We left the lodge at 8am for a 17km drive to the Wami River for a boat trip. We passed through a couple of villages on our way and saw monkeys, warthogs and bush pigs along the road. As we neared the ocean south of Saadani, we drove through salt fields where workers were shovelling and bagging sea salt. What back breaking work, standing in the hot sun, raking and shovelling salt.
The Wami River is an old river full of deep bends that snake back and forth. W
e had hardly rounded the first bend when we came upon our first group of Hippos. A quarrel broke out amongst them, and we soon saw the size of these creatures, including their huge mouths. We wended our way up this leisurely river, seeing lots of hippos, including some babies! We saw mainly ears and eyes, but some stood up on the shore now and then. (They can hold their breath under water for up to 15 minutes.)
We also saw several crocodiles: small, medium and large. Seeing them move on land is quite impressive...............they look quite prehistoric a
nd appear to move awkwardly (but I would not want to race one!). What really stood out though, was the number of beautiful birds. We saw tons of them! Lots of Kingfishers (including the tiny Malachite Kingfisher), storks, birds of prey.....just an amazing array of calls and colours. We also saw a couple of Colobus monkeys.
The Wami River is an old river full of deep bends that snake back and forth. W
e had hardly rounded the first bend when we came upon our first group of Hippos. A quarrel broke out amongst them, and we soon saw the size of these creatures, including their huge mouths. We wended our way up this leisurely river, seeing lots of hippos, including some babies! We saw mainly ears and eyes, but some stood up on the shore now and then. (They can hold their breath under water for up to 15 minutes.)
We also saw several crocodiles: small, medium and large. Seeing them move on land is quite impressive...............they look quite prehistoric a
nd appear to move awkwardly (but I would not want to race one!). What really stood out though, was the number of beautiful birds. We saw tons of them! Lots of Kingfishers (including the tiny Malachite Kingfisher), storks, birds of prey.....just an amazing array of calls and colours. We also saw a couple of Colobus monkeys.
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