Elephants – fortykay.com

December 25, 2018December 22, 2018

Charge

The flight from camp Kalahari to camp Khwai reveals a completely different scene. The Kalahari is a desert; the landscape below stark and vast. Everything is a shade of brown. It’s a difficult place for most animals to survive. Zebras and wildebeest appear in droves in the wet season, having migrated for greener grass to eat as their more permanent residence regrows. Any other animal is more of a mission to seek out. Guides in the Kalahari have to be even more knowledgeable, treating every sound, every dropping, every track, and every plant as a clue.

Khwai, on the other hand, gets plenty of rain. The land is rich with plant life. Here, our guide tells us, branches are the most dangerous thing. Before we even hit the Moremi park, our destination for the first drive, we see a dozen hippos cooling off in the water. A moment into the park and we see a baboon scurrying up a tree, it’s baby wrapped with all fours around its stomach. Impalas, antelopes, giraffes, buffalo, waterbuck, zebras, wildebeest, and warthogs are next, many with their young. Driving along a burnt patch, we see wild dogs. We know this is a great spot when our guide whips out his camera and starts shooting. There are only 3,000 left in the world, he tells us, and they’re very rare to see.

As we’re leaving, we come across elephants. They’re so massive and enchanting; gentle giants at the watering hole. Two male elephants start to play, or so it seems. They lock tusks and start rearing each other, yelling, throwing their trunks. It’s an act of dominance, and they push back behind the brush. Testosterone is flowing when one elephant reemerges, spotting our truck. He’s not going to let any animal, alive or diesel-fueled, get in his way. Our driver revs the engine to warn the other elephants to stop moving. If this elephant starts to charge, they’d be directly in our path of escape and we’d be trapped. The elephant roars and mock charges the truck. We stand our ground, it turns, and we drive away unscathed. Branches are not the most dangerous thing in Khwai.

December 22, 2018December 21, 2018

An unexpected guest

Camp Kalahari is situated along the Makgadikgadi salt pans. It’s oppressively hot in the afternoons and even though we’ve come during the wet season, its seen no water for some time. In years past, the watering holes had run dry. This had forced the animals to travel further to survive. They’d come upon cattle, anger farmers by snacking, and get shot. Wanting to protect the wildlife, Botswana enacted a strict 6-yr ban on killing any wild animal. Farmers were at a loss, as government compensation for each cow eaten was not enough to cover the cost of a new cow. Man-made watering holes were the semi-successful solution to keeping the animals close.

Our camp has a small swimming pool, understandably mistaken for a watering hole by thirsty passerbys. We were told that animals would often wander in, but the combination of lions, overeager tourists, and the ban on firearms proved to be too much. An electric fence was installed around the camp a few years ago. Only the elephants have been smart enough to realize a little shock won’t actually kill. (In the defense of other animals, elephants are huge and for all we know, may barely feel the deterrent.)

The fence though, does not stop smaller animals from wandering in. On our last night in camp Kalahari, after our guide had safely walked us to our tent and we’d fallen asleep, I woke up to the sounds of an animal trying to get into our tent. Reasonably, I woke Andrew who just as reasonably told me to go back to sleep. He got up to use the bathroom, putting on his headlamp to navigate the zippers between our sleeping tent and the bathroom tent. “Oh, that’s unfortunate,” he says and comes back to me. “It’s actually in the tent.” I’m a bit panicked. “What? Is it a mouse?” “No, it’s a little bit bigger than a mouse.” The tent had been zipped and the hole between the ground and the end of the zipper couldn’t have been more than an inch or two of clearance. “So, like a squirrel?” I ask. “Yeah, maybe, if a squirrel was a little bit bigger.” For the rest of the night we hear this poor thing trying to escape, not sure how it got in, thrashing against the side of the tent. We’d been given a box containing insect repellent and a bull horn to cry for help, but Andrew assured me it wasn’t necessary, so I instead used the box to barricade the opening to our tent. I heard his little body slam against that too. Just before dawn, it found it’s way out. At breakfast Andrew described the critter to our guide. “Totally harmless,” he says. “It was a genet cat.” He pulls up a picture he had saved on his phone. Next time, we’re using the bullhorn.

January 3, 2017

Lao Elephants

Elephants are majestic creatures. Confident in each step, calm with each bite, all the while towering over most other animals. We adore elephants; want them to be treated kindly, fairly, and humanely. That said, we were faced with the dilemma of wanting to ride an elephant. We knew that there is clear research that shows that the trekking chair that goes on the elephant’s back is damaging and painful for the elephant, so we stayed clear of this experience. That said, we also learned that there is mixed opinion about riding elephants bareback. It’s a difference that goes back to cultures and economics. Docile female elephants that are already domesticated and need to be financially supported can be kindly ridden on the back of their necks.

We made sure that these elephants walked no more 4 hours a day, which is the number considered ethical under most temperatures and terrains. In addition, most of the elephants at the sanctuary we visited were rescued from previous horrible conditions – the one that I rode had previously stepped on the edge of a landmine and was missing a giant toenail. We made sure that the place we visited didn’t use bullhooks or trekking chairs. And we made sure that elephants were watched over and given plenty of food and water to be healthy and happy.

Now that we’ve made ourselves feel better about riding a elephants, the experience was awesome. The connectedness that we feel when riding elephants just behind their ears makes us feel both terrified that we’ll fall about 10 feet but also thrilled to feel the muscles undulate with every step and movement the elephants do. To try to stay on, both Lindsey and I tense our legs with our knees tucked behind our elephant’s ears and use our arms to try balance on the elephant’s head. Although it’s clear no one is worried we may fall off, Lindsey and I are still slightly panicked – especially when my giant one (about 1 or 2 feet taller than the rest) decides to pass the other elephants while climbing a steep hill.

We love the experience from learning to ride an elephant without a chair, helping to wash the elephant in the Mekong, and learning about the history and wonder of elephants all the while.