Today started with one of tommy’s infamous wake up calls, violently shaking the tent yelling “Good morning my sleeping beauties” giving us all the shock of our lives before we fell into fits of giggles, even first thing in the morning this trip is exciting.
We expected today to be one of the quieter ones, due to a long boring drive to Swaziland, but as we’re quickly learning Africa is never what you expect. After only half an hours drive we came across something even more shocking than tommy’s wake up calls, a lone female lion crossing the road only meters ahead of us. It was an amazing sight, she was so calm and graceful, meanwhile we were bouncing around the minibus in excitement, we didn’t even have chance to calm down again before we drove past four giraffes grazing at the side of the road. I think what made all these encounters so amazing was their unpredictability, to think we were expecting a boring drive!
However i don’t think any encounter no matter how unpredictable or amazing will compare to the elephant interaction we experienced today. Just seeing these majestic animals walking towards us out of the bush made us gasp, they were incredible, I’ve seen elephants before but never noticed how calm and gentle these giants are.
The presentation was genuinely interesting, did you know after 50 years an elephant must sleep standing up or the pressure of their weight will give them a heart attack? Nope neither did i. Feeding the elephants was indescribable. While it was awe inspiring and enlightening, it was also funny and felt like being licked by a giant jack russell.
The drive again was another mini safari, seeing baboons, cheetah, impala, zebra and even more giraffes.
Lottie
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