Marty’s photo of the day #4230: Via both my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, and my college show, Around the World in 90 Minutes, the hippo attack Deb and I survived on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe (the hippo bit through the center of our canoe and lifted us six feet into the air) has become quite famous. Much less famous is what happened the next day. As we continued downriver—in a replacement canoe—we encountered this furious hippo.
Fortunately, the hippo’s anger was distractible, as he/she was engaged in a vicious fight with another hippo—while a baby hippo bobbed just to the side. Most likely a mother hippo was protecting her baby from a dominant bull.
Deb and I got out of the way as quickly as we could.