Advertisement
Published: November 2nd 2006
Edit Blog Post
CRAACCK, SNAAP, Munch Munch Munch. My heart is pounding and my stomach is in knots. To my left, the bamboo sways in the skyline as stocks get pushed aside and knocked over. I'm nervous and excited. To my right down the ridge I hear another SNAP! CRACK! I look towards the noise and can't see anything through the thick jungle but something is close, very close. On the road with me is Jarrod and I'm holding onto his arm, but I sense he’s just as anxious as I am. Our guide has taken off on a small trampled path of long grass to see if he can catch a glimpse of the elephants. We're standing alone on the narrow road keeping as quiet as possible and we can hear at least two elephants on the ridge above us and one below us. Wild Elephants! I can’t believe I’m standing in the midst of a group of elephants while they eat breakfast! Our guide comes back to the road and whispers that there is a big male elephant in the group and because it is “baby time” we need to be very careful.
Animal Planet shows flash back to me, primarily
the one about elephant attacks on villagers. I can hear elephants on either side of me but the jungle is so thick they’re difficult to see. I’m not sure exactly how many elephants there are, but a big male and likely a baby all within 100m. Now, my nervousness is mixed with panic and I scan my immediate surroundings for big thick trees I could climb or hide behind in case of emergency. No big trees. Plan B: Stick close to our guide, keep quiet and hope for the best. As long as the elephants are eating and I can hear them which means they don’t seem to have noticed me, I’m safe. For at least half an hour, we tip-toed along the road peering into the jungle following the sounds of the snapping bamboo. As the minutes passed I grew more confident I wouldn’t be trampled by elephants after all and enjoyed the rush of being so close to elephants in their natural habitat. Jarrod caught the outline of an elephant maybe 30m away lurking in the shadows of the trees.
But this is India and things are rarely perfect. Rambling down the road came another guide with
an Indian family: dad, mom, and two young boys. The elephants heard their chatter and went silent. No footsteps, no munching, no breathing could be heard from the elephants. The tables were turned and now the elephants were listening and watching for us. I’m suddenly nervous again standing in the middle of the road because now I don’t know where the elephants are. Our guide hand signals us to move down the road past the elephants and to stay quiet. The young boys, however, don’t know the meaning of quiet and keep pestering their dad saying “Can we take photo now?”…. I’m thinking “Can I strangle you now?” For half an hour the elephants don’t make a peep and the Indian family is growing ancy: they want to see elephants. The guides decide that the elephants can likely smell us and because it’s baby time it’s not safe. Instead we should loop around them and try to get up wind from them. We head out along a muddy path, full of leaches, through the jungle: mom, in her 2 inch platform heels, the older boy in sandals, our two guides, and Jarrod and I. After walking for five minutes, Mom
starts to complain about not seeing elephants again. She’s really pissing me off - if you want to see elephants up close in those shoe visit a freakin zoo!
We break off of the trail with our guide to loose the noisy family and want to circle around back once they’ve left. We take a short rest stop at a misty view point over the mountains and continue back to the road. Just down from where we first spotted the elephants we can hear them in the bush. And, through an opening of trees we stood silently to watch an elephant raising his trunk to rip bamboo leaves off of the stocks only 25m away from us. The elephant turned and looked at us with his ears out wide and he paused for a moment then let out a wheeze: warning signal number one out of three. I wasn’t scared anymore, just thrilled, but not wanting to be trampled we started to slowly back away feeling triumphant for finally getting a view of the elusive wild elephants.
Back at base camp, we ate lunch and the rain started to pour. We opted out of the remainder of the
days activities (paddle boating) and went back to town for an early dinner and then bed. We were pooped after waking up at 5:30am to start our jungle jeep safari!
Tomorrow we plan on relaxing, reading and maybe I’ll get a massage. It’s a rough life.
Funny Story: At lunch time, I felt something gooey on me. I reached down the back of my pants to find that a leech had penetrated my clothing. Sometime our on trek instead of the elephants attacking me, leeches did! I had inadvertantly torn it off the lop of my left cheek and now have a small wound that still bleeds more than 24 hours later. Great laugh for Jarrod and our guide, I'm still embarrassed for my bleeding bum.
Next Stop: Heading SW back to the coastal city of Trivandrum to see some magic shows.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0349s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb