When going on a safari, there are animals that will be the ones many people will want to see most. Lions, elephants, maybe rhinos will be top of the list. I am not saying I didn’t want to see those because I clearly did but I have a fascination with hippos and seeing them was very high on the list of things I wanted. Thankfully, we had plentiful opportunities to see them in various locations.
I knew that they were one of the more dangerous creatures, but we never got in any situation where they were a direct worry to us. They tend to come out at night and feed before retreating to the water in the morning to stay cool and away from any predators. Therefore, many of our sightings were when they were in rivers. However, this wasn’t always the case. We would see them wandering on land, heading through marshy ground and even asleep on the land. I should note that one hippo we saw asleep on the land was showing signs of attack with wounds across its body so this may have been out of character.
We came upon one river that had loads of hippos in it. We watched then for a while and then, as some of the other trucks pulled out, our guide moved us up into the dead end where they had come from. This brought us in to sight of another big group of hippos way closer in. It was amazing to see so many of them together.
What was the shot I wanted? It had to be the mouth. Hippos yawn and show off their large mouth and the huge teeth. I so wanted to get that shot. One hippo was in the water looking straight at me and I was just willing it to yawn but it didn’t oblige. However, I did get some more distant shots when the full yawn was happening so that was really great. They are such excellent creatures and, considering that they are vegetarians, ones that need to be treated with great caution. What a treat.
We spent our Thanksgiving weekend in Kelowna BC. It was not a long stay there, but it was a nice chance to visit somewhere new. The trip involves a five-hour drive, so we didn’t arrive until mod afternoon. The weather was lovely on the drive across so, when we arrived, we decided to take advantage of the sun to have a walk along the lake.
There are many homes and hotels along the water, and they have created parks and waterways around these developments. It might have been sunny, but it definitely wasn’t warm, so we were wrapped up well to counter the cool air coming off the lake. Plenty of people were out walking their dogs or riding their bikes so the whole place felt pretty alive considering this was a Thursday afternoon at the end of November. These are some of the shots I got while we explored.
