Hippo and Crocs can be surprisingly tolerant of each other. Both are incredibly powerful, and both are not only capable, but regularly do kill each other, which leads to an uneasy truce. It is true that crocodiles will occasionally take baby hippos, and if a hippo dies, a crocodile will happily tuck in, but for the majority they live on an un easy truce.
- Washing alongside Hippopotamus and Crocodile : lake Tagalala camp, Selous, Tanzania
Lake Tagalala camp is very simple. A sign, identifying it, a couple of long-drop toilets, flat ground for tents to be put up, and a couple of straw-roofed structures as shelters. There is no washing facilities – this is instead done in the way that humans have done so for millennia. The lake lies about 100m down the hill, so in the morning, we walked down with our night guard and washed at the edge of the lake. This is a wild lake, so it has much wildlife, both coming to drink from it and living in it. Our side of the lake slopped sharply, making it suitable for hippos to laze in the water. Hippos are not quiet, a hippo pod tends to make a great deal of noise, grunting at each other continually throughout the night.
Where we entered the shallows, there were hippopotamus 10m to the right and hippo 10m to the left. We washed fast, while the night guard kept guard, making sure that neither species moved towards us.
I could get used to this arrangement, though my wife was relieved when we moved to a camp with more resources
