Hippos

A boat ride on the St. Lucia Estuary to see crocodiles, hippos, and birds was one of the fun days on our recent trip.  It was a real life "Jungle Boat" ride.....

Our first view of the hippos was this and as typical tourist we got very excited.  Probably 100's of photos were taken of these 'bumps in the river'.

 We had no idea how close we were going to get.

Nor what kind of a show they were going to put on for us!

Our guide said that they were young males sparring!  Looked pretty intense but they kept at it for close to an hour as the cameras snapped away!

Just how wide can you open your mouth Big Fella???

Although this looks like an elephant tusk, it is actually a hippo tooth!  I had no idea!

More people are killed in Africa by hippos than by any other animal.  St. Lucia, the little town by this estuary bears the distinction of being the only town in the world whose citizens regularly find hippos in their gardens!  Now that would be quite a shock!!!!

 To give an idea of how things change over the course of a couple of weeks - on one of our last days a friend looked into the river and said, "What is that in the river?" I glanced out the window and said, "It's a hippo" and there was no reaction at all from anyone in the bus.  No camera came out of bags. These was no chorus of 'ooh's and ahh's'...nothing!  How quickly the amazing becomes common place!