SAFARI – DAY 11 (South Luangwa National Park, Zambia; Mfuwe Lodge)

My sister and I went on an elephant ride in the morning.  Beyond anything I ever expected.  Between the thousands of animals at Chobe National Park and the elephant ride, I think I can die happy.

We each rode our own elephant with just a handler riding in front.  These elephants have all been rescued as babies, at different times, in Zimbabwe and brought to this Zambian National Park, just outside the Thorntree Lodge.  Most of them are adults now, as old as 30.  All the elephants have experienced being hunted and seeing their kindred killed.  The handlers work with the elephants every day and train them using a reward method – no beating or punishment.  They do the one-hour walk in the morning and again in the afternoon.  After the walk we got to feed them (very up close – I had my hand in the elephant’s mouth) and pet them and then they are free to be elephants and roam around and browse in the bush.  They usually come back when they are called – they know their names – because they know they are protected. 

We rode astride on a kind of saddle with a small handle to hold onto in front, and walked through the bush then crossed a shallow offshoot of the Zambezi river, walked through some woodlands, and then waded back over the water.  The elephants walked in a line along with a juvenile and a little baby tagging along, and they paused here and there to pull down some leaves to munch.  It was absolutely magical, especially when my elephant started to rumble (a deep subvocal sound that is like a large purr), which is a form of communication with the others.  Apparently, my elephant was a chatty lady. 

We heard some wonderful stories.  For example, my elephant came into estrus at one point but the males in the group did not indicate much interest.  She was soon “kidnapped” by a wild herd of bull elephants and she disappeared into the bush for two years.  (These elephants are not corralled or tied down.)  Two years later, the handlers saw her with the wild herd standing near the lodge and they called to her and she came right over and moved back into her home herd.  Apparently the reunion behavior was amazing to watch – the other elephants petted her with their trunks and rubbed against her and vocalized a great deal.  It turned out that she was pregnant and the little tag-along baby was hers.

The entire walk was filmed by one of the Elephant Walk staff and they produced a very good quality, professional film that I just had to buy, of course.  Being so close and being able to touch these elephants was simply amazing (I think I am saying “amazing” too often, but then again, it is genuinely reflective of my experience).

Of course there is another side of elephant riding.  I rode sitting astride with my feet in stirrups, which was murder on my pelvic bones.  By the end of the hour I could hardly get off and walk and my knees were yelling.  Tonight my sister and I are stiff and sore -- sore thighs, sore calves, and sore backs. But it was worth it!!!!!

Back to the lodge for a good breakfast and a farewell to our resident toilet frog and we were off to the airport for two separate one-hour flights:  Livingstone to Lusaka (capitol of Zambia), then Lusaka to South Luangwa and Mfuwe Lodge (mm-FOO-wee). 

People here really live in villages -- we passed many on the drive from the airport to the lodge.  A village is a cleared area with round mud huts or small rectangular brick huts, all with conical thatched roofs.  There are thatched lean-tos for shade, large shade trees, outdoor firepits for cooking, thatch-walled corrals for goats, and the ubiquitous white plastic chairs.  Our guide is Peter and he is the headman of his village, which has 112 people -- we drove by it.  The people look healthy and are doing well – there are large, carefully tended, vegetable gardens.  I asked how they keep the elephants out of the vegetable gardens because the gardens are not fenced and it turns out that several people from the village have the job of sleeping on the perimeter of the gardens and shooing the elephants away at night.  This is far more effective than fencing because the elephants just knock down any fence that is put up.  This whole trip feels a bit like stepping into a National Geographic magazine and having it come alive.  Strange but wonderful.

Mfuwe Lodge (http://www.mfuwelodge.com/) is another poshy, four-star lodge that is simply lovely (I think the best one was saved for last).  At this lodge, we are greeted after every game drive with a cool, damp facecloth and a glass of juice, which is so very welcoming and wonderful.  The staff at every lodge we stayed in have been very attentive, but at Mfuwe they are unusually so.  I feel quite nicely taken care of.  My sister and I are in the Kudu room (again, we have separate chalets that overlook the water) and baboons constantly patrol the grounds so we are careful to keep all doors closed and locked.

It is even hotter in South Luangwa than the last place, so we are scheduled for morning and night game drives.  The rest of the day I plan to be in the pool.  And by the way, this area is supposed to have the largest concentration of leopards, so our chances of seeing more leopards are going up.  (However, it turned out that we never did see any more leopards.)

Again we are stuck in our rooms until we are escorted.  They are very serious about this and if you even look like you might be thinking of walking back to your room after dinner, they run after you to make sure you are escorted.

Oh, and we don’t seem to have a toilet frog or a closet spider, but we do have geckos (which are kind of cute), and little frogs (which are cute until you reach for a door handle in the dark and one is sitting on the handle), and a cricket, and a resident “wall spider” (that’s what the guide calls them) which is fairly big (about 3” across) and very flat and it just sits there on the wall near the shower eating mosquitos.  So my sister and I are keeping a watchful eye on the resident wildlife but have not called for help.  Aren’t we brave!