On Safari – The Ultimate Adventure

We gathered at the lodge in the dining area just before dawn to go out riding in the bush in an open Range Rover to look for animals. At that moment, at the trailing edge of night, we were hoping to see some of the nocturnal hunters before they disappeared for their daytime sleep. As we cut through the chilly morning air in the open vehicle, my fingers went numb from the cutting cold air. Luckily there were blankets in the Rover, and after the sun rose, it steadily warmed. Then I peeled off my layers, one by one, and it became very warm.

Though I’d previously been on safari in Kenya, it was my first safari in South Africa. It was very different terrain, much hillier, and it was a much different experience. We saw a great procession of animals, some of staggering beauty and presence. We saw giraffes, zebras, impala, wildebeests, rhinos, hippos, warthogs and lions. People always want to see the lions, the kings at the top of the food pyramid. They are regal and awe-inspiring. But the most dramatic encounter that day was with a young bull elephant.

While we were roving across the landscape, one of the women had spotted something moving and pointed it out to Ryan. He was our ranger guide, out in the bush every day and highly attuned to the environment. He can read where the wildlife have gone in clues such as a pile of dung, some footprints or broken branches on a bush. Like a wilderness Sherlock Holmes, he saw clues in all these things that were invisible to us.

Ryan looked to where the woman was pointing, stopped the Rover, and backed up to a place where we could see through the brush to an elephant that was busy ripping branches off a tree for lunch. Ryan drove the vehicle cautiously into the clearing where the elephant was maybe 50 feet away. “You always leave yourself an escape route,” he said. He turned off the engine and we settled back and watched the elephant.

This giant tearing branches off a tree delivered an overwhelming impression of massive power. It wasn’t pretty, by my customary aesthetics. Its skin was wrinkly, dusty and baggy, as if its pants didn’t fit. It had those peculiar flappy ears, pillar legs and the freakishly long snout with its bewilderingly precise dexterity.

Ryan pointed out that there was moisture on the inside of the elephant’s hind legs. That, he said, was an indication that the bull was “in musth,” an Afrikaaner/Dutch term meaning “intoxicated.” It was his mating…