Elephant Memories

Friday, November 4, 2011

Etosha National Park by Jeep is what everyone imagines a safari to be. The rules are you can’t get out of your vehicle, but as we discover, that’s not a problem. The animals sometimes come to you. Road Scholar has arranged for one of the park’s best Tour Guides, Paulus Haimbodi, to drive us through Etosha. The first animals we see are a herd of giraffes. They use the park’s roads because it’s easier to see any danger approaching. Once they arrive, the giraffes give us quite a show.

Paulus notes that not every giraffe uses the tripod technique to drink. Some just bend their forelegs down, which gets them to the water more quickly. We also learn that older males have darker brown spots; it's one way to tell them from the others. For a while, two young males get into a fight, standing side-by-side and swinging their necks at each other until one finally gives up and moves away. It doesn't seem that either one has been hurt, at least physically.

Our afternoon drive is suddenly blocked by a large male elephant, which Paulus and Bianca estimate to be about 100 years old. He eyes us for a while, moves off to the side of the road to eat, and then walks back in front of our jeep, eyeing us again. Several times, Paulus has to move the jeep backwards as the elephant gets closer. It's a magnificent show, seeing such a large elephant in action as Paulus describes him in similarly close detail.

Elephants have six sets of teeth, and they try to conserve them as much as possible, in order to continue eating into old age. As if on cue, our large friend moves to a nearby thorny bush, and with a flourish of his trunk, breaks off a large branch and begins to munch on it. Seeing an elephant up close is one thing. Hearing him eat is unforgettable. Eventually, he grows tired of a jeep full of Road Scholars and moves on.

Our way back to the lodge brings us through grasslands that are heaven for wildebeests. They graze in the late afternoon sun, oblivious to us, a perfect finale for our two days of wandering through the wild.