Hippo, Toronto's Best Tour Ever

The Hippo [boat with wheels] is a tour that goes over land and water. It was originally thought of as one of those dumb touristy things to do. I wasn't sold on the idea. I knew we had to do something to make it more interesting. Our original plan was to pick up Melissa [Brad's girlfriend] when she arrived in Toronto and take her on the tour. We wanted to act all freaked out when the boat submerged, but the only way to do that was to blindfold and cover her ears. Wasn't gonna happen. We told her about the tour when we got onto the bus.

We decided to sit in the front of the bus, which I normally wouldn't do. The beginning of the tour was pretty lame. Most everyone else on the bus was from overseas and was old. As we were driving through the city our tour guide was pointing out historical landmarks and giving some background. Basic tour guide crap. Our tour guide was a geography student on her second tour with the Hippo. She didn't know damn thing and was using notecards the whole time. The funny thing was when she didn't know about a particular landmark she'd say "And this is a really big building" or "they built blah blah blah in 19whatever and it costed a lot of money." Another choice quote from our tour guide was when we drove past a street in Chinatown. She said something like "And this is X street, there are alot of signs with Chinese writing on them. If you listen carefully you might be able to hear people speaking Chinese." WHAT??? Anyways, while we were driving through the city I noticed all of the people on the street giving the Hippo weird looks like they saw Noah's Ark on wheels or something. I was also telling Jason [who had the window seat] to yell "Hippo" out to the crowds of people. He didn't want to. We felt like such tourists.

We finished the first leg of the tour and headed towards the water. The guide was giving her safety speech and showing us how to use the lifejacket. I asked her if anything ever went wrong in the past. She said "Not yet this summer." Brad was like "oh that's great..." We were taking pictures with the lifejacket on jokingly acting like we were in danger. We didn't know what we were in for.

OK, so now we were gonna enter the water. Seems simple enough right? Wrong. There was a path marked by floation devices and ropes for jet skis. The driver drove right over one of the ropes and got caught. He was backing up and pulling up and revving the engine to try and get loose. I was saying to Brad, Melissa and Jason that we was gonna die. The tour guide didn't know what to do or say so we started talking to her about unrelated stuff. The guide called the owner [Steve] via walkie talkie to let him know what was going on. The funny thing was at times he was calling her but she was too busy talking to us to notice, hah hah. While this whole thing was happening there was a guy in a scuba suit throwing rocks into the water. WHAT THE HELL?

After about half-an-hour the the driver freed us with a long prod he pulled from the back of the bus and we started our water tour. Everything seemed to go OK. I was telling Brad, Melissa and Jason how cool I thought the tour was. Then Melissa said she smelled something weird from the back of the bus. I smelled it too and we started laughing pretty hard. Someone from the back of the bus came up and told the driver that something was burning in the back of the bus. He went to the back and opened a window and turned on a fan. The driver was so in denial. The guide started her tour again and we were still laughing pretty hard about the burning. We kept saying "the bus is on fire!." She started laughing in mid sentence trying to talk about some stupid log ride water park thing that we were passing. Awesome.

Then it came time to get out of the water. But the crackhead bus driver, who was a kinda white trashy looking guy in his mid-thirties with bad teeth, overshot the ramp and got caught in the rocks. We were told that the coast guard was on its way and we might have to be evacuated off the Hippo! Some people started complaining that they had tickets to a game and they didn't wanna be late. At this point the Hippo trip was like an hour over.

Unfortunately, the coast guard was Steve the owner and the scuba suit guy in a small boat. They hooked up a rope to front of the Hippo and tried to tow us. I was taking pictures of the whole scene with my digital camera. I couldn't get close enough to get them hooking up the rope, so I had the guide take pictures of Steve and the coast guard, Yeah!! Steve took the driver's seat and brought us back to shore. I said "You're the man Steve!" Steve replied, "No, the he's the man." referring to the driver. No he wasn't

Yeah, our tour lasted an extra hour long but it was so worth it. We thought the whole thing was over. I was saying to the tour guide how much I loved the tour and how it was the best tour ever. So we were gonna take pictures with the tour guide in front of the bus and everything. Melissa was still red-in-the-face laughing about the burning bus. We were returning to the CN Tower and everything was going good.

But it wasn't over yet. There were alot of other tour buses parked on the right side of the street. We were driving fast because the tour was running way over. The next thing that happened was the icing on the Hippo cake. A loud clanging and scraping sound came from the right side of the bus. I looked at Melissa who was about to fall over and then looked at the guide who was doing the same. The Hippo driver clipped one of the parked buses! The mirrors were destroyed. It was so funny. The police came and the driver of the parked bus was so mad. We didn't get to take pictures with our guide. But I got pictures of the damaged Hippo wih a big scrape on the side and the police. Steve took the driver seat again and the Hippo took off. Some guys at the stop were saying how the Hippo got stuck before and all of the passengers had to be boated off. Brad heard them calling it "Titanic Tours."

I loved Hippo tour, it was the best time I have ever had on a tour.

Guide: "You guys look like you know your way around the city. Are you from Toronto?"
Asif: "Yes."

[when we were stuck, she said this to the whole bus]
Guide: "You can ask me questions about Canada because I'm a geography major. Or you can just ask me questions about myself."

[There was a ship anchored in the water. The tour guide was referring to the ship.]
Guide: The last time we came out on the tour one of the guys on the ship opened a porthole and waved to us."
Asif: "He ain't be around to wave to us when the Hippo sinks."

Asif: "That driver ain't got no job anymore."

Brad: "Now thats a bad day at work."

This story was told with the help of Bradley Allen.

These events took place on Thursday May 10th, 2001

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