Let's take stock of the near death experiences I've had so far on this trip: exposure (South Africa), angry elephant (Botswana), river rafting (Zimbabwe), lion (Zimbabwe), boredom (Malawi), snake (Kenya), and truck accident (pretty much every country). Hmmm, what is missing? Ah yes, Africa's most dangerous animal, the hippo. As soon as we arrived at our campsite on the shores of Lake Baringo, we were met by an employee that told us to not to pitch our tents along a particular fence line because the hippos liked to walk that way up from the lake in the evening to forage. Ok, I can handle that, no biggie. I'm sure they would not be interested in my tent anyway. So I found a nice spot surrounded by trees that looked like it would provide some shade from the sun. I had set up my tent and was getting ready to go take a shower when Emma sauntered over and said offhandedly "Isn't that hippo poo on the trees by your tent?" On closer inspection, yes indeed, hippos had apparently been backing it up and rubbing their butts on the tree trunks surrounding my tent. Great, one thing I had not been looking for was hippo crap on tree trunks. No worries, I would just move my tent, I figured. After close inspection of all tree trunks in the area, I found another nice spot completely free of hippo dung and set up my tent again. Some folks had concerns about where they had put up their tents so Emma fetched the camp employee to get his ok on where we had put our tents. Guess whose tent was "um, maybe ok"? Yes, that's right, I had pitched my tent near yet another favored hippo path. Rather worried, I grabbed the employee and asked him about the safety of other potential tent sites until he gave me a definitive ok. Which happened to be all of 20 feet from my last tent site. Why a hippo wouldn't trample my tent a mere 20 feet from a site that was off-limits is beyond me, but, hey, the employee is the expert. Regardless, I had completely neurotic dreams that night about hippos snagging my tent inside their gaping jaws and dragging me around. It didn't help that I would wake up repeatedly in the night to one of four sounds: loud splashing, heavy footsteps outside my tent, hippos grunting and squealing back and forth (on opposite sides of my tent, no less), or, the worst, something large loudly chewing grass on the other side of my tent's thin, nylon wall. It was rather unnerving and I didn't dare pop my head out for a look. Needless to say, I didn't sleep so well in Lake Baringo.
Which means I saw quite possibly the best sunrise on this trip:
Hippo ears in the center and you can just make out a croc swimming in the lower right. I wasn't getting any closer to the water!:
As for climbing, well, I spent one day doing short, single-pitch trad leads trying to stay out of the sweltering sun. None of us were particularly inspired by the area and we voted to leave Lake Baringo early. I slept really well the night we left.
