Elephant walk - Saturday, 18th (2nd day)

What a beautiful morning - gentle sunbeams but freezing cold. I slept with long trousers, two pairs of socks and a jumper, plus two blankets. It doesn't matter where I stay here in South Africa: All the rooms are ventilated the whole day, open windows everywhere...puuh...I'll probably never get hardened to the cold. ;-/ 

Anyways, after having had breakfast, we went to the "Buffelsfontain Game & Nature Reserve" to do a walk with their elephants. At the moment, there are 2 boys named "Jabari" and "Bolerlo" and 1 girl named "Malaika" (-> or "Angel"; so far my favourite :)...). They are 24 years old and we're brought here at a very young age from Kruger National park to protect them from hunters. I can't even put into words how sorry I am for these "little" creatures, which had to grow up and develop without their lovely parents because human monsters needed to make profit out of ivory and potentially of their skin. Elephants are very social animals but likewise can be very stubborn and, of course, unpredictable.  Did you know that they can become 70 to 80 years old and that the males are bigger than the females? These three here were bottle-feeded, which is the reason for them to be more approachable and friendly towards human beings. Imagine that: They drank 35 liters of milk every 4 hours - what the fu**!!! Elephants eat up to 18 hours a day. I could feed them too, and Jabari (-> look at the pic) even gave me a hug with his trunk. I'll never forget that. :)