I held a few photos back from the last blog to focus on elephants.
They are truly magnificent animals, and Janet and I feel very blessed to have been able to ride them. We felt we were in the presence of greatness around these ‘gentle giants’.
The first image shows one of the other vehicles from the Kapama Wildlife Reserve having the opportunity to take photos of elephants. You really could just sit and watch them all day.
It was particularly interesting to see the young elephants sticking close to the mothers. Moms and babies just seem to be a thing regardless of the species.
Kapama Wildlife Reserve is a private reserve near Kruger National Park which was one of South Africa’s first national wildlife preservation parks. In Kruger National Park Janet and I rode elephants for about two hours. We had an incredible guide who was a wealth of knowledge.
Did you know an elephant’s trunk is composed of up to 6,000 different bones? And even though you’ve seen images of elephants lifting trees with that trunk, they have enough dexterity with them to pick up a peanut.
Elephants are exceptionally intelligent and have an incredible sense of smell. They have incredible hearing capacity and can communicate with another elephant up to 20 km away.
Elephants will eat up to 18 hours a day and some can exceed 8,000 pounds. It’s quite amazing to see these massive creatures converting all the plant material they eat into such a powerful frame.
Elephants are extremely empathetic and unlike most other mammals, female elephants will actually adopt stray babies if one is found without a mother protecting them.
At Kapama we encountered a female elephant who was having a bad day. She decided to charge our safari vehicle. I presume she felt threatened or felt her baby was somehow endangered.
Luckily our guide “Mike” and our tracker “Tulla” sensed the situation and knew how to correctly react. Obviously, we were happy the situation was resolved with no injuries to elephants or people. We always have to remember when we are visiting their space to be respectful. Somehow on this day we crossed some invisible line.
Our time with elephants, like our entire journey through Africa, was an outstanding, once in a lifetime opportunity.
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