Today when we joined our ranger for the morning drive we met the third and final group of our party. As coincidence would have it, they are from Bay City, Michigan! Talk about a small world when you travel halfway around it just to meet fellow Michiganders!! Our morning game drive was nice, but not quite as many animals. The best part of the morning drive was the video I got of two young male giraffes “necking,” which is how they play before they are old enough to spar! I’d seen videos of this before, but was so excited to see it in person!!
Later in the morning we reconvened to go off-site to a small elephant interaction station at a different reserve about 30 minutes away. This reserve only has 2 elephants in it that are not enclosed at all during the day, but do stay in a Boma (enclosure) at night for their safety. During the day they have 2 “handlers” whose job is strictly to walk around the reserve with them from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. As the reserve is like 20,000 acres, those handlers can walk up to 40 miles a day!! He said the elephants see the handlers as one of them, and last week one of the elephants protected one of the handlers from a lioness attack!!
There is one male and one female elephant. They are both about 45 years old. The average age of an elephant is 65-70 years. The male is named Rambo and the female is Rachel. Rambo weighs 6.5 TONS and Rachel weighs 4.5 TONS. And they each are not full grown yet!! When you see the pictures of them you will see how this statement seems so shocking! For the interaction, we first got a short overview of the elephants, and then took turns getting to feel them and feed them. We learned that an elephant trunk has 116 muscles in it, and they pump their entire blood volume into their ears every 30 minutes which can cool their body temperature by 3 degrees!! We also learned that they have a second nose located inside their mouth! At the end of the demonstration we got to see the speed and amount of water they can drink through their tusks, which acts like a VERY high powered vacuum! To be that close to such a giant was awesome. And for the feeding, we not only got to feed them through their tusks, we got to actually put food right on the male’s tongue! We had our hands in the mouth of a bull elephant!
When we got back from the elephant interaction we had lunch and, since the sun was out, we hit the pool. We met some more great travelers there. At 4:00 p.m. we met with Ranger James again for our afternoon drive. We had originally planned to do a lion safari this afternoon, but the reserve we were scheduled to go to could not confirm their location, so we rescheduled to Wednesday in order to not pay for a trip that might be a bust!
Our afternoon drive was almost as successful as our first morning drive! We saw tons of everything, and even caught a glimpse of the elusive Hippos!! As if the animals weren’t enough, though, we were treated to what was probably hands down the most stunning sunset I have ever witnessed in my entire life. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but I tried to capture a somewhat decent representation of it!
Another great dinner was had with great conversation among all of us. We have a great group to experience all of this with, and I hope we keep in touch long after it’s over!! Tomorrow’s adventure is a trip to the coast to see the beach, the town of St. Lucia, and a boat ride to see hippos up close. On the way home we’re stopping at a cheetah rehabilitation facility, which should be cool! And the adventures just keep coming!! Like before, videos will follow the photos from today!
Carpe Diem...seizing life's adventures 