A close encounter of the elephant kind

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(Photos to come soon!)

After such a close encounter with the King of the Jungle, Karen and I decided to keep the adrenaline pumping and started the day by doing our washing and banking and buying bus tickets for the trip to Lusaka. OK, so not the most exciting of mornings but this stuff still needs to be taken care of, even when you are traveling in exotic places like Africa. We had more interesting things planned for the afternoon though, and after lunch we were picked up from our hostel by Safari Par Excellence and taken on the short drive out of town to Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park. Within this National Park we went to a private Game lodge for an 'Elephant Encounter'. This was to involve an hour of riding and feeding African elephants. That's right, not just looking at them from behind a fence, but RIDING AN AFRICAN ELEPHANT. This should be fun!

So, after the obligatory safety briefing ("These are wild animals and no responsibility is taken..." etc etc. Well of course they're wild! That's why we're here!) we were introduced to the elephants. There were two large bull elephants, two slightly smaller adult females and a juvenile female. They had each been fitted with a tandem saddle for us to sit on in pairs as well as having a handler seated in front of the saddle, almost on their neck. After years of practice the handlers are able to control the elephant by ESP. Just kidding. They use a short riding crop to hit the elephant on the top of it's skull, or dig their heels into it's side to instruct it and give food pellets as rewards. To get the food the elephants winds it's trunk up to just in front of the handler and takes the pellets straight from his hand. As well as these elephants that are ridden, there was also a little baby elephant that was 2 months old. It was the daughter of one of the females and just came along for the ride as well.

So, after taking this all in, we were asked to climb to the top of a wooden platform and the elephant we were to ride pulled up next to it for us to jump on. Karen and I got to ride one of the large bulls! It was huge; about 2.5 metres high at the shoulder and from our position in the saddle we had a great view of the bush and the other elephants walking around us. We set off through the bush, and we got used to the rocking motion that accompanied the elephants rolling gait. It would also occaisionally wrap it's trunk around a nearby branch and strip it of leaves as it walked along. A tasty snack on the go! And how convenient!

The property was next to the Zambezi river and we the handlers directed the elephants towards it. We went down the bank and out on to an area of rocks and onto an island, while a hippo frolicked nearby. From the end of the island the elephants headed into the water to get back to shore! Luckily we were on one of the large elephants and we were able to keep our feet above the water. Some of the other people on the shorter elephants got their feet wet! We then headed back into the bush before almost bumping into a herd of wild elephants! You could see the two 'tribes' eyeing each other off before we turned and headed away. There is a handler who walks on the ground with us carrying a rifle to ward off any aggresive elephants we copme across, just in case!

I'm not making this up, but as we then headed back to the lodge there were about 5 giraffes walking around as as well! Not sure what they made of us, as they were probably confuised by the human smell mixing so closely with elephant! Once we were back at the lodge and dismounted, thanks to the wooden platform again, we were given a small bag of food pellets and the elephants kneeled in front of us and we were able to hand feed them. The end of the elephants trunk is really quite dextrous, with a 'finger' type part above and below the opening at the end. Combined with the ability to move it's trunk very nimbly, it is very easy for the animal to pick things up. The elephants would take the pellets straight fro our hand with it's trunk and then place the into it's mouth to eat them. It was great and I managed to only get a small amount of elephant slobber on my hand!

When this was done the handlers took the elephants back to their enclosure and we retired to the lodge for tea and scones. Actually it was cold drinks and hummous while we watched a video of our 'trek'. This was soon concluded and we were taken back to town. It had been a fantastic experience.

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