We spent a couple of days eye-hunting for hippos and more elephants on the swelteringly hot Okavango Delta in Botswana. Unfortunately, though there was abundant evidence of pachyderms all around us (their enormous droppings were everywhere and two nights in a row I was woken up by their alarmingly loud bellowing in the forest) we saw no elephants here like in Etosha. No hippos either. We did see several impressive crocodiles, some monkeys and many beautiful delta birds. There are huge floating islands of papyrus, which thrive in the delta waters and through which hippos carve out canals - it was through these channels that we took our boat and canoes in a fruitless search for their creators. I took a video (click HERE) of one of the more narrow canals.
From the delta we headed north, to the Caprivi Strip in Namibia. There as the sun set on the limpid waters of the Okavango River we found hippos - many many hippos! You can barely see them in my pictures... mostly their heads and their cute little ears which they shake the water off from when they emerge from underwater, blowing mist like whales.
I shot this video (click HERE) from the riverbank... a bunch of local kids dancing and throwing rocks or dung at a group of indifferent hippos, two of who yawn with their menacing maws. Hippos are the most dangerous mammal in Africa, and every year kill more people than lions or other big cats.
From the delta we headed north, to the Caprivi Strip in Namibia. There as the sun set on the limpid waters of the Okavango River we found hippos - many many hippos! You can barely see them in my pictures... mostly their heads and their cute little ears which they shake the water off from when they emerge from underwater, blowing mist like whales.
I shot this video (click HERE) from the riverbank... a bunch of local kids dancing and throwing rocks or dung at a group of indifferent hippos, two of who yawn with their menacing maws. Hippos are the most dangerous mammal in Africa, and every year kill more people than lions or other big cats.