Gotta see some ELEPHANTS!

     At Otter's Den, the staff was really solicitous about what I wanted to do during my three-day stay there.   They were ready with suggestions and willing to make reservations and inquiries for me.  Incredibly, Maritza offered me the use of her car to get about, asking only that I fill her gas tank in exchange.  I was hesitant to use her car, since they drive "the British way" there.  Driving on the left side of the road isn't so confusing to me, but driving from the right side of the CAR is very disorienting.  And I saw that the roads have a decidedly "mixed" use--that is, lots of pedestrians practically on the road, lots of mopeds, bicycles, cattle, etc., making for rather nervous driving.  So I wasn't so keen to drive.
     Enter Mona.  Mona is a young German woman who has a living arrangment with Otter's Den.  She helps out there, but mostly she works at a local volunteer agency (more about that later).  Maritza helped her negotiate a day off from her work so Mona could drive me to Hazyview, about 50 miles away, so I could visit some elephants up close and personal.  How could I possibly visit Africa without seeing elephants?  There were closer sanctuaries, but I didn't like the looks of them on the internet.  They seemed extraordinarily touristy, and they featured riding elephants with those awful crates for riding.  I had learned in Cambodia that those frames are really detrimental to the health of elephants' backs, and so I wanted nothing to do with anyplace that used them.  Hazyview DID offer elephant riding, but bareback only.  Alright!

      


The next morning I was awakened by the sound of the burners from a balloon directly overhead.  I ran to see if I could see it, but because of all the trees, I could not.  I enjoyed a pleasant breakfast on the deck (did I mention that I was the only guest at Otter's Den?  Their summer is their off-season), and Mona and I planned our day, and we planned to do a LOT!







     Off we went in Maritza's little car, Mona driving.  I was very surprised that when we reached the outskirts of Hoedspruit, the town I was somewhat familiar with, we were almost immediately in another town.  I had not realized that Hoedspruit is an almost entirely "white" community.  Hundreds of blacks WORK there, but they do not live there.  Instead, they live in the neighboring town, I believe called Acornhoek, and commute into Hoedspruit.  I don't believe there is any actual law requiring such segregation, but I suppose it must be a leftover from apartheid days. Acornhoek was spread out for miles and miles along the road, and there were lots and lots of pedestrians clustered along the road waiting for their busses into Hoedspruit.  I was relieved not to be driving.
    

In short order we arrived in Hazyview and located the elephant sanctuary there.  It was a very attractive, orderly, and well-tended place.  Mona and I were the only visitors, and we got instructed on basic elephant anatomy and natural history.  The feet and tusks you see in the background are replicas made of fiberglass, by the way.  And then it was real live African male elephants!

 

Incredibly huge--MUCH bigger than the Asian elephants I had known--very amiable and extraordinarily well-trained.  They seemed to enjoy an affectionate relationship with their mahouts, and I was very much impressed with the care they obviously received.  I was perplexed that male elephants could be so trustworthy, but I suppose my attitude toward male elephants could have been skewed by Bob in Cambodia, who had suffered so much abuse it was not surprising he could be moody.   I had learned about how dangerous male elephants could be when they are "in musth," which is apparently some hormonally-triggered time that comes a couple of times per year.  These guys told me that musth is apparently caused by nearby females coming into heat, and so since they had ONLY male elephants, they simply never did come into musth.

     And here's an experience I know I will never have again, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you how exciting it was!

You gotta do what you gotta do

   You might imagine that after having my alarm set for 6 a.m. for more than two weeks, it would be likely that I would have a nice sleep-in my first morning at Otters Den.  But, NO!  I had to set my alarm for 4:20 a.m., because that's when I was being FORCED to take my MANDATORY balloon ride! 
     Otters Den is a very small lodge, and they no longer accept guests who are not customers of their main business, which is called Suncatchers Hot Air Ballooning.   Here's a link to their website:  http://www.suncatchers.co.za/index.htm     When I found Otters Den on the internet, I decided I wanted to stay there so much, oh dear, I decided I'd have to take the balloon ride too!  And any of you who have been ballooning know that it's an early morning undertaking, that just when the sun is rising is the time when the lift is most conducive to good travels.  And in March, the sun in northern South Africa rises a little after 5 a.m.
   
 Maritza was the pilot for my excursion--well, mine and the two British women who arrived for the balloon trip only.  Here what she is doing is heating up the air in the inside of our balloon in the early morning light.  She had two helpers preparing the balloon, and one could tell immediately that this was a highly professional and safety-minded enterprise. 

 I remember their filling a regular balloon with helium and letting it ride the wind upwards into the night sky, all the while shining a strong flashlight beam on it, in order to get a sense of the direction and velocity of the wind from land surface upward.  It seemed so poetic to keep watching that little white balloon climb higher and higher into the darkness--it seemed we watched it for several minutes.













   After some brief instructions, we were off!  and right on schedule, the sun popped over the eastern horizon, giving us all an opportunity to get some nice early morning photos of the Blyde River from the cool morning air. 
    I have so many photos and videos of this one hour long trip that it's hard for me to select which of them to post, but here goes just a couple:






    


Here's the view to the west--toward the Drakenburg Mountains.  You can see the river and the neat rows of one of many many mango plantations to the right.

 





And somehow I found it fascinating to contemplate our shadow on the farmlands below:

Our pilot Maritza (in the blue shirt) said it was the first trip she could remember when all the riders were women.  Here we are.








And HERE is the oh-so-traditional glass of champagne that is absolutely required at the end of a balloon ride.  Somehow I managed to get it down!

 

I wish I were able to describe even a portion of the sheer exhilaration of this hour of being in the air.  If I could, you'd all be busy on the internet making your reservations!

Next stop, Otter's Den

     Originally I had hoped to go home from South Africa with a stop in Kenya.  I so wanted to see the Sheldrick Foundation Elephant Sanctuary near Nairobi.  I wanted to see Mutara, the orphan baby elephant my group of friends had adopted a couple years ago, and of course, the scores of other baby elephants who have been orphaned primarily as a result of poaching in Kenya.  However, it turned out I couldn't go to Kenya--or perhaps I should say I SHOULDN'T go to Kenya, because they were in the midst of elections at the time, which I gather is a very dicey time.
     I didn't want to go straight home from Moholoholo so searched the internet for someplace that would be good to visit for a couple of days.  I happened across the Otter's Den, very near the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, so made my reservations for three nights.  It was really a pretty arbitrary choice.  I am an otter fanatic, so "Otter's Den" sounded good.  
     Talk about fortuitous choices.  I knew I was in for a treat while still at Moholoholo.  My friend Kate told me she was friends with the owners of Otters Den and that they were the son and daughter-in-law of Jamie Uys.  I was well aware of Jamie Uys because he directed two of my favorite movies, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Parts 1 and 2.  I also had some friends who knew Mr. Uys.  What a small world!  So I went to Otters Den prepared to be intrigued by the director's family.
     So, Kate drove me there, and I thought we were lost.  We took a dirt road off another dirt road off another road, etc. etc. and ended up at a little turnaround in the middle of the woods.  We walked down a little path through the woods, down, down, and more down, and then we came to this:

 

Bridge Across the River Blyde!!  And a long bridge it was, and it lurched and swung as we walked across, and it made me wonder about all those crocodiles and hippos I heard about in the Blyde River.  But is was so very lovely, I marched across with hardly a second thought.

     And this is what I found at the end of the bridge, a sneak peek at the lodge itself together with a comfortable outdoor lounge overlooking the river, and oh my!  I had no idea how tired I was from the hard work and long hours at Moholoholo until I came to this haven in the jungle.  Before I knew it, I was installed in a cozy chair, glass of cool dry white South African sauvignon blanc in hand (had I mentioned that no alcohol was permitted at Moholoholo?), looking out at the river from the profound shade of giant trees . . . 

 and here was my companion:

                                                                                                                                                                                                 Jack!  who spoke a universally-understood language that transcends all time and all distance, and that emanates a generosity of spirit that tolerates any imagineable difference-- that language being "yellow lab."      Yup, I was in my element!

 

 

Good bye to Moholoholo

     Well, my two weeks at Moholoholo went by amazingly quickly, and before I knew it, I was running around madly taking photos so that I would remember everything about it.  Some of these photos were of signs that tell Moholoholo's story better than I could, so I will just publish the photos.  

 

 Kate was planning to go "into town" for some errands anyway, so she agreed to take me to my next stop.  We had lunch together in downtown Hoedspruit and then she drove me to Otter's Den.  So, as for me, that was the rather abrupt end of my stay at Moholoholo.

Miscellaneous unrelated photos and stories

      Now that I've been home awhile, I've had lots of time to look over my photos from Moholoholo and I have found several that didn't fit in with my narrative.  I'm going to add them just in case any of you might be interested.

This unattractive little creature is a baby warthog who goes by the name "Mrs. Pig."  One thing that IS glamorous about her is her eyelashes, though.  She was smart and responsive, but--- I don't know---even the most dedicated animal lover doesn't seem to take a warthog seriously.

Here is Athena the honey badger.  I heard she was tame; Charlie in particular really liked her and spent a lot of time keeping her company.  I was leery of her though, having seen the YouTube video "Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit" several times.  How could I forget how incredibly tough and tenacious honey badgers are?  I REALLY didn't want to cross Athena, despite Charlie's assurances that she was very sweet.  And if you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the link to the YouTube video in question, which, incidentally, has been viewed 59 and 1/2 MILLION times (almost as frequently as Elephant Pith):
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg  
[CAUTION: this YouTube video is NOT appropriate for tender ears!]

  

I sometimes forget to even remember, much less mention, how beautiful Moholoholo is.  These are the Drakenburg mountains in the background.  They were surprisingly close and very picturesque.  I had an opportunity to see more of them later (and you will too!)  

Holy cow!  Porcupines in Africa aren't the somnolent slow-moving creatures we're accustomed to here in Wisconsin.  They are BIG!, and ACTIVE!  Run around like  proverbial monkeys, rattling their quills all the while.  This guy was bottle-raised at Moholoholo and then released.  He liked to come to Forest Camp, the gorgeous lodge where we ate most of our meals, for handouts.  One evening he fell asleep under the dining room table.  It was kind of odd to stretch your legs and run into a moving mass of porcupine quills!  I understand some of the guests at Forest Camp didn't really take to this guy.  Can't imagine why not!

There was this fabulous HUGE tree on the grounds of the wildlife center.  I believe it was called a sycamore fig.  Its trunk was amazingly huge and gnarled.  And speaking of huge and gnarled, here's Einstein the Malabar stork enjoying a spot of late afternoon sunshine in front of the tree.

And take a look at this moth I found on the grounds of the wildlife rehab center.  It looked a lot like a white version of the giant silkworm moths we have at home.  Cecropias, for example.  Hey!  I thought:  maybe they ARE a silkworm moth!  I had seen signs for silk farms in the vicinity, but when I asked around, I was told, no, this is not what silkworm moths look like.  But you gotta admit, it's a great bug!

Drawings

     Well, Moholoholo provided an awful lot of opportunities for this rank amateur artist,  I can tell you!  Everywhere I looked, there was something begging to be drawn.  I vowed I would take a lot of photos and catch up when I got home, but that never feels as right as drawing the animals live and up close and personal.  
     I've been showing you stuff all along that I did, but here's a couple more.

 Kate, who is an employee at Moholoholo, loves all primates.  In fact, she is sorry that in general, Moholoholo does not keep any primates at the Center, but rather sends them off to specialized primate centers if one should come in.
      Bush babies ARE tiny primates.  To my eye, they look far more like an over-sized flying squirrel, and they're hardly bigger than that.  But they are an incredibly cute-looking little primate.  They're cuter to look at than anything else, though.  Since they are nocturnal, they're not much company for us daylight lovers.  Kate asked me to draw a bush baby for her, and here it is.  I left the original drawing with her.

Jamie requested that I do a drawing of her Ollie.  It turns out that rhinos are as easy to draw as elephants, all planes and shadows.  Here he is, vaguely contemplating a charge, just for fun.

When I got home, a friend gave me a book on how to use colored pencils, and I found out that you're actually supposed to use WATER when you're drawing with pencils.  It softens the lines and gives your stuff more of a watercolor look.  I liked the way it worked with this drawing of Bullet the Cheetah.

 

Though, of course, I had a special fondness for Bullet himself, having had so many memories of 

great meals of killer elephant meat with him.    Now, if I can just keep up with my drawings now that I'm actually home!