Waterhorse Wednesday
I was thinking what kind of self-respecting Flickr feed doesn’t have a wild hippo in it & realised I was sadly lacking. Now corrected , I can rest easy again.
We were out in a morning game drive in Sabi Sands. Had stripped off half of the 100 layers of clothing - the temps go from minus 1000 pre-dawn to plus 1000 within a couple of hours in the African bush. It was morning tea time after a couple of hours of jolting around the bush looking for sightings. The guide pulled the Jeep over, overlooking a waterhole. There was no wildlife to be seen here so it seemed. No one else seemed interested in wandering down to the waterhole itself. Maybe they were worried about the stories from the guide about hippos being very aggressive and killing more people than lions and leopards. Maybe they didn’t know what animals could possibly be lurking down there. Or maybe it was the coffee/tea and biscuits were more interesting to them. Anyway, being short on common sense, I found myself alone on the bank a few hundred feet away from everyone else when this beauty surfaced “she showed up, splashing around”. I lay down to get eye to eye contact with her, or eye to lens contact. She was gorgeous! I fell in love with her. I like to think her name was Becky. I could have stared into Becky’s eyes for hours. I’m not sure she felt the same about me though and I noticed she was slowly moving silently closer through the water. Then the guide’s stories came back to mind about how this third largest land animal in the world can actually run very fast despite their size. I reluctantly made a slow retreat back up the hill to the Jeep and relative safety of tea and bikkies.
I will always remember mine and Becky’s shared private moment at the waterhole. I like to think she did love me too. I mean after all; my ears and nose are nearly as hairy as hers 😉
PS - Did you know the name hippopotamus is from a Greek word meaning water horse? You are welcome. Happy Wednesday 😀
Waterhorse Wednesday
I was thinking what kind of self-respecting Flickr feed doesn’t have a wild hippo in it & realised I was sadly lacking. Now corrected , I can rest easy again.
We were out in a morning game drive in Sabi Sands. Had stripped off half of the 100 layers of clothing - the temps go from minus 1000 pre-dawn to plus 1000 within a couple of hours in the African bush. It was morning tea time after a couple of hours of jolting around the bush looking for sightings. The guide pulled the Jeep over, overlooking a waterhole. There was no wildlife to be seen here so it seemed. No one else seemed interested in wandering down to the waterhole itself. Maybe they were worried about the stories from the guide about hippos being very aggressive and killing more people than lions and leopards. Maybe they didn’t know what animals could possibly be lurking down there. Or maybe it was the coffee/tea and biscuits were more interesting to them. Anyway, being short on common sense, I found myself alone on the bank a few hundred feet away from everyone else when this beauty surfaced “she showed up, splashing around”. I lay down to get eye to eye contact with her, or eye to lens contact. She was gorgeous! I fell in love with her. I like to think her name was Becky. I could have stared into Becky’s eyes for hours. I’m not sure she felt the same about me though and I noticed she was slowly moving silently closer through the water. Then the guide’s stories came back to mind about how this third largest land animal in the world can actually run very fast despite their size. I reluctantly made a slow retreat back up the hill to the Jeep and relative safety of tea and bikkies.
I will always remember mine and Becky’s shared private moment at the waterhole. I like to think she did love me too. I mean after all; my ears and nose are nearly as hairy as hers 😉
PS - Did you know the name hippopotamus is from a Greek word meaning water horse? You are welcome. Happy Wednesday 😀