Our second lodge is in the Sabi Sands reserve, abutting Kruger National Park in the northwest of SA. The lodge and our rooms face a large reservoir with numerous resident beasts, including 3 crocodiles, a very cool Monitor lizard, and a substantial number of hippos. Other animals come to call, often in sizeable numbers, so it's quite rewarding just to sit on the porch or in the bar watching the elephant families, troops of baboons, various antelope of differing sizes and persuasions, and occasional predators, availing themselves of the water and/or the customers.

This is the dry season, and apparently the foraging in the lake for the hippos is inadequate for their considerable needs. Thus they occasionally leave the water and forage ashore, either just at the water's edge, or at night in the grass in the veld around the reservoir and lodge. (Hippos are responsible for more human deaths than any other breed in Africa, which is one of the reasons any after-dark commuting between room and lodge - bar, boma, etc. is done only with an escort.)

Anyway, the diet of dry grass and lots of water apparently doesn't sit all that well with the animals, so along with their occasional dominance calls, they also bellow their hippo complaints about flatulence and general gastric discomfort. All night. Especially just before dawn.

So the general night noises of the bush (baboons barking, night birds, the occasional distant elephant or big cat woofs) are drowned out by complaining hippos, only feet from our rooms. It can make falling asleep actually rather difficult, a bit like when a neighbor's dog barks without any apparent rhythm.

Waking up to their crowing is no problem whatsoever. None.