Our “Hurricane Evacuation Plan” for 2007 was unrolling according to schedule, and our program of activities was running its course as planned.

We had arrived in Cape Town during the middle of June. A few weeks later, we greeted and played with the two couples that were scheduled to join us for the South African adventure guided and organized by Ron Magill, Miami MetroZoo’s esteemed spokesman.

We went for a week-long safari with that group, and then experienced two days at “Le Quartier Français”, a very luxurious Relais & Chateaux hotel in Franshoek, a Cape community that identifies with France, having been founded by the Huguenots in the eighteenth century. (Hoek means “corner” in Afrikaans).

Our next escapade took us East of Cape Town to the towns of Hermanus , Nysner and Plettenberg where, once again, we enjoyed the classy hospitality of Relais & Chateaux while fulfilling our mission to never miss an opportunity for a good wine tasting event.

After all this cushy treatment, it was time to get back into the bush. The safari venue this time was Zambia. The trip was pretty complicated. It involved two camps, “Tena Tena” in South Luangua National Park and “Shumba” in Mfue National Park. To get there we flew every conceivable type of aircraft made by man: from commercial B-737’s to charters with smaller and larger Cessnas; and ending up with a phenomenally thrilling helicopter ride. In the process, unfortunately, we also experienced every sort of airport, ranging from Johannesburg’s unmanageable behemoth to unpaved landing strips in the middle of the bush.

Having had our fill of airports and modes of air travel we eschewed air travel for our next “side trip” and then embarked on a “little drive” through the Western Cape, partly following the wonted “Garden Route”  to a wilderness destination within 200 or so miles from Cape Town, called “Bushman’s Kloof”…yet another Relais & Chateaux where, after a somewhat arduous drive, we could luxuriate for a couple of days and enjoy the beauty of the rugged Cederburg Mountains, the ancient rock carvings and a pleasant ride through the carpets of brilliant spring flower laden meadows of the Western Cape.

Then Peter’s lust for trains had to be satisfied by talking Joyce into a three-day, two-night train ride on Rovos Rail. This was a fairytale, anachronistic ride into nostalgia in magnificently restored Victorian suites on wheels, coupled with restaurant and club car facilities. The train unabashedly demonstrated the fact that an alternative to air travel indeed is possible. To meet it, however, we had to fly from Cape Town to Johannesburg and from there we were driven to Pretoria where, finally, we were able to board the famous train. The train then leisurely rumbled through the countryside for two days and elegantly brought us back to Cape Town.

Alas, we are now running out of time. It’s already September. The whales beneath our windows have multiplied and Carol Crowe, a veteran friend and our companion on many past journeys, has arrived with her grand daughter, Natalee. They have both taken residency in our house until it is time, two days later, for all of us to leave for the real purpose of their trip, namely to go to Namibia and visit the “Skeleton Coast” and then go on and play with the elephants near Kruger Park at a safari camp called “Jabulani”.

And so, that is how we come to these last two destinations and bring an end to all our side trips…at least for this year!

This was not our first trip to Namibia. We had been there two years ago when we were awed by the 300 to 400 foot high red sand dunes at Sossusvlei, heat stroked  by the unrelenting oven we found in Etosha, charmed by the aquatic life we encountered in Walvis Bay and  Swapkopmund and isolated by the arid and stark beauty of Damaraland. We had wanted to go to the Skeleton Coast Camp at that time, but there was no room… what with only six tents, the waiting list was long.

This time, we had made reservations way in advance and we got in. The flight from Cape Town to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, was uneventful and the little Cessna that was to fly us from there to the Skeleton Coast Camp was waiting for us on the tarmac.  An hour or so later it bounced to a stop on the sand and gravel runway that served as the airport for the camp.

As we stepped off the little plane, we felt like Neil Armstrong when he landed on the Moon. The place is the most starkly remote and desolate environment we had ever experienced. Dunes in the background, sand and pebbles in the foreground, no other color than what the geology of the area revealed and total silence. All this combined to reinforce the illusion that we were indeed on a different planet.

The camp, which is sited on top of a small rock-strewn hill, is located near the landing strip with six luxury tents clustered around a larger communal tent that served as front desk, dining room, lounge and bar.

The first impression of the camp is hardly welcoming. The place looks forlorn and almost abandoned, like an old mining town in Colorado. It seems very small and dwarfed by the endless barren desert and the tortured rock outcroppings that surround the camp.

But the human welcome was warm; we became acquainted with Joe, the manager of the camp, Susan his assistant and most importantly, Aloysius, a Jack of all trades who was to be our driver, ranger, caterer, navigator, mechanic and tracker all wrapped in one. And, talk about a small world, Aloysius remembered us from 2 years ago in Damaraland, where he had been our guide!  Our tent, while basic in its amenities was surprisingly luxurious and comfortable, solar heat delivered plenty of hot water and the food was quite satisfying. It was twilight when we reached our tent. From our bed we could see, framed by the triangle created by the tent’s flap, a steep pebble and boulder covered sandy slope. The setting sun was partly shading the slope, while bathing the surroundings with a dramatic golden beige light which pervaded much of everything we saw around us. That light and that color could have inspired Van Gogh in the same way that Arles had, when he passionately worked at replicating the effects of the sun on the fields of Southern France. What we saw was to foretell what we were to experience during the next three days. With the darkening sky, the hue transitioned toward the violet range of the color spectrum and the stars began to appear with a brilliance worthy of what one sees through the thin air of high altitudes.

During dinner, we were told that the game drives at the Skeleton Coast Camp differ considerably from those of other camps. Instead of lasting the usual three to four hours, the distances in the Namib Desert were such that an entire 12 hour day was required to cover the sights scheduled to be visited!

Also, unlike other safari experiences, we were to ride in a fully enclosed Land Rover with an ingenious roof that could be telescoped up by about one and a half feet for better game viewing. For the more adventuresome, a row of seats with a completely open view of the terrain was bolted on the roof. Sitting there was a trade-off between an expanded view of the area and the discomforts of wind, cold and insecurity caused by the sometimes rough terrain we were crossing. Perched this high above the Rover’s center of gravity, I was not, like Joyce and Carol, thrilled by the Land Rover’s bouncing and sudden changes in directions.

On the first day, we headed east toward the Atlantic Ocean for some 20 miles and then generally north along the coast for some 60 miles.  All this driving was within the confines, if one wants to call it that, of four million acre Skeleton Coast National Park. The drive would ultimately bring us to a deserted and forlorn beach identified as the “Stone Circle Village Remnants”.  It was not exactly Stonehenge, but there was a bit of mystery associated with the place. The hand of man was clearly involved in the arrangement of the stones…and this bit of order in the huge expanse of Oceanside emptiness lent some credence reason to the notion that, indeed, this might have been some kind of ancient settlement. No one, however, seems to know anything about the stones.

To reach this destination from the camp, we crossed some 20 miles of desert land flanked by magnificent igneous rock escarpments. These eventually lead to a barrier of enormous dunes which ultimately introduced us to a very violent Atlantic Ocean. As we approached the dunes, the land rover became a nimble dune buggy and, for more than an hour, we scaled 200 foot high dunes that were rising at a thirty degree angles only to thrill us by slipping down on their reverse sides which the winds had shaped like vertical bowls.

The dunes offered the opportunity for Aloysius to bring us to the top of one of the highest ones in the area where we could rest a bit, refresh ourselves and take in the endless vistas of sand, dunes, and ocean that dominate the geography of the region.

As we were driving along the coast, we began to appreciate its essential nature.  Over the years, it had witnessed over 17 ship wrecks and it is dotted with whale bones, memorials and remnants of ship and plane wrecks. The most famous was when the 13,000-ton British liner “Dunedin Star” had struck an unknown object in 1942 had her bottom torn open and ultimately failed to beach herself. The rescue operations were epic and have formed the basis of much writing, including most notably, the 200 page account of the event by John H. Marsh. The rescue drama included the crash of a Ventura Bomber and the mobilization of the South African Naval Forces, the South African Air Force, the Royal Navy, and other units of the South African Government.

We were standing on the desolate Skeleton Coast beach with the surf beating mercilessly against the shore. It looked like any other beach with huge surf, but there was something ominous about it. We were told that the ocean all along the coast was whipped-sawed by the Benguela Current that runs north, parallel to the shoreline, inhibiting all attempts to beach anything that wants to come ashore. Suddenly, the dreadful reputation of this piece of geography fell into place. When we reached the rickety memorial honoring the heroic deeds of the Dunedin Star rescue, we all appreciated why some have dubbed the place: “The Coast of Death”. Even our encounter with a large seal colony, full of the entertaining communal activities these wonderful mammals engage in, failed to deter us from the somber mood the place induces.

The next day wasn’t any shorter. We went to see the “Clay Castles”. These are natural sand and clay formations held together with water, like the structures kids create on beaches. The amazing thing is that the Clay Castles actually look like skylines of cities.  If one could take a photo of these formations, one could easily paint a cityscape that would be consistent with perfectly solid architectural and urban design principles. On this day, we also came up close and personal with rocks. This part of Namibia is a spectacular geological laboratory. Millions of years ago, the region had been subjected to cataclysmic upheavals. As a consequence, the outcroppings and rocky escarpments are layered, reflecting the volcanic activities with major red and dark bands of basalt deposits on the upper reaches of the walls of rock, metamorphic and igneous deposits of various kinds of granite and quartz in the middle of the stony sandwich and a heavy layer of schist and shale at the bottom.

A concentration of the clay castles was located within a gorge-like, cliff-surrounded terrain which shielded the “castles” from the winds that constantly blow from the desert or the ocean. We used this protected area as our mid-morning rest stop. It was surprisingly interesting. A herd of Oryx made its appearance and performed magnificently. This, and a family of desert-adapted elephants, was our dominant wildlife encounter. Oryx are incredibly beautiful, large antelopes with magnificent curved horns and beautiful face markings. They are well suited for the rough geography of the region and the sparse food supply in what is unquestionably an extremely harsh environment.

While all the cameras were clicking away, I spent my time in wonder over the beauty of the rocks. The components of the granite formations were easily discernable with the bright red Feldspar, the large expanses of gneiss, the crystal clear quartz and the pitch-black mica chips imbedded within the rocky wall.

When we “saddled up” again, it was time to visit a Himba tribe. They live in a working village defined by a six or seven foot wall of branches that surrounds a central area which acts as a common “living room” for the tribe. This is where ceremonies are held, cows and goats are milked and where the home-made goods are sold to visitors. It is also the place where virtually every family keeps their ever-present dog.

The twenty or so households live in igloo-shaped, semi-spherical structures made of grass, mud and dung. During our visit, we had a chance to meet with some of the women and experience the product of their work. They have created a form of suntan lotion, involving animal fats and vegetable dyes, which they apply to their mostly naked bodies, which turns into a beautiful shade of reddish ochre. They also produce a perfume which has a completely unique and delightful fragrance. We wanted to buy some; unfortunately it was not for sale.

Only women were in the village when we visited. The men were away earning the little money required to properly feed their families and livestock and to otherwise maintain life in the village.

While it was all very primitive, we could not escape the beauty of the women, the good condition of the animals and the friendliness that we encountered. The visit left us with a great deal of admiration for these people who have done so much with so little.

The third day started like the other two, with a long drive though the desert. Instead of heading north, however, we went south after covering the usual twenty miles east from the camp to the barrier of immense dunes that act as a gigantic gateway to the Atlantic Ocean. In the process, we saw the ubiquitous herds of Oryx and other antelope and even some Jackals. Although we did not see the long legged desert-adapted elephants we had encountered the day before, we did see the remarkable Welwitschia plant, which has only two leaves but can live for over a thousand years. I must admit, when we saw the plant, we felt a little silly. Imagine the guide and five adults alighting from a Land Rover, and then walking some 500 feet in the desert to stand in the middle of this utter wilderness and genuflect over this plant that really does not do anything except live near the ground, bloom once in a blue moon and is otherwise totally unimpressive.

With such modest beginnings, we thought that poor Aloysius had finally run out of activities for us; and so our expectations were not very great. Carol and Joyce naturally wanted more and scarier dune rides, Peter did not share this desire and Natalee, like a good trouper, was OK with absolutely anything. She was the perfect travel companion.

But one should never sell Aloysius short. We got to the dunes…as usual. Rode to the top of one and rolled to the bottom of another. After about twenty minutes of this sport, he suddenly made a left turn, drove about one third of the way up a very impressive dune and announced that he had been doing all the work and that it was our turn to get off our butts. Without further ado, we were told to take off our socks and boots and start climbing the rest of the ten story dune - barefoot!

When we got to the top, we couldn’t help but be intimidated by the height of the dune we had climbed and by the concave 50 degree steepness which the wind had carved on the reverse side of the gigantic dune.

Aloysius asked us all to hold hands and to advance to the very edge of this 200 foot sand-carved precipice. I expected the next order to be: “Jump!” Everybody having obeyed like sheep being led to slaughter up to this point, I just knew that my companions would do whatever our guide ordained, no matter how stupid. Naturally, I though they were all crazy. But as in all suicidal situations, dying like a lemming in the company of nuts is sometimes easier than to live as an outcast.

And so I joined the rest.

As it turned out however, the next order was not the dreaded “jump” command. Holding hands, we were asked instead, to sit down on the rim of the dune – and push off!  Once I got over the psychological terror of flying into oblivion, I managed to do this with the rest of our party and I joined everybody in the exhilarating ride to the bottom, using the seat of my pants as a sled. It was a piece of cake and a bit anticlimactic. I even had to work hard to push myself down to reach the bottom of the dune at a reasonable speed. About one third of the way from the top, as we were picking up speed, we heard an airplane take off. This was really strange since the landing strip was miles away.  Then the noise got louder and suddenly we could feel vibrations shake through the entire dune. Aloysius put us at ease by explaining that the phenomenon was known as “the roaring dunes”, and was caused by the friction we were generating while sliding down the dune and forcing millions of grains of sand to collide against one another at great speed.  What a hoot!!! It was so much fun, we insisted on doing it again the next morning before our flight left!

It has now been three weeks or more since we‘ve come back from Namibia. Our up close and personal encounter with the monstrous dune, however, is still with us…literally. Namely, our clothes, socks, shoes, our equipment, and all our anatomical orifices are still full of the wind-blown sand we picked up on the dune rides.

And so laden, in addition to our normal baggage, with a good sampling of souvenirs from the Namib Desert including shells pebbles, rocks and of course the pesky sand, we left for the landing strip to meet the Cessna Caravan that had brought us to the Skeleton Coast four days earlier. Except for a brief pit stop at the small Damaraland airport to drop Aloysius off, the flight back to Windhoek was comfortable and uneventful.

Since our flight from Windhoek to Johannesburg was not scheduled to leave until the next day, we had reserved a room at a so called “B&B” called The Olive Grove. The ride from the airport took no more than twenty minutes. This gave us enough time to shower and wash away  some of the sand before dinner and, in the process, to give back to Namibia at least some of what we had collected from our dune rides.

Now “The Olive Grove” is totally charming, with a little outdoor beer garden and a homey somewhat amateurish front desk operation. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about our “Suite”. True, it had all the facilities: ample heat, hot water, air conditioning, robes, safe, etc. But the floors were bare cement, the same as the walls and the ceiling. The lighting was dim and everything was grey; we could not find the switches for the lights in the sitting room. In brief, the place felt like a prison cell and was thoroughly depressing. We definitely knew we were in Windhoek when we crawled into bed and encountered the traditional Namibian bed making technology which has as its core objective the absolute certainty that, when sharing a king-sized bed, the sheets must be folded like for twin beds, assuring that one’s butt or some other major part of the sleeper’s anatomy will always remain uncovered.

Before dawn the next morning, we headed to the International Airport which turned out to be over fifty kilometers and about an hour and a half away from Windhoek. Seems that the night before, we had only landed at the nearby Executive Airport!

When we reached the airport, we checked in. For the sake of convenience, we made the mistake of checking our baggage through to our next destination. We made that decision, knowing the horrendous trials and tribulations involved in navigating the Johannesburg airport, particularly in this instance when we knew that we had to change between the international and the domestic terminals and we had already experienced a few times the joys of covering the distance between the two terminals.To do so laden with lots of baggage seemed horrendous.. Our final destination was a little airport in a place called Hoedspruit next to the gigantic Kruger National Park in the South African Province of Limpopo, some 500 kilometers north of Johannesburg. More importantly, that airport virtually adjoined the gateway of our destination - Camp Jabulani!

But we were not to see that little airport. We had been advised that our flight on South African Airways Express from Windhoek to Johannesburg had been delayed and that if we missed the connection, we should not worry because Johannesburg had already been notified and, in the proverbial South African parlance, “they” would “make a plan”.

We had visions of being met as the plane landed and hurriedly escorted to a waiting smaller plane, ready to leave for Hoedspruit. However, nobody was waiting for us when we got off the plane in Johannesburg. Without a clue of what we should do next, we rushed to the South African Airways help desk, hoping that its occupant was part of the “they” who were “making a plan”. Alas, what we found was a fat, cranky employee proudly displaying a shiny official metal SAA name tag who simply could not be inconvenienced and pay attention to our plight. She knew nothing about our flight being late; she informed us with almost glee that we had already missed our connecting flight, and that there wasn’t another flight until the next day. Anyhow, she continued, this wasn’t South African Airways’ problem, since the flights were a South African Airways Express … a different company they subcontract to! In the end, she chastise us for our bad attitude (Joyce had informed her that as long as South African Airways puts its logo on the tail of their planes and takes our money, as far as she was concerned, it was definitely their problem) and suggested that a bad attitude wasn’t going to solve anything.

And so, we meandered through the impossible confusion of the crazy lobby of the Johannesburg domestic terminal in search of the South African Airway Express help desk. When we found the desk, we realized the enormity of the mess we found ourselves in.

There are no other flights to Hoedspruit on this day, all of our bags including basic necessities had been checked through and we really had no idea where our luggage was. It could be in twenty different places. Did it make the original flight? Is it lying abandoned, God knows where, in this humongous airport? Is it at the International Terminal where we had landed in the morning? Or is it in the Domestic Terminal? Has it been forwarded to its original destination? No one knew. The agent at the help desk turned out to be competent and extremely helpful. We were amazed. He woke his assistant out of her torpor and gossip rag and swung into action. He made about a dozen calls. After a couple of hours, not having heard back from anyone, he finally took matters into his own hands and asked one us to accompany him in the airport-wide search for our luggage in order to help in its identification. Natalee, being the youngest, most nimble and endowed with the most energy was designated.

After another 45 minutes she and the South African Airway Express agent reappeared, and it was with considerable relief that we saw them push two luggage dollies filled with our possessions.

The same agent also did, in fact “make a plan” to get us to our destination during this impossibly long day. It involved catching a late afternoon flight to Phalaborwa, which is some 80 kilometers from our destination. There we would be met by a shuttle which would drop us, better late than never, in front of Camp Jabulani.

A few days later, the return trip from Camp Jabulani to Cape Town became a nightmare as well. SAA Express encountered delays, as usual, in leaving Hoedspruit, we missed the Cape Town connection with SSA and, unless we agreed to be blackmailed to the tune of over $600 per person, we would have to wait in the horrible Johannesburg Airport six or seven hours for the next available SAA plane to Cape Town. One would think that, in a country where tourism is a particularly large segment of the economy, the trip to reach those destinations would be less of a nightmare! In this connection, we feel encouraged by the fact that Sefofane Air Charters, which runs many of the the inter-camp shuttles across Africa, are now part of Wilderness Safaris, thus vastly expanding their capacity to reach the many tourist destinations so horribly served by the commercial airlines.

When we finally arrived at Camp Jabulani, we were greeted by Carl, the general manager and his wife Elsie. They introduced us to Reinhardt who, with a very German name, was a handsome, British looking and sounding Capetonian who actually lives in Franschoek, a French Huguenot town. With that kind of an international pedigree, Reinhardt could do no wrong. He was our ranger, driver, spotter and all around guide. The last introduction in the greeting party was the food and beverage manager, a formally dressed, very neat individual who looked just like the life size wood-carved mannequin of a tuxedoed butler that was standing next to him in the lounge.

Made oforder to make things easier for Joyce and Carol, escorted us to our quarters. This involved negotiating a narrow pedestrian suspension bridge over a smallish chasm, which wobbled interestingly to the rhythm of our steps, lending a sense adventure to the walk between the main lodge and our quarters. When we got there, our luggage had arrived and Ray introduced us to the facilities. Joyce thought it was a tent and I argued that it was more like a bungalow. It certainly was large enough to qualify as a house. Moreover, the place was furnished with great opulence, including works of art everywhere, a great chandelier hanging from a high ceiling, large zebra and wildebeest skins, a double lavatory and vanity arrangement that turned bathing into living space activity.  The lavatory area was ingeniously lit with halogen fixtures carved inside a tree log that was hanging nonchalantly over the coopery wash basins. The floors were made of beautifully varnished wooden planks. The bungalow also had a claw foot bath tub in the middle of the room and a totally separate, outdoor glass-enclosed showering area.

A soft, sandy path led to the bungalow and heavy but surprisingly easy to manage sliding wooden doors opened to the interior of the bungalow.  At first glance, the interior simply seemed to be regally palatial.  On further examination however, we realized that the comfort level went further. The place was full of art works snd soon we started to feel completely at home and not in an impersonal hotel accommodation. On the back side of the bungalow, there was a wooden deck with comfortable recliners, which overlooked a small outdoor infinity plunge pool, and an outdoor shower. While it was too chilly to use the plunge pool, I found the deck and its furnishings a ver comfortable place to catch up on my reading while Joyce was getting pampered at the spa.

Given the fact that winter was still with us, I was particularly gratified by the fact that the living room area of our room even had a great fireplace and that everything was ready to light it.

How could anyone possibly call all this “a tent”? Yet, Joyce argued, the outdoor was permitted a few minor intrusions to preserve the illusion of sleeping in the wilderness. Thus the walls of the toilet and the shower room were made of olive green canvas which felt like the side of a tent when I pushed against them. Some of the walls were merely lightly framed screening material; and the soaring ceiling was made of the same thatch the local villagers used in their huts. Interestingly, the rest of the walls were solid and finished to look like they were made of elephant dung - like prevailing style of the local habitat. In reality, however, the finishes on the walls, like everything about the place, was far from haphazard, but the result of extensive research by the highly talented and skilled designers and craftsmen who had built it.

But Camp Jabulani is not about luxuriously decadent tents or bungalows. It’s mostly about elephants. It all started in June 1997, according to the printed material displayed in our quarters, with a baby elephant who was abandoned by his herd when he became stuck in a silt dam when he was just three months old. Lente Roode, owner of Camp Jabulani and founder of the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre, discovered the exhausted, malnourished and very frightened calf, hauled him out of the mud and offered him sanctuary at the Center. He was named Jabulani. Having rescued Jabulani, Lente, who at that stage didn’t know much about raising elephants, consulted elephant experts around the country on how to raise her new charge. Many were skeptical and said there was little hope for his survival as it is virtually impossible to copy the exact formula of elephant mother’s milk to feed calves. However, a formula was developed under the supervision of veterinarian Dr. Peter Rogers and Jabulani was nurtured back to health. But that is not the end of the story. Jabulani, having been raised by humans eventually forgot he was an elephant and as he grew into a five year old bull, it became imperative to find him a family of his own kind. An introduction to a herd of wild elephants when he was two had been unsuccessful. Jabulani far preferred the company of his human friends. In fact, he thought of himself as human.

A unique opportunity to give Jabulani a family of his own arose when Lente learnt about a special herd of twelve trained elephants in Zimbabwe whose lives were in jeopardy. The game farm on which the elephants were located had been invaded by war veterans and their lives, as well as those of their handlers and owners were at stake. A massive rescue mission was launched and successfully completed in March 2002. All twelve elephants were purchased by Lente and, together with their keepers, relocated to Camp Jabulani. After some anxious moments on the day that Jabulani was introduced to the herd, there was great relief when the matriarch immediately adopted Jabulani as her own. He had now become a part of this close family. He is their mascot, and their affection for him is obvious, though they don’t let him get too cheeky.

Today, the herd consists of 12 full-grown elephants and two 300 pound babies. They live at Camp Jabulani where they sleep, forage, play, bathe and are used for elephant-back safaris to the delight of the camp’s guests. We met them the very first day when Reinhardt drove us to the water hole which the elephants visit for their daily bath. We saw them emerge from their grazing ground one at a time, or in small groups, and gradually take their places on the rim of the water hole, gingerly testing the waters with their trunks. They not only tested the water, but pulled gallons of it into the mass of their body, only to spray the content out to drench their buddies or to give themselves  showers. Their friends, of course, retaliated by using their enormous legs and feet to splash and chase each other along the pond’s rim. Before long, they were crossing tusks in mock fights over dominance in the herd.

The real entertainment, however, was provided by the two babies, aged seven months and one year who had free run of the herd and, for that matter, the camp. They were hilarious in their antics, rolling on the ground and chasing each other like puppy dogs. Joyce broke up uncontrollably when one of them decided to use his trunk to TICKLE his friend who then rolled back and forth on his back. You could almost hear him giggle!

Our “up close and personal” encounter with these gentle giants was not due, however, until the next day. On this first day, we went to visit the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Center, famous for providing sanctuary to numerous orphaned, abandoned and sick animals over the years. The place is known for its cheetahs and wild dogs, but it also shelters an adorable baby rhino and not so adorable vultures which are found in a feeding enclosure euphemistically called the “Vulture Restaurant”

The big attraction this morning, was a beautiful, half-wild King Cheetah, which we were invited to stroke. The cat seemed a bit nervous to me, but her handler was even more nervous and kept throwing up cautions. Joyce and I thoroughly enjoyed a similar encounter at the DeWildt Cheetah Centre near Johannesburg where the curator and our friend, Allan Strachan introduced us to “his girls”, namely two three year old sisters that kept licking us and purring like 150 pound domestic cats.

Despite the cautions, we stepped into the enclosure where the King Cheetah was waiting. The handler evidently had good reason to be cautious. It was not a purr that the cat emitted, it was an unmitigated growl! After a great deal conciliatory noises and not so subtle hints that one of the handler’s hands held a morsel of meat, the cheetah finally settled down a bit and we were finally able to have our petting fix.

Later, after ending the mid-day siesta and after high tea, we were ready for the late afternoon game drive. We piled into the Land Rover and set out to look for lions. Well, we did not find any. We drove far and wide, even outside the Jabulani preserve, Reinhardt did his best, listening to radio messages and keeping his ears open in the hope of getting a hint of where the infernal lions were hiding. After criss-crossing the bush for four or five hours, after some elaborate “sun downers” and about an hour or so after it got completely dark, we finally turned in for dinner at the lodge. As we wearily dismounted from the Rover, our frustration in not finding the elusive lions reached its highest point. Everybody was standing right outside the veranda of the main lodge all excited, wielding field glasses and pointing to the pride of lions that had made its camp not more than 200 yards from the lodge!

The next day, we found the lions, not far from the camp, in broad daylight. They seemed exhausted from their nefarious nighttime activities and completely uncooperative in posing for safari photo-ops. They were simply too tired to keep their massive and majestic heads up.  Nonetheless, we could not resist the beauty of the 12 year old male who happened to be endowed with a huge magnificent mane that was totally black. The two young males and the female member of the pride were glorious to behold as well, with incredibly clear limpid eyes that the sleep-laden lids allowed us to glimpse periodically. It was really the black mane however, that really stole the show.

At 1:00 pm, it was time, just like on the previous day, to keep the elephants company during their daily bath. This time, however, we watched the proceedings with even greater interest. The reason was obvious, since later that afternoon we would actually get to ride them! Joyce, as usual, being an adrenaline junkie couldn’t wait. I, of course, was looking forward to the experience with nothing but fear and trepidation.

Our elephant back safari was scheduled for 3:00 pm. Reinhardt would meet us in front of the lodge and drive us to the place where the elephants, their handlers, their potential riders and everybody else involved would gather. Most importantly, this is where we met “Paul”, the director of the program. He thoroughly briefed us, explaining how the safari was going to be conducted and he gave us a primer in elephant husbandry.

Joyce and I did have some mahout training in northern Thailand and we were reasonably familiar with Asian elephants, having also enjoyed watching Elephant Polo. But this was different. The African elephant tends to be bigger, its ears much larger and they are more difficult to train. Asian elephant bond with their mahout’s for life and obedience is achieved through a combination of punishment and rewards; at Jabulani, there are no mahouts, only handlers, who do not bond with one elephant but with the herd as a whole. They achieve cooperation through a system limited to rewards only. Paul made it clear that the little stick the handlers were holding was not a tool used to discipline the elephant, but merely a reminder to cooperate. Whatever the case, it seemed to work. Paul demonstrated by bringing Jabulani on center stage, while the rest of the herd was looking on. He put Jabulani through his paces, complying with a wide range of commands from a general greeting to showing off his mouth and teeth, as well as the many functions of his trunk and the ears. And so we fed Jabulani, patted his trunk and generally learned to appreciate his gentle nature. Finally, it was time to mount up. The dreaded moment had arrived. A seventeen or so foot platform on wheels was brought up to the loading place and I climbed the steps leading to  the top of the platform, feeling a little like the Earl of Essex being led to his fate in merry olde England!

Paul, the executioner, was there, helping get my feet in the stirrups and showing me where to hang on and where to install myself behind the handler. My steed was a bull elephant called Mfuri. The camp literature describes him as “the most handsome of all bulls, kind with people, a bit of a loner”. Joyce was riding on Setombe, who is described as “the largest of all the females, she is not high in the matriarchal hierarchy. She’s kind and gets on with all the females, but prefers the bulls for company. How appropriate for Joyce; a hussy no less!

The safari got underway, with the two juvenile delinquents underfoot as usual. We went up, we went down, we watched the sun make its descent, and an hour and a half or so later we proceeded with dismount operations, using the same platform.

What I found amazing was that these elephants responded to very gentle voice commands in understandable English. The Asian elephants responded only to foot pressure behind their ears and a specific vocabulary or special sounds the mahout used in training their charges. Here, the handler who sat in front of me on top of the elephant simply said in a conversational tone: “close it up”, when Mfuri fell a little behind, and he immediately complied.

All my anxieties were gone, Mfuri was a wonderful elephant and I would recognize her any time. The ride got into this comfortable rhythm and, during the course of the safari, I was able to relax enough to engage the handler into a conversation comparing Asian with African elephants and Thailand’s training methods with those of Camp Jabulani.

My moment of peace however did not last very long. After I dismounted, with some difficulty I might add because of the stiffness in my legs induced by the ride, I was thrilled to be informed by the indefatigable Paul, the Director of elephants that on the following day, there would be another elephant safari. This one, however, would be in the dark, at night. Paul added that we did not have a thing to worry about, as elephants are endowed with excellent night vision. That made me feels really good! Paul, however, threw a carrot into the mixed emotions we had about wandering on elephant back in inky darkness. He stated that, upon our return, we would be tucking our steed in and saying goodnight to them in their individual stalls…that was hard to resist.

It had been a busy day and we felt that we had not really taken advantage of the magnificent bungalow that was ours for the three days of our stay, nor had we availed ourselves of the amenities that made the place feel more like a super luxury resort than a safari camp. And so, we decided that the following day would be a “down day”. Joyce would go to the spa for a well earned dose of pampering, I would soak in the beautiful tub that looked out on the deck with its infinity pool; we would enjoy a leisurely lunch and then relax some more, girding our loins for the night safari.

The day went pretty fast…too fast in fact, for my taste…and before the full realization dawned, I was committed to the elephant safari in the dark.

There were no particular instructions or warnings, and we climbed on our mounts without any special preparations. This time, my elephant was “Jimmy”. He is described in the camp brochure as “…appearing to have come from a very unhappy background…We put in a special effort to make him feel safe and secure, and he has rewarded us with patience and acceptance” Indeed, I had the opportunity to test these qualities; a real live drama was in the making.

Some fifteen minutes after I was settled on Jimmy’s back and the elephant walk was well underway, we noticed what looked like hundreds of points of light. No, it was not George Herbert Walker Bush making a speech. The “Points of Light” turned out to be the eyes of a good sized herd of Cape Buffalos caught in the dim illumination emitted by our safari. The buffalos seemed nervous and there were subtle signs that the elephants were a little nervous as well. Jimmy wasn’t thank god!

It wasn’t until a little later that we realized why things were getting more and more edgy. That was when we heard the lions roar. It seems that we had stumbled on the strategic planning session of a pride of six lions in the process of deciding whether, when and how to attack the herd of buffalos.

Now, we knew that even a lion cannot bring down an elephant, and in that respect at least, we were quite safe. But in the middle of a battle ground between buffalos and lions, the elephants are apt to do all sorts of things, and to be perched some fifteen feet in the air on top of a panicked elephant was not my idea of fun. I started to get really worried when I glimpsed the diminutive figure of Paul in the dark, trying to calm his elephants and trying his best to get everybody out of this situation lest the lions launch an attack. He later did admit that it had been a dicey moment.

The next activity was heart-warming. We helped tuck the herd in for the night. Each had an individual stall with plenty of hay and food. The stalls were in a large shed which was immaculate. Most touching, was the fact that each of the juveniles shared a stall with their mother. When we entered the shed and ambled down the center aisle, all twelve elephants and the two juveniles were in their respective stalls with their trunks reaching out through the bars waiting for their nightly treat. We were all anxious to please them as they had pleased us, and so we bid each farewell and a good night, while letting their trunks grab the treat we held in our hands. It was clearly a high moment of our sojourn at Jabulani.