It was about 3:30 AM when Dan poked me in the shoulder to wake me up. He signaled for me to be quiet and pointed to look behind me. Our tent was sitting on the platform, and we had again left the rain fly off so it was like being outside. There was an elephant eating from a tree that stood four or five steps from our tent. It had its back end pointing directly at us, not more than ten feet away. It was huge, and from our prospective, I could tell that it was a bull elephant. We had seen lots of elephants, and read that they frequently came into camp. I also read that it was important to be quiet so they wouldn’t be startled and that they would just step over tent ropes and not bother us. For some reason I believed what I had read and very calmly watched and listened to this monster pachyderm dine on a tree. It sounded like I was listening to a hay baler as it used its trunk to strip leaves and twigs from the branches and then chew and swallow them. Apparently its mother had never insisted on chewing with its mouth closed.
We watched and listened and soon saw a second elephant coming to join the party. It was another bull, and bigger than the first. What a sight. This was truly the real Africa! When they moved to a tree that was about thirty yards away, Dan felt it was okay to talk, and told me that he awakened to a huge eyeball looking into our tent. It was like the scene in the movie Jurassic Park when the dinosaur looked through the car windshield. We sat telling each other how awesome it was to be that close to two bull elephants. We were also wondering if the rest of our group was witnessing this amazing spectacle.
We weren’t ready to go back to sleep, and within a few minutes, we heard another elephant approaching from the opposite direction. Apparently the dinner invitations had gone to all the adult males in the herd. He was dining on the tree whose branches actually hung over our tent. It worked its way around to our side of the tree and then walked right next to the platform we were on. On the way by, it appeared to touch the platform with its trunk. When we got up, we found that he had left a ball of chewed foliage about the size of a goose egg.
We were now keeping track of three elephants that were really working over the smaller trees in the campground. At one point, one of them put his head against a tree and pushed it down. The tree was about six inches in diameter, but was easily toppled. This could’t possibly get any better.
We had been watching elephants for about an hour, when number four arrived. He was helping himself to the tree closest to our platform. As we watched, it looked like it was working its way along a path between our platform and the tree. Dan and I both felt that the platform was right next to the tree and there was no way for several tons of elephant to get through. We were wrong. It managed to walk through the eye of a needle, and for a few seconds I was only 4 or 5 feet from the giant. I’m glad he chose to ignore me.
In all, the four big bulls spent about two hours around our tent. When they finally left the campground at about 5:30 AM, Dan and I walked over to where the rest of our group was to compare notes. Alec had spent the time in his tree high above the elephants and watched them wander around the campground. Kevin had watched from his tent on the ground, but he didn’t have any stories of them getting very close to him. The Cades had stayed in their tent. Since they had their rain fly on, they were able to hear the elephants and knew they were around, but weren’t able to watch them as closely as the rest of us had.
Otte’s story was the best. Before going to bed, he had moved the red truck close to a clump of bushes, and then moved his tent right next to the bush and the truck. He felt that he was getting himself out of the open area where any elephants that came through might walk. When he woke up in the middle of the night, there was an elephant eating from another bush near to his tent. Its rear end was very close to his tent as it dined on the greenery, and as Otte explained he was hoping that it wouldn’t fart, dump a load on his tent, or worst of all back up and step on him. Fortunately none of those things happened, but the elephant did turn around to face him and decided to eat from the bush on the far side of the tent. It simply reached over Otte and his tent and pulled leaves into its mouth. This was way to close for comfort.
Everyone had great stories, and nobody got hurt, but most of the group felt like they had had enough danger for one trip. By our third night at Flatdogs, all but one tent, the Cade’s, was off the ground. Dan and I stayed on our low platform, but Kevin and Otte took over two spots in trees that had been vacated.
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