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Hunting for Hippo in iSimangaliso Wetland Park in South Africa
A snort, a splash, and the nostrils, ears, and rounded rump of a hippo emerge from the water like a surfacing submarine. As I watch from a wooden walkway 50 meters away, more heads appear. Impatient—or perhaps hungry—three youngsters clamber out of the water on their short legs and forage on the bank. It is early evening and eleven hippos have gathered to feed at the point where Lake St Lucia empties into the Indian Ocean. The estuary is one of eight distinct interlinking ecosystems, declared a World Heritage Site in 1999, which form the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. Besides hippo, the park is also home to crocodile, hundreds of species of birds and fish, rhinoceros, elephant, giraffe, and antelope. Add world-class diving and towering sand dunes, and it's not hard to understand how iSimangaliso, which means "miracle" in Zulu, got its name.
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- Megan Cytron (Editor) Congratulations! You won Honorable Mention in the Winter Parks Contest.
