A Walk with the World's Largest Land Mammal

     On my third day in South Africa, Alaine and I, along with a group of other girls, left the ship early in the morning to travel six hours away where we would go on an elephant safari. However, before we would do this, we were to travel to the world’s tallest bridge where several people in our group would bungee jump. I was originally one of those people, but everyone I know told me not to do it, so I took myself off the list.

     Once we go to the tallest bridge, the people who were going to bungee jump had to sign a lot of forms consenting to the dangers of what they were about to do. While I, and several other people, waited, we ate ice cream watching the bridge to see when our group would go. When it was their turn, we went inside the restaurant and watched them jump off of the television. They would line up on the edge with their arms out up to their sides, and the crew members would help them push off. It was crazy! I really wished that people at home encouraged me to do it, rather than to not do it; it is now the biggest regret in my life to not have done this jump.

     After we left the bridge, we traveled to the elephant park. We were late to the park, so we were unable to ride the elephants. We were all very disappointed because this was one of the highlights of the entire trip. However, our tour guide fought for us, and managed us to get a private tour of the facilities. We walked around the elephant cages in the main building, which is where they sleep every night. Each elephant has its own cage, and they know which cage is theirs. They are all different sizes because different elephants have different needs.

     Once we finished with their cage tour, we walked into the fields to join the elephants.  The elephants lined up behind a fallen tree so that we could feed them out buckets of chopped up vegetables. The elephants stretched their trunks across the tree trunk to where we held out our hands. They took the vegetables by using suction in their trunks. It was very warm and a little wet when they sucked the vegetables out of our hands. It was very cool!

     After we fed the elephants all of our vegetables, we were permitted to pet them. The elephants knew that we would approach them, so they all spread out so that we did not crowd them. We all took pictures with the elephants. When I was by the matriarch elephant, Sallie, I held up her ear. I suppose that this annoyed her, because she moved her ear forward, which knocked my sunglasses off of my head. We learned all about the elephants, including their daily habits. The elephants in this park know up to forty commands; they are very smart creatures! After we finished up with the elephants, we traveled to our hostel, which we would be staying at for a part of the night until 3:30 in the morning to go to the sharks.