Africa Part IV: Baby Elephants, Big Adventures

[Still Mike...]

The next day at Kala Camp we broke away from the rest of the group to go do something I'd only dreamt of and didn't find out about until the night before. There is an orphan baby elephant sanctuary that saves the babies and trains up entire surrogate families to be released into the wild once they are old enough to fend for themselves. Yes - you get to go hang out with 20-30 baby elephants … without their mothers!

I got so excited when I found out about this at Kala that I didn't do any research and just signed us up and paid the money. Truth be told, I would have paid double the price for this experience. The funny thing is that the location of the Sanctuary was within a 10 minute helicopter ride of the next camp we were going to instead of the hour long helicopter ride from Kala Camp. In other words, all in, going to hang out with the happiest creatures on Earth was more than double the cost from Kala Camp… but it was absolutely the right move.

Early on our first full day at Kala Camp, we boarded the Land Cruiser for a short drive to an open area where our helicopter was waiting. From there we cruised at about 500 feet for about 90 miles. I cannot think of a better way to take in the entirety of the Okavango Delta. It was a spectacular hour. We saw elephants, herds of zebras, ostriches, water buffalo and crocodiles all along the incredibly beautiful landscape of the delta. The delta got dryer and dryer as we flew from the head of the delta to the far side. The extra cost was exactly the correct decision. We essentially got 2 hours of helicopter site-seeing AND time playing with baby elephants! Not sure this excursion could have been any better.

Our vehicle for the day

Arriving at Elephant Havens sanctuary, we were immediately brought to a feeding area where a bunch of college-age summer-campers were readying for the arrival of the babies. The elephants here are meant to feed themselves on the large reserve, but on days when there are guests, they are fed sweet pellets and apples. What this means is when they hear a helicopter landing, they get very excited. Imagine sitting in the feeding area when you see a whole troupe of baby elephants in full loping trot heading for you with trunks waiving, ears flopping and big smiles. This will undoubtedly be my happiest moment with animals for the rest of my life.

Baby elephants behave like happy, hungry toddlers. They are thrilled to see you and excited to eat. The difference is the smallest weighs ~1100 pounds, and the largest are 3-4 thousand pounds. In other words, they are happy toddlers that could easily kill you. Because of this, our area in the feeding zone was caged in, and the elephants were on the outside. There were spaces between the tree-trunk size bars where the elephants could stick their heads through, but nothing more. Even with this, the smallest baby of the bunch got so excited when I was feeding her, she pushed her head into me and shoved me about 5 feet with little to no effort while using her trunk to nuzzle my face. It was a very cool moment, but a great example of how powerful these animals are.

Alex with Joy, the smallest at the sanctuary

When we bought our ticket for the sanctuary, we didn't know how long we would be there. There was no mention of any options. Turns out there are two options - 1 hour and 3 hours. Had we known, we would have done the three hours, but were instead defaulted to one before the helicopter showed back up to fly us back to Kala Camp. Even still, this was an amazing experience we will all remember and hope to do again some day.

All of us with one of the biggest of the little herd

Later that same day we took a power-boat up the delta to the head of the Kwai River. We passed one of the native villages. Turns out the lodge pays the village to clear small channels through the papyrus grass for the boats. Otherwise, you would not be able to use power boats without the grass completely entangling the propellers. As well, without money, the natives would need to hunt game in the park. This has become a symbiotic relationship between the natives and the lodges.

Sunset on the river

As we were boating through one of these channels with tall papyrus, we spotted the largest bull elephant we'd see on this trip. It was enormous! He was a little close to our corridor so we opted to stop and wait for him to move away. Instead, he ate his way to our channel, and then crossed in front of us. Incredible site. From our aqua Land Cruiser we also saw crocodiles, hippos and baboons. Yet another excellent adventure.

The next day we had our final safari drive at Kala Camp before journeying back to the airstrip by Land Cruiser and boat. On this safari drive we cruised around the island and crossed ~3 foot deep sections of the river to another island. Along with more of the same wild life, we came across two bachelor elephants on their own. These young males were too young to fight for mating rights, but old enough for the matriarchs to kick them out of the main herd. These elephants form small groups that roam together trying to learn how to be adult males. They are like 20 year old male humans left to their own devices… lots of fighting, eating, and looking for babes. We happened to catch these two practicing fighting. Yet another incredible thing to see. Imagine a head-on car crash with tusks.

Young bulls sparring

With all of this, I would have loved to stay at least another day at Kala Camp. It was a paradise like no other. This is one of only a few places on Earth I would like to return to someday. No matter how cool a place is to visit, we usually fall back on, ‘there are too many other places in this world we'd rather see first.’ Kala Camp is a rare exception.

And then we were off to Sango Lodge on the far opposite end of the Okavango Delta.