In order to arrange a dugout canoe trip on the Okavango River, I camped at Ngepi Camp, a beautiful place located on the thin strip of Namibian land just above Botswana. This was a wonderful place. The camp sat on the Okavango River. I rented a tent and camped at the edge of the river for 4 nights. Actually my tent was setup particularly close to the water - maybe 20 feet away. Each night I had a lone hippo visitor near my tent. Unlike the first 3 nights, I became very nervous on the 4th night. On the first 3 nights I could hear the hippo swim and play in the water. On the 4th night I could hear it chomping on the grass. Even though hippos are herbivores, the jaws sounded very powerful to me. I told one man, who drove a big overland truck through Africa, about the hippo. I thought he kind of made light of what I was telling him. Eventually after talking about the hippo and continually showing my uneasiness, he came over to have a look.
His reaction...
"Jesus Christ. It's a hippo! This is f#?$in' dangerous. I'm sorry I doubted you. I thought you were some crazy tourist who couldn't tell the difference between a cow and a hippo. Sorry."
He insisted we start a fire so that the hippo would move away. He really did not think it was safe for me. He started the fire while I was in the bathroom. I could hear the hippo take off. There was a huge gush of water as the hippo ran away. I really did not want the man to scare the hippo off. I would have enjoyed the sounds of the hippo once I was in my tent. It was just the getting into my tent that scared me.
By the way, the hippo is responsible for the most human deaths by an animal in Africa. The hippo stays in shallow water during the day and grazes on land near the water at night. If a hippo gets scared, it darts for the water. Surprisingly, a hippo can run up to 30 miles per hour. Anything between the hippo and the water is run over. This is how many of the deaths result. I was well aware of this hippo behavior. I also knew that my tent was between the hippo and the water. This was the reason I was so uneasy, and I would not stop talking about the hippo until the man believed me.
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