AWE: Adventures With Elephants

We drove out to Bela Bela (which means place of warm water) to get "up close and personal" with elephants.  And we did!!!  Here they come!




These elephants are "rescue" elephants.  Some have been injured...one didn't have the tip of his nose...so he picked things up by corralling with his trunk...one had a broken tusk.  Some were relocated by persons who had too many elephants for the acreage.  Except for the 2 babies, they would have been culled had they not been brought to Bela Bela.
They brought in the elephants and lined them up...constantly feeding them.  We were "introduced" to them one at a time.






We timidly touched them....


....and fed them.

Love those long eyelashes!


They chose 3 of us to demonstrate that elephants are smart and really do have good memories (and an incredible sense of smell).
First, we each fed them some food.  As we did the worker kept repeating our names to the elephant.  Then, he took a shoe from each of us and put them in a pile to the side of the elephant.  Then he had us switch places.  He took one of our shoes from the pile and speaking our names told the elephant who to give it to.

This picture is me getting my shoe back!

They let us feel the skin and the ears and the tusks and the trunk.  Very rough all over...but the inside of the ears not as much.  You can see large veins.  This is where they can inject any medication.  They use their ears to fan themselves to keep themselves cool.

Big guy lying down.  Quite a chore.

Then we each got to come up and kneel by and pet the guy.  He kind of looks like an old army rucksack!

Haven't you always wanted to touch an elephant's tongue?????

This is about as up close and personal as you can get.  We got to feed this one by putting food directly into his mouth.  They told us to be sure to feel the tongue.


The tongue is not one bit wet.  Very soft and pillowy.  Not at all what I was expecting.  David passed on this activity!

This was our group for the day...from left to right: Elder and Sister Pead, Jolleys, Caprons, Barnetts, Elder Pead's sister and her daughter...(can't remember their names, they had no name tags!)

They asked us how may liters of water did we think an elephant can hold in its trunk.  Then they brought a big barrel of water and told us it held "x" number of liters, leading us to believe that big guy was going to suck up water and we would have an answer to our question.  Instead......

SURPRISE!!!!

kissed by an elephant...and then a PUFF at the end!

Getting up on this guy was ridiculous!  I thought they'd bring a platform or something...but we had to climb up on top and it was nothing like getting on a horse.  David said...yeah....I didn't think you'd want any pictures of that part!

Once we were up and started to go I thought.....30 MINUTES ON THIS THING??????  My second thought was...David...you are not sorry you decided against the ride!  Not real comfortable.  But, hey!  I rode an elephant.

Getting down was easier that getting up...but when Jumbo (not his name...I'm just tired of writing elephant over and over) started to sit down...Whoa!  hold on!  Take a look at Joan's face!  We were just holding on with our hands...no stirrups or straps.

Our hero approaches.  He just had us put our arm around his neck and we slid off.  He made sure we had 2 feet on the ground and we were good to go!  These are beautiful, gentle animals.  We were all glad we came, and are in AWE of this creation of our Father in Heaven.