jungle cruise

Stefan and Camille were probably the only two people on the entire 2600 miles of the Niger River wearing life jackets. Camille rode on the bigger boat with all her friends; some friends, Peter, a crying Stefan, a boatman and I were on the littler boat, a canoe, called a pirogue.

When Peter and I hear “pirogue,” we think it’s going to be stuffed with cabbage and cheese and you buy it from the crabby guy on 10th and Irving in San Francisco.

We went up river for half an hour, passing morning-glory like wildflowers, waterlillies, little grassy islets. I didn’t have to paddle, so it was very pleasant, except for Stefan crying that the canoe was too “tilty,” he worried about sharks and if hippos bite.

I saw them first: a hippo coming out the water to take a breath. Then another, then everyone saw them and I was happy I wasn’t just imagining them. Unfortunately, they won’t stay still for a good picture. But none of us wanted to get any closer. The best thing was hearing them: hippopotamus deep breathing.

Camille’s boat stayed longer, until two of the hippos lumbered up out of the water onto the shore. But they didn’t get the bonus excursion we did:

After our hippo sightings we turned around and floated back down the river. Our paddler beached our boat. Not back at the restaurant/boat launch area, as we expected, but rather a forced “detour” to see the hippo tracks in the mud near his village, also, grain storage huts, school, and cow. The chef of the village was trotted out, and seemed disappointed at our meager, uh, cash gift, but we thought we were going directly back to the restaurant and were caught off guard by the side trip. I don’t know why we all didn’t start complaining, “Take us back! We want our lunch!” but it didn’t occur to anyone until later when we did get back and were sitting around drinking cokes and eating brochettes. Americans, sheesh.