The Great Tembo Hunt

Anyway, Saturday my ankle was still real sore from twisting it, but it was time to harden up: today was the day I had planned to track some tuskers. Lake Chala, 40 minutes away by car has a resident population of elephant, possibly refugees from Tsavo National Park in Kenya. Apparently the elephant come towards the Lake early in the mornings to raid local mashamba (farms) for mahindi (maize). They then make their way in a winding circuit back towards the Kenyan border. But Saturday they would have a date with me first...

Met my driver, Oscar by the house 8:30am. I raced out the door after some pancakes, I was so excited to go, I didn’t really say goodbye to the pancake chef. Awkward. I think the driver was just as excited as me to be going off to try and get close to elephant. We both giggled like school kids in the car.

Got out to the Lake and grabbed a local guide with a friendly face by the name of Raymond. And off we went, into the wild.

(got a lot of ground to cover)
We certainly saw plenty of signs of elephant; lots of dung, tracks and broken, tusked and chewed trees. Saw a couple of trees that had been fully ripped out of the ground by elephant.

We wandered up and down hills, through thorns, across rivers and dry river beds and on and on. But nothing but insect and bird noise...no tembo yet. We had the occasional quiet moment when we felt something was out there, in the silence...but then the moment would pass and off we would go.

(An elephant trail)
Occasionally Raymond would shoot up a tree to scan the surrounds.

(guide up tree)
Oscar and Raymond assured me that we would find them. We ran into a herdsmen and his goats/cows...he told us we were heading the right way. We wandered all the way up to the rough line cut out of the scrub that marked the border with Kenya...I shot across it and had a photo taken.

(Hello from Kenya)
A nice vacation in Kenya.

We had been walking now for 3 hours. I was out of water and the afternoon African sun was beating down. My mouth felt dry and I wished I had put sunscreen on. I was glad of the guides, I was feeling a bit disorientated and spaced out/faint. My ankle was killing me and my pace had settled into a trudge. I wasn’t trying to avoid thorn cuts anymore, too tired, was just blundering into things. I reflected on the romantic ideal of animal tracking versus the reality. An extra hour later and I was ready to admit defeat. We started following some elephant footprints along a trail but I was starting not to care...

Then, Oscar and Raymond froze and motioned me to be quiet and stop. Just up ahead some hundred metres under a tree was a huddled mass of brown shapes. Yes!


A herd of elephant seeking some shade from the killer sun. We edged a bit closer...The wind was blowing towards us which was good, we could hear the breathing and chewing noises of some big animals. Raymond got a little worried as we saw a little one with the herd. Elephant are pretty protective of their young...we moved gingerly around trying to get some photos while not attracting the attention of the herd. They are pretty big things aye? It’s somewhat sobering when you actually see them up close and realise they would have no difficulty at all doing a lot of damage to an elephant obsessed guy from Petone.

I saw a large head and tusks at the right side of the tree looking this way and that. Its demeanour suggested it was the herd leader.

I edged a bit closer, to see how far I could push my luck. Then the elephant’s trunk came up in the sniffing gesture; it knew something was not right in its environment...so I backed off a bit.

(this is how tourists get into trouble..)
I stood there for a bit just watching the heaving, ear flapping brown-from dust bathing-mass by the tree. The gods of the forest.

(having a moment with the elephant)
Then, I guess Oscar was so excited, he had to call a mate on his cell phone to tell him that we were near elephant. Um...at the sound of his excited voice, the big leader here DEFINITELY knew something was up, it looked directly at us and starting moving away from the tree. As the herd started to move, the three of us quickly ducked low and ran away from the herd. Disgruntled, the herd turned the other way and moved off.

I was elated but exhausted as we headed back to the tented campsite and the car. I thanked Raymond profusely for persevering and getting this crazy mzungu his tembo fix. Oscar drove me home, so I could collapse severely dehydrated on the couch and demolish every soda and trace of water we had in the house.

Elephant. I love ‘em.