Hippos

Have I mentioned that I am deathly afraid of hippos?? I mean, terrified. The thought of being anywhere near water in Zambia terrifies me because of hippos. We were on a safari once that was a 1/2 day river safari and 1/2 day land safari. The land part was awesome...we saw lions and elephants WAY up close, and even had a mom elephant stomp at us and get ready to charge because we got close to her baby! Too fun! The river, however...

For those of you who don't know, hippos can travel 40 mph underwater. We are on the river in a tiny little boat (holds about 15 people) and we see tons of hippos in the distance.

Here's a picture of one of the boats. (That's my sis and bro-in-law on the left!


Our river guide thinks it will be fun to get close to the hippos. This one hippo kept looking at us (I'm serious!!!), and then it started making hippo noises at us. (dogs bark, cats meow..I have no idea what hippos do, but it was doing it!) Suddenly, it went underwater, and reemerged a moment later closer to us. It was swimming towards us underwater! It kept getting closer and we all start to say "Shouldn't we leave??" Our river guide tries to start the boat, but we were STUCK. The engine would not start!! The hippo kept disappearing, and I was sure the next thing we would feel would be the overturning of the boat as the hippo flipped us and tore our flesh apart! It was AWFUL! I couldn't get off that boat fast enough!