We arrived down south late in the afternoon, and though the sun was soon to set our extremely kind and hospitable van driver, Alazar, was convinced he was going to show us a smashing good time that evening. Half of our group decided to stay in the hotel that night; and though we were all pooped out, the other half ventured out to see what Alazar had up his sleeve in regards to entertainment. He pulled up to a make shift dock with two brightly colored pontoon boats and said "we're here!"
We asked how much these amazing hippos were going to cost to see and it was a measly $6, so we figured... why not?! We all geared up with life jackets while the locals began drawing a crowd on the side of the lake. They were laughing and whoo-hawing at us as if to say... "suckers!!! hahaha!"
One of our buddies Mark bravely sat at the front so the boat could be balanced. Once we all got in he began educating us on how aggressive hippos are in the wild, and how they are one of the largest mammals in the world.
These fun hippo facts started to become not so fun to us ladies the further we began coasting from the shore. Once we realized that we were about to disturb a group of 2 ton hippos with gigantic jaws in the wild... right before nightfall.... us three ladies started screaming like school girls.
Pretty unimpressed, we were like "wow, great... lovely murky lake! ok let's go back to the hotel and go to sleep." Alazar got really excited and beamingly turned around and said so cutely in his thick accent "hippos! You want to see hippos?! Yes?!?!"
Justin and I have not laughed that hard in a very, very long time.
Our crazy "crocodile hunter wannabe" boat driver slowed the boat down as we approached the wild beasts. Then... he began very loudly calling them... "whooo-hoo-hee-hee-haahaa-wee-wee!" His primordal hippo hunting grunt was supposed to bring them all to the surface. As we waited for the creatures to emerge, we asked "crocodile hunter wannabe" what other crazy things were in the water. He replied "oh, just snakes and crocodiles. Don't worry, I've only been bitten once... see, here's my scar!" [Cue screaming girls]
Finally, the hippos emerged. It was getting dark so all we really saw were their beaty eyes. It was pretty amazing to see those big guys in their natural habitat. After a time of admiration, we zoomed back into shore with bellies aching from having laughed so hard and bodies literally soaked to the bone. It was a fun night. :)
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