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A Close Encounter in the Okavango DeltaCopyright © Tanya Piejus, 2000 I wake to a deep-hued African night in the heart of the Okavango Delta. It is too early for my planned walk into the bush around our campsite. With only the weak beam of a pocket torch for company, I pull on my boots and follow the track to the toilets, rubbing sleep-encrusted eyes, and listen to the silence. The daytime wildlife - baboons, hornbills, the rare red lechwe - is not yet stirring and the night-time creatures have already gone to their rest. It seems I am the only one awake. The camp is unfenced and open to the dry-season wanderings of elephants and the year-round residents of this permanent oasis in the Kalahari. My travelling companions and I are the guests here. We have already spent a sleepless night on a nearby island, fretting to the deep-throated bellowing of lions and hippos on their nocturnal excursions, exposed and vulnerable under flimsy mosquito nets. Toilet visit over, I retrace my steps to the viewing platform where our mosquito nets hang. I detect a lightening in the sky over the water beyond our beds. Ahead I can still see nothing but the night and watch my booted feet flicker in and out of the dancing beam of my torch. Then a sudden heavy thumping explodes the stillness. There is a thunder of hard-cased palm nuts hitting the hardened earth and I know I am no longer alone in my ramblings. Even though I cannot see it, I know there must be an elephant worrying one of the slim trees further along the path and can imagine it dextrously hoovering up the cascade of fallen nuts with its trunk. A breakfasting elephant does not take kindly to intrusion and I stand absolutely still, silently willing the unseen enormity not to charge at the pale pool of light spilling from my hand. I wait, but there is no rumbling of leathery feet. Exhaling the breath I do not even realise I am holding, I turn to my left and, heart pounding, creep back to my sleeping bag. The sky is a little brighter now as the soft fingers of the rising sun tease away the blackness. I crawl back under my mosquito net and lie on my sleeping bag, turning off the torch that is the only visible sign of my presence. I am safe now. The sturdy viewing platform above is protection against my unseen companion. Elephants' inches-thick hides are too insensitive to feel the presence of mosquito nets when they brush against them in the dark. Unlike tents, our nets cannot prevent an elephant bent on finding a meal from squashing us as we slumber. I peek out from beneath my net. Now I want to see this creature whose path I have crossed in its nightly search for sustenance. Ghost-like, the dark shape of a young bull elephant emerges before me out of the greying sky. From my prostrate position he seems to tower into the dawn, vast ears undulating gently, muscular trunk falling in a graceful curve between the sharp points of his silhouetted tusks. I hear husky breath which rises from his trunk as a pale cloud into the crisp air a few feet from my face. The gathering light sparkles in an ancient eye. A pause as we regard each other - he the master, myself the trespasser in this wilderness - and I am enthralled. With a low huff, the bond is broken. Dipping his head, the elephant turns and walks past where I lie with a gentle scuffing of feet. I watch his dark bulk move round the end of my sleeping bag and bid a mental farewell to my fellow traveller. But the elephant pauses before finally walking away. With his back to me, he flicks his short tail and releases an avalanche of warm, glistening, pungent dung which slaps and splatters onto the dry earth beyond my toes. As the mound begins to gently steam, the elephant trots away into the bush, dragging a trunkful of fresh leaves. Around me, my companions mumble under their blankets of sleep and I smile. I know my place. |
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