The Hippo Hunt

We had so much fun going on the Elephant Hunt we had to go on the Hippo Hunt.

To see hippos, other than those being abused at the Zoo here, you have to go on a boat up the river.  Hippos move around the river but the guides seem to have a pretty good idea where they are hiding on any given day.

Our Hippo Hunt started just below the JFK Bridge.  Eight of us went on a narrow boat that thankfully had cushions on the bottom and you sat/laid on the cushions.  We went with Mary and Stan, their son Daniel and his girl friend, Mayan, Barb, and Dennis.  Dennis is a bank examiner from San Diego that goes around the world on his vacation time doing audits of SIL centers.  He was here checking up on us and so to distract him from his task we took him on the Hippo Hunt. 

The boat has an outboard on it but doesn’t go very fast nor does it make much noise when it is running so you get a real peaceful cruise out of the trip.  The Hippos must be about 3 miles upstream.  Upstream is toward the SIL center so we were going past the city of Niamey.  On the shore women were washing dishes with the children around and separately men were washing clothes.  Then there were families that were having a beach break. 

I mentioned washing clothes.  They were washing clothes in this muddy river.  It was like a really big Pilgrim cleaners right there on the river only the drier was this hot sun hitting the rock, sand, or dirt the clothes were drying on.  Near the bridge, they use the side rails of the bridge to dry clothes.  I have to say that despite the dirty brown water, the dirty rocks or sand, and the ever-present dust I have not seen people wearing dirty clothes.  I don’t know how they do it but they look great.

The Niamey Hippo Hunting Marina.  Our boat was at the end of the dock.

After you’ve seen your 15^th group of people washing clothes you begin to feel a need to see a hippo or something and sure enough we saw two hippos.  When you see hippos on the river you don’t really see hippos.  What you see are two eyes and a nose sticking out of the water connected by something black.  Hippos are kind of like ice bergs, you know there is a lot more of what you are looking at than what you see only you can’t really see it.  Hippos are big, fast, and very dangerous.  At times they completely submerge and you don’t know where they are but you suspect they are under the boat.

Two really big hippos, honest.

Again, after a while, like with people washing clothes in the river, you begin to have seen enough black spots in the water.  Our guide must have sensed this so we continued up another 2 miles or so to the dam.  There is a spillway across the river, how the hippos get over it I never did learn, but the fishing is good on the down riverside of the spillway.  The fishermen discovered this fact before I did and so there were boats out on the water and men casting their nets there.  It was fun to watch them and every time they caught fish.  We walked to the dam for the SIL Center so we were not far from home.  

Don't try this at home.

This is not catch and release.

The trip back down river was much the same as the trip up only we followed the other side of the river.  Took us about an hour each way.  We would wave at the people on shore and be rewarded by the children with the biggest smiles.  As was said in a previous blog, this may be the most undeveloped country in the world but that fact hasn’t gotten to the people here yet.  They are either born with permanent smiles or are quite happy with their life. 

The boys on the shore.

One boy says to another boy, "What are those goofy white people doing now?"

It must be time for us to be going home because we’ve seen giraffes, elephants, and now hippos.  We have seen the sights of Niamey.