we live in a zoo
my 2-year old niece maggie goes to the como zoo with marmee (grandma) to see all the animals that live with aunt paige in africa. i'm sure she's got this picture in her head of aunt paige and uncle phil living in a house full of animals running around - lions and tigers and bears, oh my! but, it's true - we live in a zoo. in murchison alone we saw elephants, hippos, crocodiles, rhinos (en route), water buffalo, waterbuck, african duiker, warthogs, colobus monkeys, and baboons. oh my!
we sleep in a zoo, too. on phil's trip back from the states he brought our trusty 2-person marmot tent, sleeping pads, and sleeping bag so we can camp here. our first campsite in murchison we slept with the warthogs. who knew that they eat from their knees. they seem to be pretty fearless and unbothered by anything that's not grass or a tree that'll give 'em a good scratch. the second night we camped at the top of the falls. if you ever make it to murchison, i highly recommend doing this - it was one of my favorite things we did all weekend. there's no one else there, the campsite is right next to the nile, and you have the falls to yourself. except for the hippos, of course. we didn't sleep more than 10 yards from the river where there was a pool of 4 hippos. they popped up and down to check us out when we first arrived and gave their recognizable territorial call, but we didn't bother them so they didn't bother us. the night before our campsite had been visited by hungry hippos as evidenced by their footprints in the morning mud, but this night they stayed in the water. or, at least we didn't see any tracks in the morning...
101paige 101africa
the hippos were by far the most abundant wildlife we saw in murchison. not surprising considering there's an estimated 4,000 hippos in the park. at the end of a morning hike along the falls, we found a small bay protected from the churning water that gathered foam and attracted hippos. we all hung out for a while - phil taking pictures, me watching phil and the hippos, the hippos watching us. despite their outwardly placid personalities, hippos can be aggressive. as close as we were, we planned a simple escape route (a scurry up a steep grade seemingly too technical to be climbed by an angry hippo). no aggression from our hippo friends, though, just watchful eyes.
we sleep in a zoo, too. on phil's trip back from the states he brought our trusty 2-person marmot tent, sleeping pads, and sleeping bag so we can camp here. our first campsite in murchison we slept with the warthogs. who knew that they eat from their knees. they seem to be pretty fearless and unbothered by anything that's not grass or a tree that'll give 'em a good scratch. the second night we camped at the top of the falls. if you ever make it to murchison, i highly recommend doing this - it was one of my favorite things we did all weekend. there's no one else there, the campsite is right next to the nile, and you have the falls to yourself. except for the hippos, of course. we didn't sleep more than 10 yards from the river where there was a pool of 4 hippos. they popped up and down to check us out when we first arrived and gave their recognizable territorial call, but we didn't bother them so they didn't bother us. the night before our campsite had been visited by hungry hippos as evidenced by their footprints in the morning mud, but this night they stayed in the water. or, at least we didn't see any tracks in the morning...
101paige 101africa
the hippos were by far the most abundant wildlife we saw in murchison. not surprising considering there's an estimated 4,000 hippos in the park. at the end of a morning hike along the falls, we found a small bay protected from the churning water that gathered foam and attracted hippos. we all hung out for a while - phil taking pictures, me watching phil and the hippos, the hippos watching us. despite their outwardly placid personalities, hippos can be aggressive. as close as we were, we planned a simple escape route (a scurry up a steep grade seemingly too technical to be climbed by an angry hippo). no aggression from our hippo friends, though, just watchful eyes.
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