River Safari, Part 2: Elephants!

As we continued on up the river we came to a bend where we could see far off down the shore line the fuzzy brown blobs that represented a herd of elephants on the shore. Our driver put us in full throttle and we raced across the river to get to them – dodging hippos in the river as we went. Our guide would tell us that he really didn’t expect the elephants to be down at the river at this time, because it is rainy season there are plenty of watering holes they could be at. We spent the next our cruising slowly along the shore line between what became about five separate herds of elephants, all together numbering more than two hundred (!), who came down to swim. I never thought I’d get a chance to see them swim – it was amazing to watch. They would smack their trucks on the water and throw themselves backwards into the water the way I’ve seen dolphins and whales do. They would play tug of war. The young males would try and mount the females (how nice it must be to mount a female when suddenly your weight has dropped by a couple of tons…). They would go completely underwater and swim. Then they would come out, cover themselves in mud and dirt, and do it all over again.









There were a number of newborns, 2-6 weeks old, which were noticeable because they were still hairy and soo adorable! They would push their way into the mid holes along the shore and lie down in it and flop around the way a dog might in something nasty. Watching all of the elephants interact with each other and wearily steer clear of the other herds was fascinating, I wish we could have stayed a couple more hours just observing them. It was truly incredible. On the way back to the lodge for lunch, we saw a hippo climb out of the water onto the shore with a tiny newborn baby about 2 feet long – amazing to see. They joined some other hippos under a bush in the shade.









After our amazing river safari we settled down for a nice lunch. Well, the food was nice: the conversation quickly turned political. Being with 7 elderly tourists in their 70’s and 80’s, they had rather conservative views, and the two Americans who were probably in their 60’s were from Phoenix and extremely Republican. When the South Africans asked us all about how we felt on Obama, the Phoenix man quickly went off on how he was the worst president we’ve ever had etc ect. The British old man complained about all the “damn Jamaicans, Indians and terrorists” who had “taken over” London. And the rest of our talk centered on the World Cup and the unreal amount of money being spent on stadiums instead of improving the lives of S. Africans. Oh, and when The British man asked me about my job and I said I was here working on HIV prevention he said “Well you all certainly haven’t done a very good job have you?” it was all a mess, lol. But we managed to eat our lunch and were all eager to leave it behind.