What weighs 26kg?!?!

(written Monday the 19th)

Well, my first game drive is in the books and boy was it is worthy of the history books!!! If every game drive is going to be like this, then I’m in for an exciting 4 weeks. Only 2 minutes into the drive, we find the biggest and oldest elephant of the park, Tulani. He was maybe 20 meters off the road just eatin some trees so we got a pretty good glimpse of him (except for the dead tree branch on the ground which blocked my view of his face).

Oh ya, and by the way, there are 9 of us volunteers on the jeep along with the photographer teacher and our guide, so it is pretty cramped. And also especially cramped because most of the other volunteers have pretty nice cameras and gear and need to bring it all along so that made for even less space.

Our guide, MaryAnna moved the jeep a bit so we could get a better view and sure enough, the elephant came walking over to our vehicle. He is so big! He was towering over us. At one point his tusks were within inches of the vehicle near me. The guy on the edge was pretty nervous and even leaned out of the way a little bit. It was unreal. To look into his eyes, too see his skin and to smell him (he’s in musk which means he’s in heat so he excretes a oil that is quite strong). He was so close that we couldn’t get much for photos because we had our long lenses on. But it was unreal to hear his ears flapping, to hear his feet as he sauntered. Just awesome! In some ways it was very intimidating but in other ways, so calming and surreal.

He was actually getting too close so MaryAnna was talking to Tulani, and making some tapping noises on the side of the truck. She was just communicating with him that we were in this space first, so he needs to back up out of our personal space. Which he did. Our guides know their stuff for sure so it makes things feel a lot more comforting.

Then we drove on and found some cheetahs. It was 2 brothers who were being pretty lazy and just grooming each other. They'd get up and walk a few feet and then lay down again. Then get up and walk a few feet, then lay down. We got within 20 feet of them and at one point one of the walked directly in front of the jeep. They were pretty cool to just sit and watch them interact. I love watching their backs move and how flexible you can tell they are in order to be able to run as fast as they do.

I tell ya, if every game drive is like this, I am set. It’s so exciting and amazing! We are off for a 6:00am drive tomorrow so hopefully we’ll get a bunch more close encounters again!!

P.S. An elephant penis can weigh up to 26kg….they are huge!!!!