HIPPOS IN THE POTOMAC? George Washington University Statue, Washington, D.C.

GW's River Horse, George Washington University, Washington, DC.

Did hippopotamuses once swim in the Potomac? No. But at the entrance to the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. there is a charming statue of a hippo with a marker suggesting that they once did. The story was invented just for fun in 1996 by then University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg when he presented the bronze statue as a gift to the University's Class of 2000. 

The hippo's nose is slightly worn by passersby rubbing it.

Text on plaque next to the hippo: 

Legend has it that the Potomac was once home to these wondrous beasts. George and Martha Washington are even said to have watched them cavort in the river shallows from the porch of their beloved Mount Verson on summer evenings. Credited with enhancing the fertility of the plantation, the Washingtons believed the hippopotamus brought them good luck and children on the estate often attempted to lure the creatures close enough to the shore to touch a nose for good luck.

Gate to Kogan Plaza

As one proceeds past the hippo through the gate to Kogan Plaza in the central campus, large sculptures line the walkway.

Walkway to Kogan Plaza.

The focus of Kogan Plaza is a classical dome surrounded by gardens and seating areas, providing a pleasant place for students and visitors on their way to the library or other university buildings.

Suffusion, sculpted by Arthur Carter.

Joyce, sculpted by Sam Martin. Dedicated to the Memory of Joyce Brady Yaeger.

While George Washington may not have observed hippos in real life, he is present in the garden, seated on a bench as a bronze statue, looking as if he has just stopped for a moment to admire the scenery or to chat with passersby.

George Washington, Gary Lee Price, Artist.

After my walk through Kogan Plaza I continued down 21st street and stopped for a short visit at the George Washington University Museum, currently featuring an exhibit of Islamic prayer rugs.

Prayer carpet, Caucasus, 1890-1910.

I happened to pass by the GWU campus on my way to my hotel during a recent visit to Washington, D.C. I had not previously had the opportunity to visit the university. It was a pleasant surprise in the midst of a busy city.

Dome, with Gelman Library in background.

 

SONGO NATURE CONSERVANCY, ZIMBABWE, Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Elephants near Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe

My friend Karen Minkowski, a frequent contributor to The Intrepid Tourist and definitely an intrepid traveler, is currently in Africa, a place that she has visited often. She spent the month of November at the Songo Conservancy site, which is several hundred miles from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. She begins her report: 

Woodland Kingfisher (eats lizards and insects, not fish).

I recently spent three weeks in the Songo Conservancy northeast of Victoria Falls, on the shores of Lake Kariba, volunteering for the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF).

IAPF manages lands where both legal and illegal hunting have severely reduced wildlife populations. Some of these lands border national parks and/or could serve as corridors that would allow wildlife to move between protected areas. The organization recruits and trains young women as rangers who conduct anti-poaching operations within their own communities. (Akashinga is a documentary film about the first set of female rangers trained by IAPF (you can watch it at  https://www.iapf.org/the-film).  IAPF also supports schools, clinics, legal fishing camps and conservation education. The organization was founded by a charismatic, ex-military Australian. His mission is to wipe out poaching in Africa by building communities that coexist with wildlife and have zero tolerance for poaching or other environmental crimes, whether initiated from within or from the outside. The rangers are impressive, and their salaries help support their extended families.

Celebrating after the graduation ceremony for 40 some young women who had successfully completed their training as rangers. 

A full report of Karen's activities with the Songo Conservancy organization, filled with a description of her activities and her wonderful photographs, is HERE as a PDF.  It is filled with incredible close-ups of birds--Karen is a devoted bird-watcher with patience to catch the birds at their best. Karen's text makes you feel as if you are a vicarious visitor too. Enjoy!

Hippos spend their days in the water to keep cool. They feed at night, but on cloudy days, they sometimes leave the water to graze.

I have included just a few samples of her photographs. Be sure to go to the PDF to see all of them.

THE AFRICA TRIP, 50th ANNIVERSARY: Celebrating 10 Years of The Intrepid Tourist, by Caroline Arnold

 52 Places to Go: Week 17

Caroline and Jennifer (age 18 months), Uganda, 1971

Celebrating 10 Years of The Intrepid Tourist

Exactly fifty years ago today, on April 25, 1971, I arrived in Kampala, Uganda for a four month stay in East Africa, while my husband Art participated in a field course in animal behavior. The following blog post about my experiences was first published here ten years ago, on the 40th anniversary of the trip. Still my most memorable travel experience, a repost of that blog seems a fitting choice to celebrate ten years of The Intrepid Tourist. My plan when I first launched The Intrepid Tourist was to share some of my own travel experiences, but it has expanded over the years to include the photos and travel adventures of friends and family as well, for a total of more than 500 posts to date. I am deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed to the blog and for all my dedicated readers.

Trip of a Lifetime, East Africa, 1971
 In 1971, Art, along with four other graduate students at Rockefeller University in New York, embarked on a four month field course in western Uganda.  I didn’t want to miss out on a chance to go to Africa, even with a year-old baby (our daughter, Jennifer) to look after. One other student wife, Mary Sue, went along on the trip and we became traveling companions. During the first six weeks of the course, while our husbands were doing research in the Kibale forest near the town of Fort Portal, Mary Sue, Jennifer, and I traveled in Kenya and Tanzania.  Then, for the second half of the course, conducted in Queen Elizabeth National Park, we were able to join our husbands.

The Africa trip was a key life event for everyone who participated.  The following reminiscences are part of a collection of memories compiled to mark the anniversary and to honor of Peter Marler, who conceived of and organized the trip.  The Africa trip experience can never be repeated.  Africa, and we, have changed greatly in the last fifty years. This post is a trip down memory lane.  I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Impact on My Life
As a wife, I was not involved with the course itself, but without it I would never have had the opportunity to go to Africa. At the time, I had not yet begun to write books for children, but my experiences seeing wildlife, meeting people who lived and worked in Africa, and just being there has been important for many of the books I’ve written since then. In a larger sense, the trip also greatly impacted my world view. Before then, I had never traveled outside the United States and had no idea what it was like to live in a third world country or in a place so rich with wildlife. From the time I was a child, I had always dreamed of travel and adventure. The trip to Africa certainly fulfilled that dream. When I do school presentations and kids ask me what was the most exciting place I’ve ever been, the answer is always the same–Africa.

My memories of the three months in Africa are vivid, reinforced by the hundreds of photos we took (some appear in my books) and by letters and diary entries. My parents eagerly awaited my weekly letters, vicariously traveling Africa with me. My father typed all the letters, making them legible, and put them into a book. I have put a few excerpts below. I used my diary mostly to record animal sightings, brief reports of the events of the day, and our dinner menus. One entry says we ate stewed waterbuck, from meat given to us by a park ranger! The diary also documents the arrival of the Marler family at QE, a greatly anticipated event.

Thank You, Peter Marler

Dr. Peter Marler and Jameson's Wattle in the Kibale Forest near Fort Portal

Peter Marler accompanied us on the trip from New York to Uganda, herding us through the airport like a troupe of wayward Cub Scouts. He had made this trip before, and I was grateful for his expertise both in the larger organization and in the details. In the Amsterdam airport, he introduced us to smoked eel sandwiches. In Kampala he took us to an Indian restaurant to try the delicious East African style samosas. He also pointed out the “bat tree” along the main road, where hundreds of fruit bats hung like small black umbrellas during the day. After helping the students set up at Kanyawara, Peter went back to New York, returning a month later with his wife Judith and their kids. They camped out not far from us at QE and I remember being glad to have them nearby.

Only now do I realize the scope of the Field Course and how Peter’s vision for it made it happen. Now, on the fortieth anniversary of the Africa trip, I would like to thank Peter for creating the Field Course and for allowing me and Jennifer to tag along, providing us with the opportunity to have our own African experience and to share a bit of Art’s. Together with Art’s experiences during the course, and our travel together afterward in southern Uganda, this period still ranks as the most outstanding in our lives.

UPDATE July 14, 2014:  Sadly, Peter Marler passed away July 5, 2014.  Click HERE for his obituary in the Los Angeles Times.  Peter was a great friend, inspiring teacher, and intellectual giant.  He will be greatly missed.

The following entries are from my diary (in italics) and letters to my parents in California:

Queen Elizabeth National Park

The Students Camp:  Our accommodation at Queen Elizabeth (our room is the open door)

June 23, 1971
Arrived at Queen Elizabeth Park.

June 27, 1971

Mweya is an open, almost stark bluff above a large lake and channel which are filled with fish and hippos. At night the hippos come out of the water and up here to feed on the bushes, so one cannot step out of doors after dark. There are also elephants, bush pigs, and marabou storks, which wander in and out the camp area day and night. The windows of our room face the “Canteen”–the local native hotspot–and at night we hear loud music from that side, while from the other side we hear snorts of the hippos and elephants. I was under the impression that someone came in the night to empty our garbage can until I realized that the elephants and marabou storks were removing it all.

I am quickly reviving all my Girl Scout talents. We aren’t actually “camping” in that we have a room with three cots in it, but I am cooking all our food over a wood fire (which is tricky since we have a bare minimum of equipment.) The biggest problem besides obtaining food is water since it all must be boiled. At Mweya the only foods available are eggs, milk, and bread from the local Indian shop, tomatoes, bananas and matoke from the very small market, and you can buy fish from the Canteen.

Jennifer pointing to the eye of one of the tilapia (to be our evening's dinner)

July 4, 1971
Food supply here is very erratic. For the last three days there haven’t been any eggs and one day we had trouble getting fish. Tilapia–a tender, sweet fish–is the mainstay of our diet. It costs about 10 cents for two large fish. Pineapples, 10 cents each and bananas, 2 cents for four, are the main fruits. Vegetables vary but tomatoes and onions are always available.
Dad, it’s a good thing I used to watch you fillet fish when I was little, because that’s what I have to do every day. I’ve become quite an expert! We throw the remains to the marabou storks who hang around expectantly while we work. The dominant stork in group is apparent by the puffed pouch under its throat.

There are little lizards all over and the other day a four foot snake crawled into my shower as I left. I didn’t wait to see if it was poisonous. Apparently there are some really deadly snakes in the park and I don’t care to run into any of them!

July 5, 1971
Invasion of “dudus”–a small lake fly–in swarms of millions which clung to walls, food, people, and made the air thick.


July 7, 1971
Mary Sue found a baby bat.
Marlers arrived.

Euphorbia and Canteen, Mweya, Queen Elizabeth National Park

July 8, 1971
Showed Judith Marler local shopping spots–duka, market, and canteen–and got chased by a mad elephant twice and accosted by an incoherent drunk in canteen.
Had tea at Lodge.
Art out all night.

July 9, 1971
For excitement lately we have had an earthquake (a small one), an invasion of millions of lake flies (which just as suddenly vanished two days after they arrived), and I was charged by a mad elephant. We were walking to the market and making a wide path around an elephant when suddenly he trumpeted, started flapping his ears, and rushed toward us. Luckily it was only a bluff.

Last night Art and his study partner stayed out all night watching kob with an image intensifier. It is a telescope-like thing developed by the army which magnifies any available light so you can see things at night. What Art wanted to find out was whether the animals mate at night like they do in the day and he discovered they did.

Two male Uganda kob sparring on the lek (mating ground)

July 10, 1971
Trip to Katwe to get our lump of beef at 4/50 shillings per kilo.


July 16, 1971
Awakened in night by violent thunderstorm. Next morning discovered Waser’s tent had blown down and everything got drenched so they spent the night in the VW. Marler’s tent also blew down but they were gone.

July 17, 1971
The other day we had a hard rain, which apparently signals the male termites to come out of the ground. So, in the middle of the night we were awakened by a din, caused by the Africans going out to collect the termites around the lights. In the morning, we saw bowls of them and discarded wings all over the ground. They fry the termites and it is a great delicacy!

July 19, 1971
In evening, Art and Beverly’s seminar on ants.

July 21, 1971
Vast colonies of army ants have made trails across the ground. They are the same ones Art and Beverly studied in the Kibale forest. They go out in a column five to twenty ants wide and throw up dirt on either side forming a trench. On either side “guard”ants stand with their pincers raised, seemingly against potential predators. [One day, Jennifer dropped her teddy bear onto an ant column, and the ants hung on so tight, that I had to cut out patches of the bear’s “fur” to remove them.]

July 24, 1971
In morning, took car trip with Marlers and Mary Sue around Royal Circuit hoping to see lions, but saw only lots of waterbuck and kob, a group of elephants with two babies and hippos at hippo pool.


July 25, 1971
Spent most of afternoon at swimming pool and treated ourselves to ice cream.

Mary Sue's Python

July 30, 1971
Last week Mary Sue and I found a nine foot long baby python. It had been speared through the head and left dead on the side of the road. I didn’t really want to touch it, but Mary Sue wanted to bring it back and skin it, so she did. The skin is really beautiful and will be a great souvenir to hang on her wall. We created quite a sensation by bringing it in and there was a whole crowd of people watching the skinning procedure. Afterwards it was rubbed down with salt, scraped, and dried.

Caroline and Jennifer with baby hippo that was being hand reared by park staff

We are at the end of our stay here. This week Jennifer and I and Mary Sue went on two major sightseeing expeditions. Our first was hiring a Land Rover to take us to the craters, which turned out to be absolutely beautiful in the late afternoon sun. On the way we had two special treats. First, a group of elephants, which included a tiny baby nursing from its mother. The second was a pride of lions on a buffalo they had recently killed. This was the first time I’d seen lions doing anything but sleep (like house cats, they are basically rather lazy.) On Wednesday morning we took a boat trip up the channel. We saw all sorts of birds, lots of hippos, giant monitor lizards, plus elephant, buffalo, and bushbuck. It was a beautiful day and what made the trip most enjoyable was that Jennifer behaved well for the entire three hour ride.

July 30, 1971
Punch party at 6:00 in hostel with field course and NUTAE people.

(When the course was over, Art, Jennifer and I spent a week traveling in our rented VW through southwestern Uganda, up to but not across the borders to Burundi and Rwanda, and then back to Kampala.  In all, we spent nearly four months in East Africa.)

Note: In addition to Peter Marler, leaders of the field course in Africa were Tom Struhsaker, whose research site at Kanyawara was the location of the first half of the course, and Steve Green. Although I haven't mentioned them in the report of my activities, they also were key to the success of the course.

All text and photos copyright Caroline Arnold

WET BOTSWANA, Guest Post by Owen Floody

Botswana, Africa. Half-collared Kingfisher

Our friend Owen Floody, who recently retired from a career of teaching and research at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, has had the good fortune of being able to travel frequently.  These trips have been divided between treks and safaris, reflecting his interests in seeing (and photographing) interesting landscapes and wildlife.  In 2017, for example, he completed three treks and two safaris, a personal record. (Note his previous posts on The Intrepid Tourist.) This post will describe the first of his 2017 safaris, a 14-day trip to Botswana with Wilderness Travel .

The trip to Botswana appealed to me for two major reasons.  First, it ran at an unusual time of the year.  Whereas one usually goes on safari in the local dry season (for reasons that will become apparent), this trip was aimed to coincide with the end of a wet season and I was curious to see how the African landscapes would look then.  Second, in comparison to many other commercial safaris, this had an unusually diverse and interesting itinerary.  Rather than visiting just one or two areas, this included 4-5 distinct (sometimes very distinct) habitats.  These included the Okavango Delta, Moremi Game Reserve, Savuti Channel and Chobe River.  But perhaps most notably, it included the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, which I was particularly anxious to see and which essentially can only be visited in the wet season.

Including myself, there were seven guests on this trip and at least twice that number of support staff.  In that and other respects, the trip might be described as a luxury camping tour.  For the most part, we lived comfortably (e.g., hot showers on demand, amazing food from an extremely simple “kitchen”) in a tented camp, but one that moved from area to area with us.  The only exception to this was our stop in the Okavango Delta, where we got in and out by small plane and/or boat, and so could not bring with us the truck that gave our mobile camp its mobility.

Wild dogs, Kalahari

In turn, my decisions to follow this itinerary in the wet season had both positive and negative consequences.  Let’s get the latter out of the way first.

Lioness

The first negative consequence was completely predictable and so can’t really be seen as a weakness of the itinerary.  Because of the lush vegetation and widely distributed water, animals simply are harder to find and view in the wet season.  For instance, (1) Why is the lioness walking in the road? (2) How visible would she have been if displaced a few feet to the left?  Second, even though I initially thought that the mid-April timing of this trip might be too late, we ran into a surprising amount of water, enough to flood roads and potential camps, requiring adjustments in our plans. All safaris are at the mercy of unpredictable weather and our guides were able to make very effective adjustments on the fly, reflecting a big advantage of travel with a very reputable company.  Last, I thought that the amount and variety of wildlife near our Okavango lodge was a bit disappointing.  But I don’t know if this says something about the choice of lodge, the season or my expectations.

Kalahari

Offsetting these limitations were a like number of pluses.  First, we were able to visit the Kalahari and it was an eye-opener—much more lush and productive than I expected it to be in even this relatively fertile time of the year.  Second, largely due to the efforts of our two expert guides, we managed to see many wonderful mammals and birds.  This was a little less true in the Okavango than elsewhere. 

Hippo, Okuvango

But even in the Okavango, we had a terrific encounter with a pod of hippos and also a very pleasant morning on a Delta island, tracking elephants on foot.  Third, I think it’s worth emphasizing that the variety of sites that were included on the itinerary exposed us to a greater variety of wildlife than we otherwise would have seen.  Last, the wet season really was different.  It was lush and highly attractive as a result.  And the late rains even made the skies attractive and dramatic, especially early and late in the day.

Gazelles

So, do I recommend this trip?  That depends completely on the person I’m advising and what they’re after.  Remember that any safari is in part a game of chance.  And, despite the greater ease of avoidance and concealment enjoyed by animals in the wet season, we did very well.  Therefore, I found the trip to be very productive and enjoyable, though I might research the Okavango site to be used a little more searchingly before signing on again.

BOTSWANA, AFRICA, ANIMAL SAFARI, Guest Post by Ann Paul

Leopard, Botswana

My friend and fellow children's book writer Ann Paul and her husband Ron recently returned from a trip to Africa which included a trip to Botswana. Here is her report and some fantastic photos of the wildlife they saw. You can find out about Ann's books at www.annwhitfordpaul.net. Her newest book, If Animals Said I  Love You, will be published in the fall.

Botswana, a sparsely populated country of little more than two million people is mostly desert, savannah and grassy plains, but features some of the best animal viewing in Africa. Although our spring (Botswana’s fall) trip was off season (which meant lodges and safari camps were at their most reasonable) and we were warned wildlife might not be out in abundance, we were more than pleasantly surprised. Perhaps we were fortunate that the country had endured an especially rainy season, for we were greeted with some great sightings, including our first ever of a leopard out for a stroll.

And, a less than one-week-old hippo calf hitching a ride on her mother’s back....

a parade of over one hundred elephants that never seemed to end....

and a pack of wild dogs on the prowl. Here is just one of them. I love its perky ears.

Warthogs are usually a common sight. What is uncommon is to come upon two near their den and that they stayed still long enough for a decent picture.

A male lion making sure no other male suitor came after his females

These two male giraffes posed perfectly.

Then they put on a demonstration of their sparring technique, using their heads to lift up the other’s leg.

I’m particularly proud of this photo of a baboon high up in a palm tree taken with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000k camera which features a Leica lens and a view angle from 25 mm wide-angle to 16X optical zoom. (thanks to the suggestion of a dear friend.)

The camera allowed me to get some lovely bird photos which I’ll share in an upcoming post. For now, I leave you with this advice. If you’re planning a trip to Botswana, consider going off-season. The prices are cheaper. The lodges are less crowded, which means you’re not crammed into a vehicle for animal sightings and you get more personal attention.
On previous trips, I’ve traveled with a simple camera.
Never again.
If you’re going to the trouble of a long flight (22 hours air time from Los Angeles, not counting layovers in airports) make sure you can take quality pictures.

We stayed at Tubu Tree Camp in the Okavango Delta floodplains and Zarafa Camp located in the Selinda Reserve.  Our trip was arranged by LIVINGSTONE SAFARIS.

WILDLIFE VIEWING IN UGANDA AND TANZANIA, Part 2, Guest Post by Ann Paul

Hippos in the Kazinga Channel, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda

My friend and fellow children's book writer Ann Whitford Paul recently went with her husband Ron on a trip to Africa, where they did some amazing wildlife viewing in Uganda and Tanzania. Her pictures bring back memories of my own trip to those countries in 1971. Although much has changed since then, the wonder of seeing animals at home in their natural habitat is still the same. Here is a photo tour of some of the highlights of Ann and Ron's trip.

Water Buffalo and Egyptian Geese

Queen Elizabeth Park extends from Lake George in the north-east to Lake Edward in the south-west and includes the Kazinga Channel connecting the two lakes.

Pelican and Water Buffalo

A boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel brought us up close to hippos, water buffalo, and lots of birds.

Malachite Kingfisher

The boat trip relaxed us for what lay ahead . . . Trekking to see the gorillas.  My husband and I both felt we should do this before we were too old.  However, we soon discovered three miles of daily walking up and down Los Angeles hills, did nothing to prepare us for the steep, three hour, straight-up, lush and unpathed trek through the misty mountains of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. 

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

But what an amazing privilege to see gorillas just four or five feet away going eating bamboo...

....and passing by us close enough we could almost touch one.

By the time we hiked back down (over two and a half hours) my knees were screaming with pain.  Fortunately the hotel must have expected it, because part of the cost included a free massage which I’m sure is the only reason I can still stand upright. 

To be continued:

Next post--a jeep safari in Tanzania.

You can find out more about Ann Whitford Paul and her books at www.annwhitfordpaul.com .