. In fact, just
last week another tourist at the same campsite had gotten too close to a
hippo, which then attacked and seriously injured him.
But, I was assured, this tourist had been foolish. He had seen the
hippo from a distance, and had tried to paddle in very close to get a
good photo. The manager assured me that if I just avoided any hippo I saw,
the chances were that the hippo would leave me alone. Of course, if I
happened to get too close to a hippo that was submerged and thus could not
be seen … well … crossing the road is dangerous too, isn’t it?
Continue reading ‘Memory of escaping a hippo in Botswana’
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