The first thing we did was walk them into the forest by leading them by their trunks. The elephants were incredibly well-behaved, and they were adamant about making sure we had a good grip on the inside of their snot-filled trunks. eww, but cool.
We led them into a small opening in the forest where the caretakers lined the elephants up and began teaching us about natural elephant behaviours, while the elephants performed these behaviours on the spot!
Afterwards we were allowed to approach the elephants and were given a chance to see and touch the animals up close.
Then we walked them back to where they are fed some treats, and proceeded to fill their giant bellies with some melon!
Once it was decided that we had enough fun, our guide took us to the teaching area and taught us just about everything we would ever want to know about these beautiful beasts.
We would like to share some of the most interesting facts:
- 20 seconds to mate (males must be 26 years old first!)
- 22 month pregnancy
- 30 second labor
- right-tusked/left-tusked
- african vs asian
- 5 toes front/4 toes back vs 4 toes front/3 toes back
- jagged teeth vs small teeth
- female asian elephants rarely have tusks
- highly sensitive heel cushions which help detect natural movements ie tsunami and water pipes in Kruger Park
- 6 sets of teeth over lifetime - a natural elephant death is of starvation, but first they will drink only water for up to 9 months before the die, and they will be visited by family members for protection from lions and predators
- highly social, and family mourn a death for hours before moving on. They may return years later to carry the bones and remember the dead again
- non-tusked elephants are becoming more popular (currently 5% of elephants in SA don't have tusks) due to heavy poaching on the big tusked males. The gene is becoming extinct
We decided to have lunch at "Monkeyland", an enclosed jungle full of exotic primates! While we didn't want to do the full tour, we practically saw most of the monkeys from where we were eating inside the park. They tried to steal our food and even jumped on Sami when he tried to take one of them off of an elderly woman. Needless to say, good times had by all!
- 20 seconds to mate (males must be 26 years old first!)
- 22 month pregnancy
- 30 second labor
- right-tusked/left-tusked
- african vs asian
- 5 toes front/4 toes back vs 4 toes front/3 toes back
- jagged teeth vs small teeth
- female asian elephants rarely have tusks
- highly sensitive heel cushions which help detect natural movements ie tsunami and water pipes in Kruger Park
- 6 sets of teeth over lifetime - a natural elephant death is of starvation, but first they will drink only water for up to 9 months before the die, and they will be visited by family members for protection from lions and predators
- highly social, and family mourn a death for hours before moving on. They may return years later to carry the bones and remember the dead again
- non-tusked elephants are becoming more popular (currently 5% of elephants in SA don't have tusks) due to heavy poaching on the big tusked males. The gene is becoming extinct
We decided to have lunch at "Monkeyland", an enclosed jungle full of exotic primates! While we didn't want to do the full tour, we practically saw most of the monkeys from where we were eating inside the park. They tried to steal our food and even jumped on Sami when he tried to take one of them off of an elderly woman. Needless to say, good times had by all!
After monkeying around for a bit, we headed out towards Oudtshoorn to continue our way down the coast.
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