Elephant Sands

Our next stop was a small piece of heaven tucked into the middle of the Kalahari Desert.  It is called Elephant Sands and it is exactly what the name states.  It is home to all of the elephants in the land.  What makes this place so cool?  The owners have built their resort right on the edge of a watering hole that the elephants come to every day for fresh water (side note: all of the water in the desert tastes like salt really badly) so they built a fresh water drinking hole for all of these big fellows to come drink from- and they do!  But I will get to that after I describe the interesting experience of actually getting to where we were going.

So, we get a nice man that we found on the side of the road to drive us to the Zimbabwe/Botswana boarder along with two other girls that were going to Maun to shop.  We got to the boarder and got through after waiting in an extremely long and annoying line but its whatever, then we starting walking along this long and seemingly non-ending road when a pick up truck drove past and we flagged them down.  They were a little bit grumpy but they finally agreed to drive us to the hitching spot (yes those exist in Africa, everyone hitch hikes).  We stood there for a long time, it was as if no one was going to stop for us and once this old white couple past us in a big Suburban style car which made me and Anna bummed out and frantically trying to figure out what we would do if we couldn't get anyone else to pick us up. But then... magically, the white couple had seen us on the side of the road and like most parents could not figure out why for the life of us, we were standing in the middle of the hot sun on the side of the road- so they picked us up! Their car was super nice too so we sort of thought we had hit the jackpot and they were going right past where we needed to go so good news, they said they could drop us off right there! About 2 hours into the drive (which was about the 4 hour drive) we hear this BOOM thud thud thud...blown out tire.  Dang it.  So we all pile out and work really hard to get the trashed tire off the car and then we try our very best to get the spare out from under the car but it is stuck pretty good, I am 98% under the car messing with different chains and nobs and sweating kind of a lot when a car of locals pulled up and got it out from under the car and onto the car in about 3 minutes- embarrassing   But thank you.  But then, the driver of our car gave them a wad of cash and I am not sure how I feel about that for two reasons: it didn't take them that long and its really nice to help people without getting something from it, AND secondly, for me it just makes the "rich white man" stereotype more true and why wouldn't they believe it if they get money every time they perform an act of kindness huh?  Anyways I'm not saying they don't deserve a reward because without them we would have been stuck there for a long time but it is a vicious cycle of when and how much is appropriate.

Moving on... we finally got back on the road and to this cute little hotel.  We set up our little tent and went to go sit on the deck and keep our eyes peeled for elephants!  Well, of course I fell asleep waiting but then, there it was! It was only one guy but we were so close to it, you could see the texture in the golden brown eyes, you could see each and every wrinkle defined by the sand and the water and the years of sun that had worn on the old guy.  It was phenomenal. We watched him drink and splash water on himself for about 20 minutes before he turned around and went on his merry way.

Pretty cool huh? Well I thought so, then the owner guy who is about 30 and is a wildlife conservationist  came over and was talking to us about how elephants are strangely human like in their emotions.  My favorite elephant fact: elephants morn the loss of their dead- apparently they bury em' and cry about it.  How lovely is that? But he also told us that he was going out lion tracking tonight if we wanted to join him...wait wha??? YES.  So anyways we spent the rest of the afternoon playing bow and reading and listening to tunes.  Once sunset came, the watering hole became the place to be, elephants were coming in groups of 3-5 and would take turns getting drinks, growling at each other when their turn was up and sloshing water from their trunks into their mouths and all over their bodies.  They have a patriarchal society that was fun to watch because whatever the old guys said, went.  Even the little guys who tried to protest it would get a good side bump or a trunk to the face and they would back off.

My have a few favorite things about sitting there: the first is the immature side of me but elephants have absolutely no problem farting- loudly.  And they stink. So I consider it a proud day to be named Sarah when I know what elephant tooting sounds and smells like- and of course I am a 10 year old boy and lost it every time... Anyways the adult in me was completely intrigued by the sound of the water as it was leaving the trunk and going down the elephants throat... it sounded like a waterfall!  And like I said before, the eyes.  Elephant eyes are one of the few very big wild animals I have been lucky enough to be close enough to for me to be able to really study.

That was it for elephants, after it got dark they all left the watering hole and we went with the owner lion tracking.  This guy had been tracking a set of male lions for like 3 years and was trying to figure out their migration, mating, eating and sleeping patterns to better figure out how to preserve the land and resources for them.  So we hopped in a safari car and I was in charge of a super massive flash light that I had to shine out into the darkness hoping to catch a glimpse of what is called tapetum lucidum  (the reflection of the animals eyes off of the flashlight).  Then we stopped for a while where he thought they might be and while we waited we saw some owls and heard lots of crazy jungle sounds.   Then the guy we were with bolted out of his seat and I got all excited but he goes " I forgot to lock up the dogs and the leopards will come eat them!"  Ha no way right?  Um wrong, yes way, apparently it has happened twice already-this year.  Dang dude.  So we booked it back to camp and he decided he would  just stay in for the rest of the night so we went to bed and froze.  FYI, deserts are cold at night time.   But it was an amazing day... nature was sure out that day :)