An Adventure in Addo Elephant National Park

For Saturday we had planned to go to a game reserve called Addo Elephant National Park, where we were promised that we could see all sorts of wild beasts, as well as ride and feed elephants at a nearby elephant sanctuary.

My day began way too early at 6:45am, I met up with five other girls at the Old Gaol (pronounced jail) at 8 and met our driver for the day who's name was Sean. Our first stop was the elephant sanctuary (who's commercial name I can't remember at the moment). Here we watched four female elephants do some cool choreography and kick soccer balls. Then we got to feed them and ride them. It was so awesome! The work they are doing at the sanctuary is incredible. It's run by a group of men from Zimbabwe and they rescued the elephants from an area that was doing population control by killing elephants off. Over the last 18 months these men have built relationships with and trained these once wild animals, and now they are completely docile. It's sad that they couldn't be put back into the wild again, however compared to the alternative they have it pretty good.

Fun Facts about elephants: 1. They can live 60-65 years in the wild and 80-100 years in captivity 2.They can eat up to 484lbs of food and drink up to 33gallons of water everyday 3. They eat for 18 hours a day and eat so much they only digest about 40% of it.

Next we moved on to Addo Elephant National Park. Not even five minutes into the drive we spotted this huge male elephant grazing on some bushes. We turned off our van and coasted down the hill to watch him eat. After munching for about 10 minutes he calmly started walking directly towards our car. Approximately 1m away he turned and crossed in front of us and continued munching on the opposite side of the road. I cannot accurately explain how massive he was. It felt like I'd stepped into Jurassic park and was watching a T-rex walk by. Amazing.

Throughout the day we saw all manner of exotic animals, including ostrich, kudu (an antelope type animal), many more elephants, dung beetles, warthogs, zebras, buffalo, and huge ant hills. Around 1:30 we stopped for a delicious lunch of Kudu steak, salad with chutney, braai bread (bread that you cook on the BBQ), chips, and soda. Due to poorly engineered grills and lacking some essential items, lunch took about 2.5 hours.

So around 4pm we packed up and decided to meander our way out of the park. Shortly, we ran across and elephant family drinking at a man made watering hole. There was a baby with its mother who was absolutely adorable and captivated us all for a good ten minutes. We watched the baby drink from its mother for awhile, and another elephant who was spraying water out of its mouth. As you may be able to tell from the picture, the mother elephant looks quite emaciated. We think its because elephants have to eat so much already and can only digest 40% of it, the rest is automatically wasted. So can you imagine trying to eat enough to sustain yourself and a growing elephant baby?!

Well, here is where the real adventure begins. As we were driving up this giant hill our van started overheating. We pulled over and Sean poured all the water we had into it (side note: the car is engineered in such a way that the part of the engine that was overheating was under Sean's seat so he had to lift it up to access the engine and there was smoke billowing everywhere). After about 5 minutes or so things seemed to be alright and we continued on our way. One huge hill later we had overheated again. This time when Sean lifted up the seat a huge geyser of brown oily water sprayed everywhere. Sean got it full in the face, all over the windshield, ceiling, and the 2 girls who were riding up front. Just then a truck that had passed earlier showed up with more water and a rope to tow us to the park gate. We turned off the van, let it cool, then got in and they started to tow. About 1/3 of the way up the hill, the truck driver realizes he can't pull all the weight. So all of us girls jumped out and climbed into the back of a third truck owned by the park. A few things should be noted at this point: 1. It is STRONGLY advised that you not leave your car on account of you could be eaten. 2. Just the day before 3 lions had been spotted in the area where our car broke down. So here we are, six 20yr old American girls sitting in the back of a random pickup truck in the middle of a South African game reserve. Good times.

Eventually we made it up the hill, figured out we just needed oil and more water. After some lengthy negotiations, we convinced someone to bring it to us and then just waited an hour and a half for them to arrive. By 6:45 we were good to go and on our way home. What an adventure!