Much Addo About Elephants!

Last weekend we decided to go visit our fellow CBA interns in Grahamstown.  Yes it was a 12 hour bus ride each way and yes we probably spent just as much time on the bus as we actually did there. 

It was actually quite a tough decision whether we should go: 

-  Pros:  there was a charity rugby game on Saturday that the Grahamstown LRC was to take a part in, the LRC interns were planning to visit the Addo Elephant Park on Sunday, this was as good as time as any to visit Grahamstown and there was actually something going on. 

-  Cons: 24 hours spent on a bus (that plays loud music and movies such as "Death at a Funeral" and "Transporter 3"), dealing with no sleep and potential exhaustion on Monday morning, what is there in Grahamstown anyway? 

However, as my mom put it:  “You should go.  What else are you going to do?”  So off we went to Grahamstown, a small  quiet university town where stores close on Saturday at 1pm and don’t reopen until Monday morning.

Altogether we had a wonderful time.  Grahamstown was a lovely and charming little town with a number of cute little shops and cafes.  The university campus itself was beautiful.   Though the LRC team did not necessarily shine at the rugby game, they definitely did rise to the occasion (by the end of their last game anyway).  Though they did not win and in fact Ali scored the only try of the four games they played it was nonetheless tons of fun.  



Ali scoring a try



Defence!

The LRC Levellers

The next day we visited the Addo Elephant Park, which was the main thing that motivated me to sit on a bus for 24 hours.  I wanted to see the ELEPHANTS!  Though we saw a couple at Hluhluwe the weekend before they were in the distance.  I wanted to elephants up close.  So I felt that going on a second safari in 7 days is completely justified!  When in Africa....

We saw tons of animals (or “manimals” as I like to call them) and different ones than the ones we had seen last weekend.  We saw tons of kudus, warthogs, dung beetles (very important to the natural environment of the park), and zebras.

Kudu



Warthog



The problem was that we were not seeing any elephants.  We had already driven around for two and a half hours and the only proof that we had that there were even elephants in the park was the massive amounts of elephant dung all over the road.  In fact we began to think that the park should actually be renamed to the Addo Kudu Park.  It was almost time for us to head back to Grahamstown when we turned a corner and saw a whole bunch of cars parked along the side of the road.  That’s how you know it is something BIG!  ELEPHANTS!!!  They were everywhere! 

There were a few elephants standing on the side of the road blocking traffic.

There was an elephant taking a bath.

There was a couple of elephants play-fighting.

There was an elephant drinking water.

There was even a baby elephant following its mom around.

It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen!  I could not believe it was real.  And the funniest thing was that if we had passed by the same spot about 15 minutes later we would have missed most of.