Dodging hippos in St Lucia

As I was walking around in St Lucia, it felt like everything was out to get me. At first, monkeys passed by on the deserted road. So far, so good.

“I always feel like somebody’s watching me”, as Rockwell once sang.

Found a beautiful beach with endless views of the Indian Ocean, but there was a sign with warnings of shark, crocodile and hippo, as well as strong currents. So that was not really the perfect place for a swim.

“Feed me, Seymour.”

Then we passed the aptly named Croc Island and found a boardwalk through the dense vegetation, but were a bit put off by the sign “Danger crocodiles”.

Looking for Mick Dundee.

The boardwalk was quite nice though.

Into the unknown.

St Lucia may not be a place that most people have heard of, but there has been findings of early humans living in caves here 130 000 years ago. Many years later, the area was called Rio dos Medos do Ouro (River of the Gold Dunes) by Portuguese sailors from the ship São Bento in 1554. The name changed to Santa Lucia in 1575.

Today the area is known for its spectacular wildlife. It’s estimated to have about 1200 nile crocodiles and 800 hippopotamuses. The hippos are known to roam the streets at night, since they cross on the way to the ocean.

Of course, there were signs about that as well.

The hippos are cute but can be really dangerous. It was a bit of a thrill to walk around in the dark with a flashlight, not really knowing what to expect further down the road.

Starting to get the message.

I later went on a boat ride down a river, while the hippos were lazily swimming around, looking up at me. It wasn’t exactly Heart of Darkness level on the thrill ride, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something even worse was lurking out of sight. In the humid heat and scorching sun, anything was possible. I even wondered what I was doing out here, while most people wisely stay away from such things. As Kurtz from Apocalypse Now would ask, are my methods unsound?

Come closer…

The town St Lucia in itself is a three hour drive north of Durban, in the KwaZulu-Natal region. It’s set by the Indian Ocean, relatively close to Mozambique and Eswatini (Swaziland).

A bit further inland, there are rhinos, elephants, giraffes, zebras and all sorts of wildlife, roaming freely under the marula trees in the Hluhluwe–Imfolozi area. A really beautiful part of South Africa. If you want to have a close encounter with amazing animals, St Lucia might be the place for you.