The 2018 Africa Journals, Ch. 4: Elephants Not Only Never Forget, They Pay You Back

Back at Kirkman’s Kamp, we four spend the time  between the end of the morning safari and the mid-afternoon safari in our rooms.   We have photos to download to computers and batteries to recharge.

Someone, I forget who, tells us there’s an elephant in front of Laura’s room, which is the next bungalow beyond ours.   I grab my camera, go out the French doors, and see a teen-aged bull munching vegetation and Laura on her deck taking photos.

I work my way closer to Laura’s room.   I am well aware of how unpredictable teenage bulls are.   They have left the females in the herd and have yet to join the bachelor males who are supposed to teach them manners.   Thus, they are on their own, with no supervision.

Hey!   It isn't the camera exposure you should be concerned with!

 

 

When the elephant chomps its way towards our room, I retreat to the bungalow.   Marg, whose room adjoins our, is on her front deck; Holly and I are on ours.   I set down my camera and go into our room to get my camera with the shorter lens.

When I return to the French doors, Holly is standing just outside.   I’m standing in the doorway and ask if she wants in.

“No,” she responds, but almost immediately starts backing into the room with great determination.

The ellie is quite near and flaring its ears.   Marg spots my camera on the table, grabs it, and backs into her room, taking photos the whole time.

The ellie spots Marg inside her room and throws dirt at her with his trunk.    Holly slams our doors closed.

 

So close that Marg caught the scallop roof trim in this photo.

With a look that I interpret as, “Ha, ha!   Scared you, you puny humans,” the ellie saunters up the row of bungalows, in the direction of the main lodge where people are eating lunch or just hanging out.  

 

It stops to nibble on the potted ferns and other landscaping.

When it nears the main lodge, it crosses to the front and begins to eat a tree.  By this time, keeping the bungalows between the ellie and me, I’m now the main lodge.  And stuck. 

I relate to one of the staffers how the elephant chased us back into our rooms and threw dirt at Marg.

“Yes, he comes here often,” she says.  “He’s a naughty boy.”

Some of the rangers and trackers try to shoo the ellie away and it trumpets its annoyance.   On its own time and at its own pace, it does walk farther away.

In the meantime, a safari vehicle is brought into camp and used to transport us back to our rooms, if we wish.

 ***

That night, in the wee hours of dark, Holly lies in bed trying to quell her anxiety about the noises immediately outside our room.   She listens to the cracking and crashing and expects the roof of our bungalow to collapse at any moment .

She is prepared to yell at me to join her in taking cover in the old-fashioned claw foot bathtub.

On the other side of the room, the side nearest the commotion, I am asleep, blissfully unaware of the danger that not-very-subtly lurks outside.

A final, extremely loud crack and crash and the disturbances cease.  Holly eventually goes back to a fitful sleep.   I never wake up until it’s time to, which is quite soon.   Holly, still upset, relates all that happened.

Flashlights reveal that apparently Naughty Boy elephant has returned for payback after being chased away earlier yesterday.  

A pile of dung is so near the bungalow that I cannot imagine how an elephant could have passed so closely and not knocked down the posts that support the roof overhang.   Adjacent to that is evidence that a tree has lost a branch or two.

The pile of dung Naught Boy left.

When we returned from our morning drive, the dung had been cleaned up.   It was where the dark spot is, just above the sun flares in the photo.

Slightly farther from the bungalow, an entire tree is uprooted and lying on the ground.

We are escorted to the main lodge, still in the dark, for our pre-safari tea and biscuits.  The large tree surrounded by the dining pavilion has had pachyderm help in shedding pieces of branches and many, many leaves.   

And all evidence that a tree once grew here was eliminated.



More photos from the Sabi Sands Game Reserve: 

A beautiful male nyala.

Blogspot is doing weird things this morning so I can't caption this photo of a rhinoceros mum and her baby.

The 2018 Africa Journals, Ch. 3: Lessons Offered; Lessons Learned

FROM THE TRAVEL GUIDES:

Dress in layers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think as I put suntan lotion and my lightest weight safari pants in my duffle bag.   

“African mornings can be chilly.”   

I live in Alaska.   I know chilly.

I fold my lightest tee shirts and sun protection long-sleeve shirts. 

Just in case, I also take a lightweight fleece pullover and a lightweight jacket.   And a windbreaker that will serve as a rain jacket in the event of soft showers.

FROM MY FRIENDS:

Africa?   In June!!!   Won’t it be hot?

I reject a sun hat with a long flap that protects the back of my neck and opt instead for just a visor.   Then I add two neckties that, when soaked in water and wrapped around my neck, provide cooling by evaporation.

ENTER REALITY:

SONOFABITCHITSCOLD!!!    

Well, hello?   It’s winter in Africa.   I never dreamed it could get this cold in Africa.  Marg says it’s just a couple degrees above freezing at 35 Fahrenheit.   She doesn’t say anything after that.   Neither do Laura or Holly.   I think their lips are numb.

We aren’t on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya, either.   We’re at roughly a thousand feet above sea level in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve adjacent to Kruger National Park in South Africa.

And it’s cold.  So cold I am thankful that Kirkman’s Kamp has provided us with extra blankets and water bottles.   “Put it between your legs,” says Matt.   Good advice.

I’m wearing the heaviest tee I can find, a long-sleeved SPF shirt, the fleece pullover, the windbreaker, and a jacket.   Five layers.   The hot water bottle is in my lap, with a blanket covering it and my legs.   I keep my hands on the hot bottle so they will be flexible enough to work the camera controls.

There's a hot water bottle in the gray flannel.

To make matters worse, we’ve dipped down into the Sand river bottom and the change in temperature is noticeable.   Surely the water will be frozen, I think.

A part of the Sand River channel with tall grass and reeds.

It isn’t.   Then I forget about the cold because there are two leopards in the tall reeds and grasses that line the river and Matt has aimed the safari vehicle into them, essentially blinding us to anything that isn’t near enough to touch.

Leopard slinking through the reeds and grass.

Richard, our tracker, rides point on a seat added to the front of the vehicle.   From his position, he can see much that we can’t, and he guides Matt with hand signals.

He finds them, those two green-eyed beauties.   A mother and daughter, and there are lessons being taught, lessons being practiced and learned.   The daughter stalks and attacks her mother again and again in the tall grass, readying herself for when she's on her own.

The rising sun reaches the river bottom, but the hot water bottle stays put, as does the blanket while we continue to follow and shoot the two leopards.

Someone behind me—perhaps Holly—says her hot water bottle isn’t hot anymore.

“They’re timed that way,” I joke.   “They get cold when the sun comes up and brings warmth.”

These two are not the first leopards we see here in the Sabi Sands reserve.   Nor are they are 
the last.   We find them all over the place.  Seven, if I remember correctly.   Or maybe it was nine.

The hardest part of photographing leopards is getting that long tail in the frame.

Mum finds some gooey dung and rolls in it to disguise her own scent.

The young one about to pounce on her mother, which happened in tall grass and not in our sight.

And then the mutual grooming...

Last night, Matt and Richard took us to see our first leopard—a three-year-old male near camp that was trying to sleep as the sun went down.  It was also trying to remain unnoticed by the impala and kudu that were near, so they wouldn’t sound the alarm.

It was all about survival for the leopard, who was trying to establish himself in this territory and did not want any run-ins with other males.

We left the leopard sleeping on his most excellent mound, almost hidden by the vegetation.

In a future chapter, I’ll talk about leopards again, and how a canny old male taught me a lesson about the ins and outs of habituation.

 More photos from Sabi Sands:

The beautiful, unequaled lilac-breasted roller.

The Go-Away bird, so-called because its cry sounds like "go-away."  There are at least two of the chicks in this photo, plus two adults.   Note the thorny nest.

Go-Away bird

Natal spurfowl, I think.

This bird, a dark-capped bulbul, and its friends led me on a merry, frustrating chase around camp until they took pity and let me take ohotos.

Same as above.

Yellow-billed hornbill.

Red-billed hornbill.

Mum and daughter.