Hippo Heaven

Hippos, or as our new French friend likes to say "heeeeppos." They are large and lazy and up until I went on Safari, I thought they were kind of cute in an ugly sort of way.

There was a creek that we had to pass over all the time. Lots of rocks and water, but something that the Land Rover could handle. The local Masai guides call it "Smelly Crossing," and when you go over you know why. Not so bad to go across but when you stopped to check out the elephants or baboons or the hippos, oh my, stink like you've never smelled before. Really. It stunk like nothing else. Not really like an open sewer, but Lisa says it reminded her of the geysers at Yellowstone times a hundred. Sulphery, icky smell.

We were crossing it looking around at the other animals when all of a sudden the hippos stood up in the background. They had always looked like rocks but you knew they were there based on the smell. Now, we could see them. If you look at this photo you'll see big black rocks with legs.

On the last day of the safari we came up the backside of the creek for the first time. The smell got worse as did the sights. First thing — a belly up bloated dead hippo with a crocodile near by.

We drove around a bit further and the stink got worse. The hippos lay in their own poop and there was gobs of it floating in the creek. Apparently wallowing in your own poop is heaven to hippos. Then our Masai driver, Dominic, got out and started pitching rocks at the black mass of poop in the water.

The hippos were aggravated and popped up out of the poop.

I couldn't stop laughing. It was so funny to see skinny Dominic picking up rocks and throwing them at the blobs. I think he was frustrated at not finding leopards for us that he was determined to give us a show.

Be thankful these are not scratch and sniff photos. Just thinking about these five minutes on safari makes me laugh, kind of uncontrollably.