Our bus arrived in Divundu around 4:30 in the morning. Fortunately, we had booked and a staff member from Ngepi was there to pick us up and take us to the camp. Now, being the lazy people that we are... we just wanted to go to sleep as soon as possible rather than setting up our own tent. So, we had decided to stay in a Ngepi deck tent. It was amazing!! I have never seen a tent like this one before. Not only did it have a bed with sheets and a quilt, but it also include an "indoor light!" This isn't real camping!! It's luxury in the great out doors!

While we were settling into our early morning bed, we heard this grunting (for lack of a better word!) and realized that there must be a very large Hippo waking up somewhere close by! And I mean close, close by!! The river was just feet from our deck tent and the noise was astounding! We knew that our first priority the next day would be to get out on the  river to see the unique creatures of this area.

And that's just what we did. We took a paddle up the Okavango river with our guide Hennie. At first there wasn't much to see. We were busy paddling! Although the river looks really placid, there is actually quite the under current. With Heide making sure the Hippos knew we were coming by bashing her paddle against the sides of the canoe --an old bush trick that may, or may not actually prevent the foot long tusks from chomping through the sides of your vessel (why do they have such big gnashers and a propensity to eat people if they're veggies????)  -- the Lad MC had to paddle like crazy. Granted it was mostly ineffectual splashing he managed but it still took us up stream. (Slowly I'll grant you) But nonetheless we made our way surely into the feared Hippo's lair! With the ridiculously large (clearly over fed on canoes and their passengers) beasties getting just a bit uppity about our approach the bellowing noises got progressively louder. The noise sounded as if we'd walked in to a chainsaw festival, or a quad bike grand prix, it was astounding. And scary. These water horses are big, fat and nasty. Well they cohabit with crocodiles so they can hardly be meek little angels can they? Naturally this danger only spurred us on more. As we inched closer (Mark's paddling can not exactly be described as Olympian we're sure he'd fail his Canadian citizenship test for such girlie slapping of the surface) the jaws of the Hungry Hippo opened wider. Again we thought something along the lines of "Veggies, my bottom!" Finally Hennie realized that we were actually close enough (the Afrikaners were never exactly over blessed in the "oh gosh were now in danger zone" genes) and signaled that we should stop and watch for a while as it became apparent that the Hippos were in fact creeping up on us. I know, how do two ton fatsos creep up on anything but they were doing it! Eventually the Hippo, now really quite wary of Heide's canoe whacking backed off and left us. At which point so did Hennie. Cheers mate!  

On our own, we floated down the river... safe from the Hippos and watched numerous bird species! We even saw a fish eagle which was quite impressive... massive beasts that they are, even other birds are afraid of them. However, I think the highlight of our river trip was the chance encounter with a Croc. We saw him flashing around on the river bank as he made his way from his sun bathing spot back into the water. If he'd come close, we could have whacked him on the head to keep him away... but unfortunately, he didn't get near us. Yep, there was some serious disappointment in our boat, and it wasn't Heide who felt this way.

It was a great day out and a few wonderful relaxing days at Ngepi camp, but the life of the traveler requires movement... so, tomorrow we are hoping to be able to thumb a lift to Maun, Botswana.