Day 20. Livingstone, Elephants and Lions

Sunday January 2nd. As we were having breakfast outside our truck this morning a huge baboon ran in, grabbed our loaf of bread and took off!

A group of us were picked up at our camp and taken to Thornwood River Lodge. Here John, Ben, Tessa, Roger and I were going to spend the day to do two activities. The first was an elephant safari, where we got to ride them! After a brief introduction we were taken out to meet the elephants. John and I were assigned to Bop. He was a 50 year old, 5 ton male. Unlike the other elephants who walk up to a landing for people to climb aboard, Bop goes down on his knees and the keepers helped us climb on behind his trainer.

Then we went for an hour long walk aboard our elephant in the national park, through woods and fording a river. We were at the end of the seven elephant procession but Bop had a mind of his own and kept going off the trail and trying to either get food or short cut and get in front of the others. It was a great ride and experience. The skin is like sandpaper with a little hair.

When we got back to the lodge we had to wait for an hour and a half before the second experience. This was a walk with lions as a part of the ALERT program (African Lion Environmental Research Trust). This is a four part program to reintroduce lions to certain areas. There has been an 80 to 90% reduction is lion populations in Africa. So, we had the opportunity to walk with Bisa and Bema, two 13 month old lionesses. The goal is raise them, teach them to hunt, release them in a large confined area where they can breed.

When we returned to the lodge we hung out with Ed and others at the bar restaurant.