SCARY ELEPHANTS!

This week Helen was nice enough to give me Friday and Saturday off and then Tuesday and Wednesday. So I decided to rent a car, drive down to Nkambeni, and visit my Bushwise friends KC, Suzie, Ruth, Dario and Chris on the Friday night. It was great to see them again and we spent most of the time talking about Bushwise and updating each other on how our current placements were going. I soon realized that I was so lucky to have come to Karongwe for my placement, where I liked and became great friends with all our volunteers and that having to guide and take tourist out sounded horrible. Yet, I also realized that Suzie and KC were lucky to get to drive around the Krueger everyday and the chances of them seeing different more rare animals, like wild dog, was greater and that was something I was missing out on. So, I decided I would spend Tuesday and Wednesday driving around Krueger and try and see something new.

Three of the volunteers who would not have a chance to go to Krueger before heading home came with. Robin wanted to see rhino; James and I really were hoping for wild dog, and Keith, well he was just happy to see any thing. The day started out great! Ten minutes into the park and we came across a herd of buffalo on the left and a mother elephant and her calf on the right, both very close to the road. We stopped to take pictures but the buffalo moved off into the bushes. I backed up to see them more clearly causing the elephant to become protective of her calf and she started charging us. There we were in this tiny little Hyundai Atos with this angry elephant coming at us. Her head down, ears flapping, looking mighty large and terrifying. Elephants are beautiful animals and incredibly smart and I absolutely love watching them, from a safe distance, but they are also huge, unpredictable and terrifying at the same time especially when charging toward you. All I could do was turn out the window and yell at her to “back off” while clapping loudly and pray that she would, which thankfully, she did. The guys in the car were very impressed with my quick reaction but I sat there pale, with my heart pounding, trying to catch my breath.

About an hour later we saw another elephant. This one was walking along side us but at a distance of at least 150m away when we spotted him. Just after we saw him though he saw us and changed his course to come charging toward our car! Now, I don’t know what it is about this little white car but all I can think is that other people in little white cars have pissed these elephants off and they remember that, because their was absolutely no reason for him to come charging at us. Again, I had to stop the car and shout him off only this time with much more vigor in my voice and this time he came much closer to us before turning and leaving. Again my heart was racing and I told the guys, we are not stopping any more for elephants!

If only I kept to that rule. As the afternoon wore on we stopped and had a brief lunch then came to a lake where other cars where watching 2 big male elephants cooling off. Since the other cars where there I thought this should be OK. Well it was for a while until a female elephant showed up and the 2 males decided to like the cars that were there. The one elephant kept displaying warning signals to the car on our right while the other was coming very close to us on our left. We were trapped between an angry elephant and elephant that could easily become angry as we would have to drive toward it to escape the elephant on our right. Soon the car on our right just sped off and this attacked the one elephants attention to him so we were able to also leave. Safely!