Adventures with Elephants

It's been raining like crazy recently so camp hasn't had much power. I actually wrote this down on paper back when this happened and am only now getting to type it, so just pretend like you're reading this on March 24.

March 24, 2010

So yesterday was my first solo expedition into the bush. My fellow researchers (Andy and Jen, a grad student and his wife who's come to help him with his research) have been asked to help judge a competition for "Most Responsible Safari Guide." This entails spending the night at 8 different lodges around the Mara, all expenses paid, and going on several game drives after which they score their drivers. They get the works, nice rooms/tents, hot showers, meals and drinks, etc., which ok, makes me a little jealous. Well, not the food though, because our cook at camp tops any of the lodge chefs. But seriously, a toilet that flushes? Serious luxury out here!

Anyway, these stays are spaced out over the course of 6 weeks, but basically when they do one of these I have camp all to myself for about 24 hours.

At around 5 pm yesterday I headed out to do obs on my own for the first time. The session itself was fine. I think I actually spot hyenas better on my own, since I end up over-compensating for not having 2 other pairs of eyes in the car. It was great practice too, since eventually I'll be doing obs on my own pretty much all the time, once Andy dives into his dissertation research.

It started to rain halfway through the session, but not too badly so I decided to carry on. (It's been unseasonably rainy this past month, to the point that we get stuck out on tracks or even get rained in and can't leave camp.) Anyway, despite the rain I was getting along just fine, feeling really sorry for my poor hyenas because the ones I saw were soaked and miserable-looking. It was dark by 7:00 pm, but I didn't end obs until around 7:30 pm once it started raining hard enough that the hyenas all took cover and I wasn't seeing anything useful anymore.

So, there I am on my way back to camp, tootling along carefully down a muddy, slippery road in the pitch black (and when I say road, what I actually mean is an unpaved, glorified track with delusions of grandeur), no one else out because you need special permission to be out on the roads after dark in the Mara, and all off a sudden there's this huge movement just off the road maybe 15 meters in front of the car. In a split second I process that, OH SHIT THERE'S A BIG BULL ELEPHANT. Who looks NOT HAPPY. YAY. Then I slam the car in reverse and floor it back down the track, frantically praying that I remember how the track bends and am not about to slam the cruiser into a ditch.

I back up until I can just barely see the elephant at the edge of the glow of my high beams, and then park my ass to wait and see if the big brute will wander away from the road of his own volition. And btw, I'm watching him the whole time through my binos and I can see him tossing his head and flapping his ears and generally looking like a really aggravated elephant.

30 minutes later, I'm still sitting in the rain as the road slowly turns to muddy slush, at which point I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I wait longer and risk the road getting soaked to the point that I can't drive and am stuck overnight, or do I go for it and hope that the elephant doesn't decide to go for me in return? And if I go, do I keep it slow and unthreatening so I don't skid off the road, but risk getting rammed by a charging elephant, or do I gun it and risk crashing the car in a ditch? Hmm. Tough one.

Oh, and I should mention that I am completely on my own for this one -- I'd been trying at that point to call Andy for 20 minutes, on the off chance that he had more knowledge of elephant handling than I do. But hey, it's raining after all, and I find that although I have great signal where I am, no one else has signal to receive my call.

So I'm wet, I'm cold, I'm hungry, and I decide to just gun it. It would ultimately be easier to tow the car out of a ditch, than it would to unsquash it after 4 tons of angry bull elephant tramples it right? Also, please no squishing of the car while I'm in it, mmmk?

I back up the car a little first to give myself enough space that I can get up into 3rd gear well before I reach the elephant. On your mark, get set, GO! I zoom through the road and my heart's beating triple time as I catch a brief glimpse of startled elephant at the corner of my eye, all while I'm trying to keep the car on the road and stop it from fishtailing. Then woah, YES, I'm through and the elephant is just a fading speck in my rearview mirror.

I get back to camp and the staff are all, oh, late night huh? Oh boy. You have no idea.

Anyway, the car is fine, I'm fine, the elephant is fine, and the nice thing is that it rained so much that I got to sleep in this morning.

We've been getting a little more sun recently, so hopefully I'll be quicker with the updates. I'll check in again soon!