This is a condensed version of a travel blog entry I posted (https://bob-brink.travellerspoint.com/129/) shortly before arriving in Kasane (for a sunset cruise) on June 8, 2018, about an evening spent in the Chobe River with Dave Hellard on August 25, 1980.
Sunday had been a strange day. There were lots of stray dogs running around the village. Someone in authority decided that they should be euthanized. They also decided that the method would be shooting them, and the location happened to be behind the hotel, virtually behind my rondavel. I fled to the hotel patio where a group of Canadians were enjoying an afternoon drinking beer. There were two main topics of discussion, the fact that hippos were the biggest killers of people in Africa and a debate about how long a person can survive cold conditions before dying of hypothermia. Little did I know how relevant those topics were going to be for my evening. Dave and I had decided to go on a river cruise that night. I thought we would go on the double deck houseboat called the African Queen, but Dave came back to tell me that he had arranged for us to rent a small fishing boat from the hotel. It would be cheaper. There were five of us on our little boat, the two of us, the driver, and two Batswana who had asked if they could come along. We headed out just behind the African Queen. We were the only two boats on the river. I was amazed at the amount of game. Spread out on the flood plains were elephants, hippos, kudus, Cape buffalo, sable, water bucks, and impala, many in big herds. The skies were alive with various exotic birds. After about an hour we looked back and saw that the African Queen was turning around. When we carried on, Dave and I had a good laugh as we agreed that we were getting a better deal. We passed through a large herd of hippos. As we exited on the far side, someone shouted, “I think that one chased us!” We all thought that was quite hilarious. We drove on for only a few more minutes before the driver turned around to return to the lodge. The only way back was through the same herd of hippos. Dave was standing up in the bow with a fishing pole, optimistically thinking that he might catch a fish. I was just basking in the wonder and excitement; the entire ride had been a real thrill. I was snapped out of my reverie by a loud thud. The bow went up and Dave and his fishing rod went flying out of the suddenly stopped boat. I reached over to help him back in. “Whew, that was close,” I thought to myself. Then I looked down. The boat was filling with water. We tried to bail with our hands, a rather futile gesture. We all ended up in the river. As I went under, I became entangled in Dave’s fishing line. I had a moment of panic as I felt trapped. Could I get free or was I going to drown? But the line parted, and I kicked to the surface. We desperately held on to the swamped boat. We were surrounded by the herd of hippos. I felt total terror as I looked over my shoulder at a hippo that was only about 20 feet away. He was likely the one that had attacked us. He submerged. Was he coming to attack? Someone yelled, “He is coming”. I put my head down and waited. Then nothing. He resurfaced. Once again, he went under. Again, we waited. We eventually concluded that attack was not imminent and could breathe again. At one point the boat seemed to be sinking, so we decided to swim to shore. I could not see much as I had lost my glasses, so have always relied upon Dave’s account about what happened next, which was that the driver was tossed into the air by a hippo. I certainly was aware that something had happened. There was shouting, followed by a retreat to the boat. The sun went down. We thought the hippos would leave us, that they would go to the shore at night. But they stayed. It would get quiet, then we would hear the sound, “Huh Huh Huh”. One would sound on one side of us. Then others would answer, behind and to the sides. It sounded like they were laughing at us. I was getting cold and thought back to the conversation at the lodge and wondered how long we could stay in the water. We heard a boat engine, a faint sound in the distance. Then it got louder; it was getting closer and closer. Help was coming! Then it was getting fainter. It was going back. We could no longer hear it at all. A couple of hours passed. No one spoke. It was quiet except for the occasional sound of the hippos. We had been in the water for about five hours when rescuers finally appeared, hauled us into the boat, and took us back to the lodge. We were met by a large contingent at the dock. Dave and I were bundled away by the Canadian crowd. We never spoke to our boat mates again. They hurried us down to my rondavel, stripped off our clothes and put first me, and then Dave, into the shower. I was lucky. I had hot water. They put us into bed. I was shivering and shaking. Dave was lucky now. He was put into the second bed in my rondavel. He had Kele to get him warm. Some years later Dave was back in Kasane for work and heard stories about a couple of guys and hippos overturning their boat. Many facts had changed, including our nationalities, but there were enough similarities to know that we were the subject of the story. We were somewhat of a legend.
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