November 30th

A blisteringly hot day! We just sweat all day as usual. I guess you could also call this trip a detox. 28 days in the bush, experience amazing wild life and as a bonus a complete detox of any bodily toxins! Forget the steam rooms! I'll go to Africa!

Anyway, after the afternoon of sitting right on the edge of the plastic chair at the table so you have the least possible contact with any object, we went on our evening game drive. It was me in the tracker seat and we were on the hunt for, well I don't know, anything really. It was always, "what do you want to see today?" then "Leopard, Rhino, Cheetah . . ." but the best drives were when we just drove up to something or heard about a great sighting on the radio.

So as we drove along, I was in the tracker seat, or basically sitting on the hood, and another guy was driving. Rob (guide) perks up and notices something on the road and tells Johan to stop. He stops. We are all alert, 'Hmm what is it?' Rob says he notices grass on the road, why is that there? As a novice tracker, I failed in the 'look at the broken grass clump in the road and know it means elephant are close by' test. Hmmm. Anyway, we are all quiet for a second and we hear the giant heard moving in the trees to our left. So Rob quickly gets into the driver seat and FLOORS it in reverse to pick up another road that heads to where the elephant are. (This will be our first elephant sighting) Remember me in the tracker seat? Yeah, wow, I held on for dear life! Then he rockets down the dirt road, hugged on each side by wonderful thorny acacias and other lovely bush inhabitants! We were speeding along hitting bumps and trees, and though there was a tinge of fear in me that I might be flung into oblivion as they continued their chase, I was secretly grinning like a child on her first roller coaster! Talk abour a rush! Good times.

So then, after the bat outta hell drive, we drive BOOM right into the herd of elephant! Wow, right on the road in front of us. Though stunning and beautiful and one of the things I wanted to see most, a whole new world of fear came into my being. Umm, the elephant are enormous and I'm VERY close and well, what if they don't want us here? I'm the first to go. The guides know what they are doing right? That was my reasoning about 150 times on this trip! HA! But, I survived the bush, so well done Rob and Lance! :)

The elephants were wonderful, amazing and awesome. They went to the dam briefly, had a quick swig of water, then magically disappeared into the bush until next time. . .
-Amanda