Life's A beach if you're a Hippo!

Trip Start Jan 24, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of South Africa  ,
Saturday, March 3, 2007

We baz bussed up to St Lucia, which (unlike its Caribbean namesake) is a tropical forested wetland which starts a wetland stretching up the entire east coast of africa. It is a global heritage site which means Hippos and Crocs (wild animals) can do whatever they like while Hippocrits and Crooks (Shell or the SA government!) can't. Its beautiful with long unspoilt beaches for lazy poor physios while out in the sea are reefs galore for those pesky doctors with too much money and not enough sense to dive around (kidding!). We only had a day, so we hooked with a German girl, diana, who we'd met on the bus and was staying in an AMAZING hotel with garden apartment, and hired a taxi to take us to a beach with reputed excellent snorkelling straight off the beach. Quick drive through a bush park revealed a lovely big white beach but a very small and rather unimpreseive snorkelling site. We did an hour's snorkelling which was ok but were really battling the massive rip currents so retreated to the beach and chilled in the horsizointal for the rest of the afternoon. Fo the evening it was a lovely boat tour up the estuary to see hippos and crocs (doing what they want), which for the hippos was sleeping in the river and occasionally a bit of submarine aerobics. The corcs do ven less, so it wasn't especially action packed but it was great to see them in their natural habitats. The Crocs (on a fascinating tangent) have no predators, no cancer or autoimmune diseases and can survive at temperatures between -30 C and 60 C- at freezing they can slow their heart to 1 beat every 16 mins and live to the age of 140+ (see what stress-free can do for you)! Our next stage was up to Kosi TO see Matthew Gibbs at Manguzi Hospital. 
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