Safari Stopover at Elephant Sands Campsite
05/17/10
We let our eyes adjust to the nightfall. A thin, crescent moon shined across the pond. We scaned the water like an animal hunting in darkness as night fell, darkening the tips of trees from green limbs to grey bones.
We arrived back at Elephant Sands Campsite, again towed in after being stuck, for another stopover of camping before we continued onto Chobe National Park in a town called Ksane the following day. On the drive to the campsite, we saw many roadside elephants, more so than spotted while camping in the Okavango Delta.
Mid-drive we were stopped at checkpoint where we had to place our footwear on a chemical, roadside pad. “That was the way they stop the spread of animal disease,” David said, but to us, it seemed rather pointless.
Back at the stopover campsite, I found myself in a rainy day solitary mood. My thoughts were focused on the stone water and underbrush, stalking softly as a cheetah. The memory of spotting a family of elephants across the water was recalled later by the feel of my pen in hand, reminding me of the taste of cool wind while writing, the animal sense of hunting in the dark.
Then they begain walking closer. Twice it happened.
Their giant grey frames moved through branches that in darkness rose from circles of brown grasses. It was content to watch their long coltish strides, weary from tourists who harrassed them with camera flashes, ignoring the advice of professional guides. Nearing the campsite’s tiny pool dirty as delta water, they were within five metres and we watched them drink. The flashes continued, turning them white in the darkness, their African-continent-shaped ears looking like giant shields.
Unfortunately, they did not stay long. Up close, I will always remember their slow, but specific gestures - the flapping ears, bent trunks placed in their mouths - and the lightning attacks by tourist flashes.
When they walked away, I whispered an apology from our species, dear reader, watching as flashes turned their backsides into white-washed stones. In these few moments together that both the elephants and humans will never forget, we were the wild animals and they were civilized.
That’s all for now.
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