I saw Elephants. I saw elephants. I saw Elephants (now imagine that in a sing song slightly nagging voice). I have seen them before in the zoo, but nothing can compare to seeing tens of these mammoth pachyderms in their natural habitat of the African bush. I saw one on its own in the bush first. It looked like an adolescent bull male recently rejected from his herd, but we drove by to fast to tell. I already considered the trip a success.
As we were driving Courtney screamed. She sat a few rows a head of me. I saw her pointing at the thick bush to my right hand side. I turned just in time to see what National Geographic photographers pray to see. The matriarch’s barley stood out from the dark bush. Her face ears and tusks covered in a dark gray blue tinted mud. She almost melted into the dark shadows surrounding her. Her face took up most of the small opening. Her child stood next to her reaching up to the middle of her ears, as the rest of the family clustered behind, and disappeared into the bush.
I screamed as well. My mother told me I needed to read Elephant Whisperer before this trip. Learining about these amazing creatures heightened my sense of respect for them. I never expected to see them so calm in their natural home, and so close. They were just off the side of the road maybe ten feet from me. We drove so little time, and there they were right behind me.
“Can we go back? Can we reverse?” Courtney called up to the driver. “No we can’t,” Claire responded (she sat in the back seat with me). “They’re already crossing the road.” I stuck my head out the window to see not twenty feet behind me a herd of elephants crossing the road. Elephants of all ages paraded in front of me, in a line almost as neat as the one in Disney’s The Jungle Book. Only the baby, toddler and youth elephants broke the line. The babies and toddlers pranced next to their mother’s feet, while the youth stood slightly askew of the line. Their size astounded me. The stood taller than our van. Standing up out of the window I could not see the whole of their backs. The size of the mothers only made the babies more adorable as they tottered along, their height reaching just above the mother’s ancles.
I took a few pictures and tried to take a video, but found out later the video had not taken. After all the elephants vanished into the bush on the other side of the road we started to drive again. Not long after we came upon another mother and her young child grazing off of bushes just off the side of the road. We watched transfixed as the young elephant stripped the leaves from the bush with his trunk, and placed it gingerly into his or her mouth. The mother’s back faced us so we could not see how she ate. The baby elephant moved around and this time I got that on video.
We saw a few more elephants on our drive to the channel (we were going to take a boat tour). Their size became apparent when we could see a herd of elephant on the lakes banks from high atop a hill. The buffalo they mingled with looked like specks, but the elephants stood out clearly on the shore. Even from the other side of the channel you could distinguish the outline and movements of a massive bull elephant on the bank. Clair and I origionally sat on the right side of the boat, and the one that faced the opposite bank. Jenna then commented that the driver would probably take the boat around the channel turning to the right, which would put the left side of the boat closest to the bank with all the animals on it. Clair and I then shuffled onto the other side of the boat. Jenna was correct and Clair and I got to take good pictures without having to shoot over someone’s head.
Ruth served as our boat guide. She spouted facts about the animals as we drove by the herds of elephants, water buffalo, and hippos wallowing in the water together. She told us that elephants use their ears as giant fans to keep cool. When they charge they drag their front foot through the dirt repeatedly (like a horse). Our boat came too close to an elephant (we were at least 20 meters off the shore, but the elephant thought we were too close) and as we passed we watched him stare us down and stamp his foot. Ruth laughed and told us he was charging. they are matriarchal, and they jestate for 22 months. One bull elephant we saw on the banks had an odd discoloured spot behind his eye. It looked to be some kind of moisture. A woman on the boat asked Ruth what it was. I feel that she, and most of us worried, that it was a sign that the elephant had fallen sick. “It means that the female elephants are in heat. Yeah when you see the mark behind the eye that mean it is mating season.” We watched this elephant for a while. He ate from bushes and when he approached the bank the hippos just of the shore started to swim away, lest he decide to join them. He played with a rock for a bit and I managed to get a picture of the tip of his trunk curl around it. We also saw him poop. Ruth said this was rare to see an elephant poop, but I doubt it. Elephants are also amazing at camouflage. Despite their size they hide well in the bush. It had to look hard on the hills surrounding the lake to see the tops of some of their heads.
Water buffalo also run themselves as a matriarchal society. When the male buffalo grow too old the females kick him out of the group because the children he produces will not be able to survive in the wild. Whenever we passed by one to three buffalo on their own Ruth told us they were the ones that were too old. They formed their own bachelor groups to keep each other company and for protection. Lions most often kill these male buffalo because they are weak and live without the protection of the herd. Ruth also told us that when a buffalo has a light brown tint to their fur it means they are across breed between a buffalo and a forest cow. The buffalo like to spend most of their time in the water or near the beach. They enjoy this for two purposes. The water cools them off and protects them from the heat, and it helps with tick prevention. When they buffalo lay on the bank after chilling in the water the dirt turns to mud and attaches to their fur. Once the mud dries it suffocates the ticks. Birds also eat some of the ticks and yellow-billed haron follow buffalo around to eat the grasshoppers that fly away as the buffalo move through the grass. Buffalo can live up to 25 years.
Hippos can also live up to 25 or thirty-years, in fact, most animals in the park live around that long. Elephants and crocodiles stand out as the exception. Elephants can live to 45 or 50 years, maybe longer, and crocodiles live up to 150 years. Hippos, though, are not matriarchal. When a male hippos fights another for control of a pod they fight to the death. They are the most dangerous animal in water and kill hundreds of fishermen every year. At one point we saw a group of hippos wading in a smaller group away from everyone else. These were the pregnant hippos. Pregnant hippos sought shallower water when they came close to giving birth to prevent the baby hippo from drowning. They also move away from the head of the herd until they know the sex of their baby. If they have a male they keep away from the herd for up to three years. They do this because the head hippo is ready to kill any male hippo he sees as a threat. This includes newly born males who he sees as a future threat. But, for some reason when the baby hippo turns three the lead male no longer sees him as a threat. If the hippo has a baby girl she can re-join the herd immediately.
Other fun animal facts: waterbucks’ fur does not lie flat on their body. It sticks out straight off their bodies and exposes their skin to the sun. As the sun heats their skin they sweat, a lot. Their sweat produces a smell that lions cannot stand, and so lions and leopards usually keep away from them. They act much like deer and elk back home. Most of the year the males form groups separate from the females, and they do not come together until matting season.
African sea eagles, on the other hand, are never more than one kilometer apart from their soul mate. Once a sea eagle finds their mate they adhear to the till death do us part line of the marriage vow more strictly than most humans do. They remain with and close to their partner until one or the other dies. Even after this they do not find another mate. They will live the rest of their lives alone.
Hammar head birds also mate for life. These birds build elaborate nests with multiple rooms and a front and back exit for easy escape. They stay in the same nest year after year. Because of this the larger the nest the more times the bird couple has given birth. They continue to add onto the nest year after year. Some lazy birds, though, will steal their nests when the family are away, or have moved out. Another bird builds its nest in the side of the hill close to the water. From the boat you can see their nests burrowed into the vertical rock on the side of the lake. This bird takes time egg sitting, with the male doing some of the work, and the female the other. These nests are prime for monitor lizards (we saw one in a tree) to go egg hunting in. monitor lizards eat small birds and raid crocodile and birds nests for eggs to eat. Crocodiles are also their own worst enemies and it is hard for them to make it past youth.
Plenty of fish also live in the water, and where there are fish there are fishermen. Unlike national parks in the United States communities still live inside the park. These communities mine salt, fish, and heard cattle. As we made our trip around the channel and got close to lake Edward we saw a fishing community. Our boat joined a score of fishing boats as men set off to fish in the waning daylight. Ruth explained that the community new the importance of conservation and that the Ugandan Wildlife Authority granted them special permission to fish. Their lively hood depended on the sustainability of the fish population, so they new the importance of preserving it.
When the boat ride ended I hear one girl and boy talking about how they had been evacuated. I asked where from, and they said somewhere not far off. They were working at a bording school all summer in conjunction with a program based out of Philly. Eliza said she talked to one of the boys and they were missionaries. Go figure. We saw another group of mzungu “volunteers” on the boat behind ours. They came in Volunteer Uganda trucks, but it was obvious that most of the people in the group were voluntourists. The girls wore strapless shirts with short skirts or booty shorts. We could see a few of their bum cheeks hanging out. In Uganda strapless shirts are not that taboo. Breasts here are seen as utilities and are not overly sexualized. Short shorts though, are BIG no no’s. The region from the hips to the knees is the sexualized part of a woman. We felt offended that people who claimed to be volunteering would be that insensitive of the society they were in.
After the boat tour Horace, or driver, took us to a hotel on top of the hill that over looked the lake. We took jumping pictures. The hotel had a coffee table with cookies laid out on top of it. Jenna took one, and failed in her attempt to conceal the action. I, however, took it off the plate in a less overt manor. I took a chocolate macadamia cookie with fudge baked in the middle. It tasted so good I stole another one on the way out.
On the drive back to our lodging we looked for lions, but found none. We did, however, frighten a mama elephant and we needed to speed away as she trumpeted and turned to charge at us. We also drove by a muddy creater lake. Many of the animals went there to get salt, and when they were too old or too weak they often got stuck in the mud and died down there. We also had to keep closing our windows as cars drove by to keep the dust out of our vehicle.
At the end of the day we could not wait to return to our lodgings. The company booked us at Bush Lodge. From the pictures and the description online (and the price we paid for the whole Safari) we mentally prepared to stay at a place with modest accomidations. We were wrong. Bush Lodge served as everything I ever imagined going on a safari would look like plus a million. When we arrived for check in in the afternoon we saw that the lodge positioned itself on top of a cliff overlooking the lake. When we retruned we watched the pink sun and its reflections shimmer of the lake as the sun set behind the hills of the park. There were tents on platforms with grass-thatched roofs around the periphery with a stone path leading to each. Three larger tents were in the middle of the camp. One had tables, chairs, and a bar. The other stood empty, and the third had couches. They lead us to the ones with the couches, sat us down, and gave us a complimentary cold towel and mango juice.
We checked in and they lead us to our luxury tents. Clair and I roomed together. We shared a spacious tent. It contained two twin beds, a nightstand, and a table at least two feet long to put or other things on. We settled ourselves then headed for lunch. The food was the best we have eaten in Uganda. For lunch they served (it was a set menu) corn flower soup and twisted thick noodles with tomato sauce and cheese. The soup came with knotted buns that tasted an awful lot like mini Challahs. For dinner we had grilled tomatoes and eggplant with cashews, and a balsamic vicegerent dressing, cream of spinach soup, mashed potatoes and sautéed vegetables, and a delicious cake with raspberry syrup. They even asked us that night what time we wanted breakfast and how we wanted our eggs. I chose cheese omelette. Instead of eating in the tent like we did for lunch and breakfast we ate outside under the stars with a carocene lamp and a bonfire for light. For breakfast they served us eggs, cereal, toast, butter (real butter), jam, cinnamon bits, doughnuts, French press coffee and fruit. We felt as if we had accidentally won some lottery that placed us at such an amazing place. We continually thanked and toasted Jenna for arranging the trip. We could never be thankful enough.
Sunday morning we ate breakfast at 6:00 and were in the car by 6:30. We picked up our tour guide Robert and were off to see some lions, except we didn’t see any lions. We instead saw As we drove though, we noticed that the long tall grass we saw the day before did not show. We drove through green short grass. Robert said rangers had recently burned this area for fire protection. They didn’t do it well because they burnt all the grass. Instead of burning the whole area they should have left patches of tall grass for the smaller slower animals to hide in. The exposed areas of grass reviled the graveyard of the Savannah. White bones lay strewn across the ground and contrasted with the dark dirt.
We saw bush deer, Kob, and baby warthogs. When or drive was over we came home. I want to go back.
