Vic had his Safari vehicle ready and we were eager to roll.
Over breakfast we had discussed today's plans.
The Luangwa is the home for what may amount to the most densely populated "Hippo Pool."
A head count from as recent as last year came to the conclusion that there is a Hippo Pod of between 20 and 50 Hippos every hundred to two-hundred meters.
There is also a somewhat lesser number of Crocks.
This, then, was to become our 'Hippos day.'
But first we observed the "introduction ceremony" of three Elephants.
"Well Hello, there! Haven't seen you ladies in a long time.
You haven'r changed a bit. Same young, good looking Eles-
(with his trunk, the young male on the right, carefully touched the other two,
as if they were shaking hands, or trunks in this case.)
... then they almost hugged...
The entire thing looked like a cordial greeting of three old friends.
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"We will be at 'river bend' in less than half an hour" Vic explained
"and then you will see Hippos, like you have never seen before".
"Well," I thought, "We've seen Hippos in the Zambezi,
we've seen Hippos in the Kafue,
How different can Hippos in the Luangwa be?
Nevertheless, we looked forward to this new promised sighting.
And then we saw them:
Veritable monsters in size and in aggresivity.
A very few minutes after this almost titanic fight, they lay side by side on the shore
as if nothing had happened.
"Look at that," Tina said, "a while ago they were ready to kill each other,
and now it' like they're having 5 -O'clock tea."
Here they were, snoring in the sand,
grunting under the pleasure of having
an army of Oxpeckers clean their hide.
"Here, there will be a territorial fight between two crocks"
Vic pointed to a Crock, making his way into the water.
"See this", he continued, "there is an other Crock only a few meters off shore"
Vic pointed: "You see, just a couple of meters
there lies another Crock.
He won't be happy about this intrusion."
Vic was right!
The fight was on.
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