Sometimes an event happens in front of your very eyes. You have no control over happenings. You just watched transfixed, always in the back of your mind a little voice asks 'how is this going to turn out?'.
Arriving at Simba Camp from the Serengeti, on the Ngorogoro Crater rim, we were still excited to see two elephants at the edge of camp, perhaps 250-300 meters away.
We chose a nice piece of grassy, flat land, under a very large, spreading tree, to pitch our tent. Simba had hot showers and we were quickly into them.
As we returned to tent, Deb and I both acknowledged that it looked as if the two elephants were making their way towards our tent, very slowly.
But next thing, they picked up the pace and were definitely making a bee line towards us. To be precise, to the tree under which we were camped. We felt we had no option but to stay in the tent, as they were now not five meters away.
There we stayed while these two delinquents stretched for, and pulled down, branches laden with leaves they strip and feast on. Intermittently they tossled with each other as they jealously eyed the other's rewards.
This was now happening three meters from us, with branches crashing to the ground in front of our tent as the ripping and pulling continued. We hoped like hell they didn't stumble back on top of us.
We had front row seats. The camera ... it just go klazy.
The agility was amazing. Such dexterity in big beasts. Trunks outstretched, every sinew stretched to the limit, lifting a leg off the ground to aid the effort. And it seemed, a steely eye never ceased staring at us. The rest of the campers had all gathered in a semi-circle , a safe distance behind our tent.
We were really only concerned by one thing. The juiciest looking, lowest hanging branch was dead smack above our tent. But the presence of our tent seemed to keep them at bay.
Were we shitting ourselves? Just a little.
When they decided to move and reach for some branches on the far side of the tree, we saw our opportunity. We sprung from the tent, and scampered back to the safety of the other campers. The elephants got a slight start, stepped towards us, swung their trunks about menacingly, giving a quick trumpet blast.
The Ngorogoro Crater rim is at 2,400 meters altitude. It had clouded over, and was getting qite cool, with a breeze. (I think we are in the middle of East Africa's two week winter.) Having just got back from the showers we weren't dressed for the cooling down. We only had thongs/jandals on - no warm shoes or socks. We were getting cold. It was getting dark. People reckoned rangers would turn up and chase them off, yeah right. The elephants continued feeding, and in a case of bad manners, depositing rather large poohs outside our tent. There was nothing much else for us to do either, so we went to the dinning tent and had dinner also.
After what must have been two hours at least, the elephants moved off. We could return to our tent and get warm clothes on.
Never a dull day.
Max
aka Mad.
1 comment:
Unfurkinbeeleeveable!
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