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October 5, 2003

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Our first day in Katavi National Park, Tanzania's third biggest. It receives few visitors because of its remote location in the backwoods, Western region. We camped at the ranger post in the park center. The rangers seemed happy to have visitors. We pitched our tent next to a water hole overflowing with thousands of hippos (no exaggeration, we literally mean thousands of hippos).
A water hole is like a nightclub for animals. They come in droves just for a drink.
Hitchhiking lion. Sorry, no room for those teeth.
Baby hippo's first look at an elephant.
Old bush lore says that hippos stamp out fires. We cooked by this water hole and no hippos came over with an extinguisher.
Katavi is too remote to be known for anything, but if it ever did gain fame the reason would be hippos. Over 3,000 exist in this single water hole