Day 7

So, this post might be just a touch shorter. We started day 6 and drove forever before seeing anything. Then, all of a sudden we saw trees and brush shaking and realized the elephants were grazing. We pulled up right beside them; one massive male elephant, a female, and two children about 4 and 5 years old. It was amazing. The way they snap off large branches of trees and break them up before sticking them in their mouth was incredible. The snapping of branches was fierce! I think we were about 6 feet away, and they had no interest in charging us. Like most people, give them a good meal and the rest doesn't matter! We enjoyed them for 10 or 15 minutes and then drove up the road. Just around the corner we came across another heard of about a dozen elephants, including a 7 day old little cutie that stuck close to his papa. At one point he got slightly separated and another one of the male elephants gave him a whack with his trunk and put him back in his place. The poor little guy almost looked like he blushed a little! As we were watching that herd of elephants the baboons snuck up behind us and were laughing at us and fighting. Back to the elephants; one of the females laid down and was struggling to get back up again. She had to rock herself quite a bit, while we were all oohing and aweing encouragement to her. We have a video of the elephants, but it's too large to upload here. One of the big guys walked right past the vehicle, within arms reach. Beth said, if any of you are uncomfortable, I will move. But, we all agreed, as long as Beth is comfortable, we were good. That pretty much rounded out our morning safari.
Pool day!
Evening safari started out equally as boring. After a while we came across 6 white rhinos. they were massive beasts wandering slowly down the road. You have to keep a bit more distance with these guys, but we were still about 100 meters away. they eventually went off the road and ran down a hill towards the grass. They're funny when they run; almost like big tanks that are hard to slow down.
But, before long we were on the chase for the lions. We were determined to see the "big boy", male lion. We drove in circles around one area where we could hear them growling and grunting. The ranger and tracker got out of the vehicle and went tracking into the bush, which was a little disconcerting. The lions started grunting more, and they returned. However, around the corner, they got out again. This time they were gone for longer, and the lions not only growled, but roared ferociously! We were all a little terrified for our guys, and were debating who was going to drive the jeep if we had to, and how we would find our way back. They were just trying to locate where the lions were so we could go bush whacking in the jeep to find them. But, to no avail. And, since the lions roared so loud, they agreed it wouldn't be a good idea. We drove into a little river and saw two of the babies poking their heads out, but that was it. On our way back to camp, Beth stopped and grabbed a chameleon off a tree branch. We all took turns holding him. But, we have to wait for one of our friends to send us pics before we can share them. Another lovely dinner and we were off to bed.