When game viewing, one is generally safe from animals when inside a vehicle. Strangely enough a lion will not see a human as a source off food when sitting inside an open-roofed Landrover, but stick a limb out of it our step out to take a photo, he/she is likely to eat you for breakfast. The only creature who poses a danger to those inside our vehicles is an elephant - a true giant of a creature who if disgruntled can tip or peel open a Landrover as if it were a can of tuna.
Being a mother brings out protective instincts like none other and as a result the elephants to be treated with the most caution are the mothers.
On our first day of driving on the bush, we found ourselves having to pass through numerous breeding herds of elephant, with mammas and babies all around and the need to navigate them with great caution. While waiting for one particular herd to cross the road another vehicle approached too fast from the other side, disrupting the otherwise docile (but watchful) giants. A ripple of irritation ran through the herd and a large cow raised her heads and walked 40 feet straight towards us, with a purpose to her gait. She walked right up to our Landrover and stopping alongside my passenger window, she turned to face us, staring us down for a terrifying five minutes (or maybe it was two, but it felt like ten!). She was mere feet from myself and our 8 year old son and one flick of her tusks would have tipped us. The pounding of my heart was deafening. Having put us in our place, she turned to the shrub alongside her to eat some some choice leaves. She had put us in our place in no uncertain term.
Over the next week we encountered many more elephants, encountering many more breeding herds along the banks of the Chobe River. In contrast, we also encountered the lone bulls that are characteristic to Salute National Park. These males are docile (no babies to protect) and spend their days alone, unusual for such sociable creatures and leading them to seemingly seek out the company of humans from time to time.
On our last morning in Savute, we stopped to eat breakfast on a dry pan with a clear view all around us. it was a chance to stretch our legs and bask in the morning sun, before a long drive down to Maun. We noticed a tree moving and shaking on the far edges of the pan and after a few minutes an elephant made his way out of the bushes, seeming to move towards us. He got unnervingly close and as Mom of our particular herd, I decided we needed a little more space between. We moved our apple eating (an elephant favorite) family a little further away. Once again he moved towards us. This time, possibly sensing our need for distance he stopped a little further off and then simply kept us company, joining us for breakfast.
When it was time to go, there was an almost wistful goodbye as he raised his head and watched us leave. We called and waved from our windows and he raised his trunk in goodbye.
(The iPhone photo makes him look much further away than he was, but I like the feeling of the vastly empty place where we met up with him.)
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