6. We each rode on an elephant.
7. When my hat blew off Richard's elephant picked it up and handed it (or rather trunked it) to her driver, who handed it back to me, saving me a long walk back for the hat. I was amazed by the intelligence of the elephants, they seemed to be fully aware of what was going on and particularly liked to impress visitors with their huge ears. These were only young elephants but they certainly looked impressive and massive with their huge ears fully extended. Sitting on the back of the elephant, the ground looked a long way down. We mounted and dismounted from the elephants at the top of a specially constructed wooden platform, reached by a short flight of wooden steps.
The ride was a bit uncomfortable but memorable. Riding on the elephant was our second activity for the day. At one point my elephant brought up a considerable amount of water, which splashed on the path in front of us. The driver of my elephant said that these elephants could carry 20 litres of water in their stomachs and retrieve it with their trunks when they needed it. When we went down a steep slope I was afraid we might roll over and get squashed but the driver said not to worry these animals were the four wheel drives of the bush. The elephant made sure it didn't roll over but broke into a slow trot when it neared the bottom. There were no foot holds in the canvas covers on the elephants, so we hung on to the driver, especially going down the steep slope. "They hadn't lost a single customer" the driver said.
8. The elephant in the next picture first put her trunk back and opened her mouth, which is the elephant's way of asking for a food reward but when she saw I had nothing for her but could see the camera in my hand she displayed her ears for me. Unfortunately the background in the picture is a bit over exposed.
9. When the elephants had finished giving rides, the drivers removed the canvas covers which we had been sitting on and after receiving their last few food rewards from whoever had anything to give them, the elephants walked into the river, swam across, had a lie down and a rest on the other side, got up again and congratulated each other on their encounter as you can see in the next picture. After a while they walked back into the bush. On reflection they might have been dusting themselves off.
10. We saw some long faces (probably Tsessebes) during the horse driven cart ride to see the wild life. We saw a variety of antelope species, including zebras but the giraffes eluded us. We saw vultures circling overhead and sitting in the top of a big tree. There was more to see on the cart ride, including water birds but we had to cut it short to walk with the lionesses.
10. An excellent lunch including vegetarian, which was included in the entrance price and ordered the day before, was announced by a drum beat given by the cooking staff.
Did you notice the sign on
the left hand edge of the picture? More pictures on the next page.
The home page for the "Antelope Park": http://www.antelopepark.co.zw/index.html
David N. Warren-Smith, MSc.