looking for elephants

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We sat on the bus most of the day making our way back to Jinhong. We got back in just enough time to cuise the jade market, eat at a local restaurant with pineapple rice for dessert.

up early once again we got on a bus for the Sanchahe Nature Reserve. We met two other girls from Germany and after some instruction and persuasion were able to hire a guide to take us off the zoo-like path and into the heart of the 1 million hectare reserve. We went trekking for the wild elephants living in the area. Found footprints (baby ones too), cut through jungle, trekked through beatiful bamboo, small streams, balanced over fallen-tree bridges, met local minority women collecting river moss to be fried for snacks, collected "beans of thought" red berries from the forest floor said to be given as a symbol of friendship in china. No elephants that day but the trek was absolutely worth it!

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