Just finished a Tusker beer at an extraordinary lunch in Olenana camp.  Some camp.  Watching the hippos and thinking about where to start with the night and day stories. May go to the tent where the veranda has a bed!! And overlooks a separate hippo pool on the river, completely secluded, as well as an outdoor shower.  Might get another Tusker beer by room service, free of course, to provide inspiration for writing.  Also have to mentally prepare for fine dinner in just four hours.  Consider this:  The saga of life and death in Africa doesn’t stop at dinner.   Maybe start with last night’s dinner. Very elegant. Tasted great.  Indoors.  Candlelight.  Bats fly through the veranda opening and dining room regularly in an athletic aerial display, deftly missing all diners and waiters by a comfortable distance as they snatch their pray.  A swallow will also fly through occasionally until dark.  These guys keep the bugs negligible.  Not a single bite tonight. They are aided by a dozen geckos on the ceiling above us.  They catch  the insects that collect high around the light fixtures.   We have coffee in room 7:00.  Breakfast 7:30 . Game drive at 8. First stop, an army ant procession just starting out, going to hunt termites, their only diet.  The group has a visible beginning and end right there in the road.

He says they will make a hissing sound you can hear as they go into battle on the termite mound.  The termites sound the alarm and the designated soldiers come to the top of the hive. The termites secret a substance that confuses the ants. The termites have big pincers that transect the ants, and the ants have tiny sharp talons that pierce easily.  First to bite, wins.  Ants chop up the termites and carry them in pieces back in procession.  Conclusion of lecture, a truck drives over the neatly organized procession we’ve been admiring.   Next we see the butcherbird I told you about, aka the common fiscal.  Guide says he’s the most studied bird of all.  Turns out he not only butchers the prey in pieces, he takes the pieces and impales them on thorns and barbed wire, storing them for the future.   We cut through a grassy road, and are surrounded by thirty or so beautiful wire tailed swallows, swirling and darting around the vehicle. Not anywhere else around.  It’s because we scuff up the insects in the grass and as the take flight from us, they are snatched.   1000 ways to die in Africa:  The dining room, the fiscal, on the road.   We find a pride of five lions taking shade under a single lone tree on a slight hill.  We stopped ten feet from them and watched for 15 minutes.  They just slept and weren’t the slightest bit interested.   Went by the tree where the leopard had half eaten the kill.  Now the legs were still dangling but it was skin and bones only today, no meat.   Stop at a hippo pool and hear a giant commotion.  We run to an observation area and two hippos are bellowing and facing off.

In such a challenge, they open their mouths as large as possible to intimidate and check measurement.  If one confirms or thinks his mouth will fit INSIDE the others mouth, he will turn tail. One hippo has the high ground.  Another the low.  There are 30 hippos in the family, all turned to watch the showdown.  Eyes and noses above water and backs to us, as battle is on far bank.  Much more bellowing and gnashing of teeth and almost bites.  Low ground guy tries to flank high ground guy on an easy slope on the side.  Higher guy throws saliva around with open mouth.  Hollering.  Low man turns around and goes in water with splash.  All eyes still on high man.  Seems king.  Another hippo comes out of water and up the hill to capture the flag.  So much noise you’re sure life and death in the balance.  New guy accompanied by two youngsters who crawl subserviently onto mud.  Lots more bellowing.  Youngsters will be crushed if challenger falls on the slope of the bank!  The top guy gives a holler, then dejectedly walks away!!  It turns out that high man is a male hippo trying to join this family, and was rejected.  He walked entirely around the river bank, head very low, passed another family nearby, and went on.  The hippos in the family then turned away and went on with their routine, all heads random.   So as not to end on a sour note, I want to tell you what a process and spectacle a hippo taking a poop is.  Bev is now on our deck and calling to the hippos to get their attention and get some excitement going.  Sure enough, one responds,  hollering, raising its butt out of the water,  and lets go with a large continuos stream–his tail flaps back and forth rapidly, faster than the fastest windshield wiper, but working exactly like the best of them, making a very rhythmic splash very loud, heard two hundred yards away.  Butt goes back in the water.  Bev wonders if her call caused this and takes it a bit personally.   To clear your minds, think of me going to the pool here, ordering a Tusker beer, taking a nap, protected by bats lizards and swallows, river rumbling in the background.  Did I forget to tell you that a giant rat at least 2 1/2 feet in length ran across the outside deck next to us during dinner?   Wild stuff.  Jambo=