“But Not the Hippopotamus”

This morning we woke up and headed straight to the Amoragedet Park. As soon as we got out of the car monkeys surrounded us. They were jumping on the car and stalking us. We got out some bread to feed them. Jill and I were a bit nervous, but after we saw Sara, Abraham and Dawit feed them with ease, I gave it a try. The little monkeys would grab it quickly and run away. Lots of these monkeys had very small babies clinging to them. As we were playing with the monkeys the largest birds of my life began approaching me. They were so ugly! We started to walk to the lake and were followed by the monkeys, some very random men with black teeth and lots of children selling gourds they carved. As we approached the lake there was a crashing noise in the trees above us. We looked up and saw tons of very pretty monkeys above us. They were black with white stomachs and big long white puffy tails. We were so excited. These monkeys slowly came down the trees and we began to feed them peanuts that had some what magically appeared. Then we were able to bribe them onto our shoulders to get them to eat. It was so cool! They are very light and would hold my hand so I could not pull it away while they ate.

When it was time to leave the monkeys, the man who had given us the peanuts to feed them began yelling in Amharic. I guess we were supposed to pay him. I have NO idea how much to pay a man who gave me peanuts with out me asking for them. I thought he was just being nice. So Abraham told me to give him 20 Birr. He was so offended by my pitiful sum that he refused it. I shoved it in his hand and walked away. He yelled after us. There are some times I think I am glad I can not speak Amharic.

We then arrived at the boats. They were pretty shabby looking, painted rainbow colors. We had to wear bright orange life jackets and climbed in. The boat was worse on the inside, but I figured, this is their job, they take these boats out every day, Chigarella! (no
problem). We push off and there are 6 of us and 2 “staff” in the boat. One was for driving and I learned later that the other was the water bailer. Yes, you read right. There was one man whose job it was to just bail water out of the boat that would leak through the bottom. Thank goodness he does his job well.

We drove across the lake with the sun shining down on us. We saw ducks and swans, we saw men fishing on tiny stick type boats that only had room for them to stand. It took amazing balance for them to fish! We finally made it to the Hippo area. I was a little afraid that one would just pop out of the water and grunt at us. Then we saw them in the distance. Just eyes, ears and noses peaking out of the water. I guess they are afraid of boats so they did not let us get close. We would see them all pop their heads in and out of the water. We watched for a while and saw about 10 hippos, one was a baby. We then went to look at birds and headed back to shore. I just kept thinking… “I had a monkey on my shoulder and I saw hippos in the wild!” How crazy is that!