The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 44: In the Company of Elephants

    This is the final chapter of the Botswana Journals, and I saved it for last.   This is the impression I want to leave with you.    

  I was thrilled beyond measure when I saw my first sable antelope in Chobe National Park.

    I was moved almost to tears when I saw elephants pausing to pay their respects to one that was dead.

    But this day?   This day will live in my memory forever.

***

    Once out of the riverbed, we begin to see several small elephant herds.   As we continue to drive in this area of the reserve, the number of elephant sightings increases.

    Mashatu Game Reserve bills itself as the Land of Giants, with an estimated 600 to 900 elephants roaming 104,000 acres of private land.   The reserve is not fenced, so the animals can come and go as they please.    Twenty-two giraffes were released into the reserve in 1984 after they had become locally extinct.   At the last game count, more than 700 were spotted.

    The elephants under a Mashatu tree in this video are consuming something small and yellowish.  Perhaps the berry-like fruit or dried fruit. 

    As the morning progresses, it seems that all the little family units have joined with others, and what happens next will touch my soul like nothing else has done.

    I have a lot to say about these videos that I made while in Mashatu Game Reserve in southeastern Botswana, but nowhere in these words will you find an accurate and all-encompassing description of how I felt sitting in an open Toyota Land Cruiser as dozens of wild and free-roaming elephants walked on either side of me.

    I am convinced there are no adequate words that can convey that feeling.   I have a pretty decent vocabulary, as well as a number of books that provide synonyms, antonyms, and rhyming words.

 

    But I can't find a single word to describe what I felt.

     Bellamy waits for his chance to cross to the other side of the mass of elephants.   He parks us a few feet beside their trail, close enough for us, but far enough that the elephants are not impeded.

 

 

    As you watch this last video, you will see an elephant cross directly in front of me and give a little head wag.  I’ve learned from my own experiences, and from talking with guides and camp staff, that this is elephant language for “Watch your manners.   Don’t come any closer.”

    I’ve seen that head wag several times.   One young bull in Chobe National Park threw a complete tantrum, trumpeting and thrashing the bushes, then trying to run after us when our driver spotted an opening and drove us away.

    Another time, I was gently rebuked by a camp staff member at

the Selinda Spillway for trying to get a little closer to an unobstructed view of elephants drinking and bathing in a small stream that ran past camp.   The elephant closest to me wagged its head and tossed its trunk and ears.  

    “You had your warning,” she said, as she urged me to back away.

    Sit back and immerse yourself in the wonder that is elephants.   See if you can feel some of the awe that I felt.

    Note how all the elephants tend to walk on the same path as those leading.   This is quite common.   Hippos, when they come out of the rivers at night to graze, also walk on the same path as before.

This one.   Be sure to watch this in the largest format your device offers.

    Those of us who live in countries where regulations and liability laws try to vouchsafe us from harm can easily forget—in the moment—that these are truly wild animals that don’t live by our rules.

    Back to how I felt: I can only offer my heartfelt gratitude to Marg Wood and Shelly Kurtz of Marshel Adventure Tours for the opportunity to experience this.   It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime gift.

"Got milk?"

    Unlike what you would expect from an enormous animal, elephants do not have hooves.   They have toes and toenails, though the entire sole is covered with tissue.   There are five toes on the front feet, and four on the rear.

X-Ray of an elephant's foot.