It’s next to the lily-pad, close enough to make me slam hard on the brakes

It's next to the lily-pad, close enough to make me slam hard on the brakes That's when the hippo surfaces. We're in a dry sports utility vehicle; the hippo is fully submerged in water except for its eyes and ears, and yet we are - in what will strike me later as an incredibly strange configuration - nose to nose and eye to eye. Its ears start wiggling. (In South Africa, instead of saying “that's just the tip of the iceberg,” you say, “That's just the ears of the hippopotamus.”) Our windows are open. Our windows are open! I freeze, sure we are safe - we are safe, ...