We also used to visit Awash Game Park on holiday. Game parks were not as common in Ethiopia as they were in Kenya, but the government decided to try and start some.
The Awash river flowed from the mountain ranges down across the desert, it never reaches the sea but looses itself in the desert sand.
There weren’t any lions near to Addis Abba, so they imported some lions which had been in captivity and had been fed, they used these as the foundation stock for the new game park. Because they had been fed by people, they were not afraid of us and they chased our car. The children banged on the roof and said hurry hurry we’re being chased by lions, but really there was no danger at all.
The Ethiopian government following the tradition of the Kenya game parks decided to place lions in the park.
The trouble was that the lions were semi-tame having been kept in cages. We camped on the banks of the river Awash. The first excitement was that the river had crocodiles in it, so somehow, we built a barricade to stop them coming ashore.
There was also hippo in the river and they also would come ashore as they were herbivores. One evening I asked Piers to go across to the Casbon’s adjacent campsite and ask for something, he came back far too quickly without anything. I asked him where the item was that I wanted, he said I never got there, there is a hippo in the way. I think it was so tame that it used to stick its head into the tent and lick the hair of the occupants.