Yesterday I detailed our impressive sunrise game drive through South Luangwa National Park in Zambia — my favorite safari park in all of Africa, I do declare. But I left out all of our elephant encounters so that I could show them off in this post.
We saw so many pachyderms up close. Lots of bachelor males in small groups, and a few females with babies (elephant herds are matriarchal and they kick out males when they become teenagers). This guy below is a male… and that appendage hanging in the back is not his leg.
More than once in a safari vehicle I’ve called out, “Hey, that elephant has five legs!”
These guys have come from the river, hence their dark legs and underbellies compared to their top halves.
There seem to be elephants all over. It’s so neat to see them emerge from the bush and cross right in front of our vehicle. And to reiterate what I wrote yesterday about South Luangwa being an under-appreciated park, there are only a handful of safari jeeps out this morning. If this were the Serengeti there would be dozens of vehicles all jockeying for a better position, but here everyone can see them up close.
Elephants bathe in the river:
THIS is my favorite encounter of the day — we come across three pachyderms, two females and a toddler. Our driver shuts off the ignition and we silently stay put for a good 15 minutes as they mill around us, grazing. We are the only vehicle in the area. They get comfortable with us watching (and clicking away on our cameras) as they move in quite close to us. They are enchanting to watch.
Their ears flap back and forth. Normally when they extend their ears wide (like in the above photo) it signals a mock charge, but in this case they were just flapping their ears in synchrony.
That was a magical 15 minutes. I am in love with this whole morning.
On Monday I have one more safari post from South Luangwa — our nighttime game drive through the park. Will we finally spot one of the illusive leopards?
I visited Zambia on a 30-day Nairobi to Joburg tour with Nomad Tours. They discounted my tour in exchange for blogging and photography; opinions are my own.
