MINAS ELEPHANT RESERVE: Yesterday the Johnson, Nester, and Flickner families traveled 45 long minutes crammed into two cars to the local elephant reserve in celebration of Maggie’s 10th birthday. I had the good fortune of sitting in the same car as Ollie, who deemed it necessary to illustrate how extremely jarring the ride was by exclaiming, “BBBBUUUUUMMMMPPPPYYY!” for the better part of 25 kilometers. Once we arrived at the remote reserve, four beautiful Asian elephants, ranging in weight from 1.25 to 2.75 tons, greeted us warmly. We pet and fed the elephants for a good 45 minutes before they put on an amazing talent show. There was the astonishing standing/sitting, dancing on the drum routine, the basketball slam-dunk competition, and one elephant, Robin, even played the harmonica and danced for us. After the show, we trekked down to the river to bathe the gargantuan mammals. They politely sat and lied down for us to scrub them up with our hands and grass. At one point there was a large rumbling coming from under the water. Kate and I looked at each other knowingly as we understood this to be the biggest elephant flatulence ever-so funny! Joey reported from her elevated position, that the bubbles were rising from the water like a witches brew. We were all pleasantly surprised when the elephants decided it was time for us to have a bath and blasted us repeatedly with gallon of water from their long smellers. What fun. Once they (and we) were all cleaned up, we walked a short distance to a loading platform and prepared for a half hour jungle walk. My fellow parents, you know that moment when your children climb on your back for a bucking bronco ride, and in their arrogance actually think they can hang on despite your undulations? How futile their attempts are at maintaining the sufficient and necessary grasp to remain untoppled! This is cute to us, knowing the only reason our children remain upright is because we will this to be. The awareness of my weakness and inferiority took hold of me the second I sat atop this Asian behemoth. On my elephant sat first the guide, followed by Ollie, Grandma Joey, and last, me. Kate sat with Maggie and her friend Nora. The third and fourth elephants were taken up with Nester and Johnson families. I was so happy to have sat behind Granny because there is simply no way she could have hung on as 2.75-Tons-Of-Fun climbed up and down hills, strolled in and out of the rivers, and generally walked wherever the heck he wanted to go. Grandma was a trooper, if not exhausted as we finished. We ended our visit with the elephants by rewarding them for their patience and gentleness with copious amount of sugar cane and vegetables and traveled home again to the sweet sound of silence as the girls in my car fell fast asleep, warn out from the visit.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 03:58:02 +0000
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