Watching the Elephants and other animals at Addo

Here we are at the amazing Addo Elephant Park.  Whenever we do things that are out the ordinary from our regular life, we feel a surge of excitement and joy run through our creaky bones. Our trip to the Eastern Cape was no exception to this, and the Addo Elephant Park was a most amazing experience. I was so filled with excitement as we drove into this self-drive nature reserve of over 300,000 acres, that I could barely stay in my seat. Then we saw a single little warthog behind an old rickety fence and for a second I wondered if it would all be like that. Sister LaPray who was riding with us said, “Don't bother taking his picture----you'll get lots more much better than that!” I felt better. And within a few more seconds we happened upon a wonderful herd of elephants. They were peacefully eating and minding their own business---much too busy to note our presence or give us much more than a glance. As I might have told you in another of my blogs, they have to eat most of their day in order to keep their massive bodies healthy. Some of us may feel that would be a somewhat enjoyable lifestyle, but for them I'm sure the search and destroy mission they live must at times become unbearable. None of them seemed unhappy, however, as they valiantly moved forward on their quest. One thing we noticed is that they are extremely destructive of nature's beauty and basically tear down and break apart trees and bushes constantly. They use their feet to kick at the ground and pull up plants that don't come up easily as they munch along. Even the little ones are hard at work on the destruction detail.

We watched them eating in different parts of the park for a long time.  They are so very large and their bodies seem so cumbersome, and yet there is a certain grace about them.  

We saw some really ugly, hairy old warthogs . . . .

and some sort of ugly and a little more attractive warthogs . . . . . .

And we saw some kinda cute and much less hairy and warty warthogs . . . . or am I just getting used to them?  I can't help it, I started thinking of Pumba in Lion King when I saw this one.   It is so cute the way he is down on his front legs eating.  On Wikipedia they said they were on their wrists . . . . which kind of made my arms hurt.  Now I need to go watch the movie again and see if they ever showed him on his wrists!

And of course, when you see Pumba---Timone can't be too far behind.  I suppose there were lots of meerkats in this park, but we only saw a few.

Here's another big guy wandering through the wilderness.

The zebra is such a fantastic animal.  They all seemed so calm and stood so still ----they may have been frozen with fear, but I'm sure these animals see enough cars drive by that they are not very afraid.  None of them ran away.  Addo Elephant Park really tries to keep the animals the same as they would be in the wild, so they do nothing to keep one animal from attacking another.  Elder and Sister LaPray told of seeing a lion take down a small zebra once when they were here.  That might have upset me, because I am now so in love with these animals.   Glad I didn't see that.

They seem so pure, so beautifully marked and so naturally graceful.

   They are all just a little different too.  This reminds me of another movie--Madagascar.  This is very typical countryside in South Africa.  As you drive along the highways, you will see mile after mile----oh, I keep forgetting to say kilometer after kilometer of these low rolling hills covered with brush and low trees.

You can see that something is here, but you're not exactly sure what it is.  We almost drove right past it.

It is a nyala---and this animal is fast becoming another of my favorites ----partly because of the extremely beautiful horns ---they don't shed them so they aren't called antlers.  You can't see the coloring here, but they have stripes on their bodies and yellow feet!  The white line between the eyes is one way to be sure it is a nyala. And they have long hair in a strip down their backs and running all along both sides of the lower body.  He looks like he's wearing a long hair skirt.

Some people down here do love their bugs and this really proves it. This sign means "Watch for Dung Beetles"! The dung beetle is a huge insect that lives on elephant dung. You can see them when they are on the road, and you DO stop for them.  They are endangered!

Yup!  We stopped and took some pictures of this one, but unfortunately he didn't have any dung with him.  They usually push it ahead of them.  Nothing like a great picture of a dung beetle!  They are about as big as a small frog and look like a huge stink bug!

We enjoyed seeing the different ways the elephants interacted.  Here they are leaning against each other----they seem to do it just to rest for a minute or just to be close to each other.  None of them seemed upset when they were doing this and no one seemed to feel he was being squished!

This guy brought us the most exciting moments of the day. . . . we came around a curve in the road and he was standing way down at the end of the road as far as we could see.  We didn't know if we could get past him, so we just stopped and waited.  After a few minutes, he started to walk toward us.  As he got closer and closer, we realized that he wasn't going to get off the road.  I could have zoomed in on these pictures, but I wanted you to be able to see the hood of the car at the bottom.   He really was very, very close. 

He stopped for a minute right in front of us and then he decided to walk past us right on the road.  He came down right beside the car on my side and I was frozen!  I did not take one picture of it! Vic was thinking - I;ll bet she'll have great pictures.  I don't know what I was thinking . . .I just remember that I didn't want the camera in front of my face!  I wanted to see him!  I think I could have reached out and touched him, but I was also afraid if I moved it might frighten him and he might turn on us!  You'll just have to imagine it!  It was fantastic! And very scary!!

Here's a couple of cuties--- finally!  The water was especially enjoyable for them.  It was a cloudy day and they really didn't get into the water like they would have if it had been hotter.

Their trunks are so fascinating and they can do so much with them.  It was fascinating to just sit and watch them doing very ordinary things like scratching their ears.

This is another animal that we saw quite a bit at Addo---it is a red hartebeest.  The horns form sort of a heart, but the name hart means deer in Africaans, so it is a deer-beast.  It is one in the family of antelope found in this country that are so strikingly beautiful.  The dark coloring on the legs keep the legs warm in winter I expect.

This is a black-backed jackal that we were very lucky to see.  They are mostly out at night, so we were very happy.

 The last group of elephants we saw was a little family of a Mom and two young ones.  Mom has on some kind of a collar that must be monitoring her behavior or something.  It didn't seem to interfere with her eating or taking care of the kids. 

Here's a cute picture of her trunk as she is carefully picking what she wants from this bush.

In this picture the two little elephants are both trying to eat in the same area.  One is ahead of the other and the little one is pushing his "brother" from behind so he can get up to the food.  We actually watched the front one's bottom come up off the ground as his brother pushed.  You can see it there in the picture.  And then suddenly this little trunk came up over the back looking for a way to latch on to something I guess.  It was so cute and just kind of hilarious.  And his big brother just kept on munching.



I know this is long, but I wanted to add a few pictures of the couples who were with us.  We went to eat at the restaurant in the park and Vic had a kudu steak and I had ostrich steak---we had just never tried them and never really had the opportunity.  We were having so much fun--we were glad we were able to squeeze two more pictures out of our camera before it died!

I'm talking to Elder and Sister O'Dell.  She tries to get out of the picture and tends to turn her head if she can before you click.  She is so adorable and really fun!  They both are.  Everyone in Port Elizabeth is so fun and they are able to get together a little bit when they have time.

These are the Robinsons ---they are so adorable.  They are kind of newly-weds I think.  A second marriage for them and a great match!  They come to Cape Town every other month for their job as employment specialists, so we go out to eat with them or do something every now and then.  They put on workshops about getting a job or running your own business.  Sounds really fun.

Here's another shot of the O'Dells, but again not a great shot.  They are from Arizona and he was a dentist.  Second marriage for them too.  We had so much fun staying at their place in Port Alfred.  They live right across from the golf course.  I'll say a little more about that in my next post.  We did get a few pictures of that when our camera battery got recharged!

So much for the elephants---an unforgettable experience.  We are so humbly grateful to get to do this because President Probst made it possible by getting us out of the office for a week.  This is not what a mission is about, but it is "the icing on the cake".  It is wonderful to have the opportunity to meet people and see things in another country with another culture.  South Africa is such a fascinating place!