By Arja Salafranca
An elephant's hide is curiously soft, wrinkled and folded over on itself, but also incredibly soft.
That was a surprise; only having seen elephants in the wild from game drive vehicles, I had assumed the skin to be as tough and coarse as it looks from afar. Elephants also have their own personalities, and that weekend at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hartebeespoort, we all fell in love with our individual elephants.
Temba, the baby, was all of four years old and weighed more than 550kg. But I felt for him, as he stood before us, waiting for us to touch and brush him down shortly after seven in the morning. He was still "in training".
Rescued from the Kalahari, he was due to be taken to South America when the Elephant Sanctuary heard about him. He had no tusks, which suggested he was still suckling when he was rescued.
But joining the group of elephants already at the sanctuary wasn't easy. The two cows, Mosadi and Khumba made him earn his love and acceptance. And then, according to our guide, Sam Sebasa, the two cows started fighting over him, both wanting to take care of him.
It's an incredibly sweet story - a story that emphasises just how unique and complex these animals are.
The Elephant Sanctuary in Hartebeespoort offers a rare opportunity to get close to these animals, closer than you'll ever get on a game drive. Talking to owner Craig Saunders, he suggested that people now want a wildlife rush, they want to engage with animals, beyond just observing them.
"They have a certain amount of leisure time, and they want to get as much out of it as possible," he says. Saunders was inspired to open his sanctuary after encountering these elephants up close at the age of 32 in Botswana. The experience changed him.
"Once you've been that close to an elephant you'll never look at an elephant the same way; every elephant for you will have a name and a place".
However, camps in Botswana are strictly geared to the overseas market, charging as much as $1 800 (about R11 500) for an elephant encounter.
"I thought it would be fantastic to bring that experience to the local market, at more affordable prices," Saunders says. And so the germ of a seed was planted, and the elephant sanctuary was started six years ago.
Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, Saunders finds himself not only living his passion of caring for the animals, but also being forced to deal with all the difficulties that running a business entails.
The sanctuary currently has five rooms for those wishing to sleep over, but Saunders is planning to build five more in the forest in the reserve, and finds himself in the thick of planning, dealing with the hospitality business. I even saw him carrying guests' bags at one point. He has also opened another sanctuary in the Plettenberg Bay area.
His other aim in opening the sanctuary was to educate people about wildlife - an education he does not believe necessarily only starts in childhood. He speaks of how people who visit the sanctuary begin to relate to the elephants' world, and open up their mindsets.
"For example 12 elephants in a sanctuary can influence people in the long term, there's a great rush when you get close to an elephant. But you need someone to tell you what you're seeing; we need to re-teach people how to understand wildlife."
He's also quick to point out that the experience is not the same for everyone. And this fact was brought home clearly to me on my stay at the sanctuary.
I had chosen to do a sleep-over. Arriving at 4pm, when the gate is opened, you're led to the boma that overlooks the pen where the elephants were playing when we arrived.
Feeding time follows. You're given a bucket of pellets and the elephants know exactly what's coming. Nudging each other they stretch their trunks out and you drop the pellets into this super-sensitive organ.
Delicately they lift their lower trunks to their mouths to eat. It was fascinating, it sounds mundane feeding elephants, but it was anything but. The fascination and delight must surely come from the fact that you are so close to normally wild animals, up close, although separated by the bars of their huge pen.
The trainers are at pains to point out these animals should still be considered wild - they may be used to interactions with humans but they are by no means tame "circus animals". But it's hard to believe these trainers when you watch how the elephants obey them, know a few basic commands and seem docile in their hands.
These elephants go to bed early. At 5pm they were led in to their sleeping chambers, lined with straw for them to sleep on, and with plenty of food to munch on during the night.
"That's all they do: they're eating machines," guide Sebasa told us. He showed us how neat and tidy the stalls were. "Wait till you see them again in the morning."
While the elephants are going to sleep the humans are led up the mountain path to a boma which has been built overlooking a gorge. Here we watched the sunset, had the traditional sunset drink and listened as Sebasa told us a little about how many elephants are in the sanctuary (five at the moment), where they come from, and the fact that they mature at the same age as humans.
"All those unruly elephants you see in a game reserve are the teenagers, labelled the rogues," he said.
In the morning you're up by seven to see the elephants being led out of their stalls. Impatient to be up and out, the big elephants weren't waiting for the trainers to open the doors, instead they deftly used their trunks to swing open the gates. Sebasa was right: the stalls were a mess.
The straw was all over the place and dotted all over with "elephant muffins". You can guess what these are. Luckily they don't smell at all, being full of digested grass.
And then the real up close and personal experience begins. After their sleep in the straw they needed to be brushed down. We all had a turn, from a young boy of eight to the oldest among us. Keeping one hand firmly on a flank, you brush hard at the wrinkly, chocolate-brown skin. This is when it all starts to feel unreal.
You are encouraged to put a hand in the elephants' mouth so you can feel the big, wet tongue, and you feel the tusk, the legs, the nipples hidden in the folds of skin, the spongy flesh around the foot, the toe nails.
You're surrounded by the guides and trainers throughout the whole experience. Ever alert to the animals' moods and feelings, as well as your safety, none of us felt in danger. Instead there was a feeling of awe and exhilaration.
"At all times it's about the elephants," said Saunders. He says these elephants are ambassadors serving to expose humans to the beauty and complexity of these animals, serving often to change peoples' perceptions.
They may not be circus animals, but these elephants still obey in a way that is eerily familiar. At a command Moswadi rolled over and Khumba squatted down on her haunches. You assume that there must be a certain amount of obedience in elephants that are often in such close proximity to humans.
But Sebasa pointed out that in the circus elephants learn up to 20 commands, most of which are not natural to elephants. At the sanctuary they learn what is natural, and the trainers don't force the elephants to do "tricks".
Still these elephants knew enough. Temba "shook hands" with his trunk at the "good morning" that was directed at him, while Khumba trumpeted long and loud at the command. Is it natural for elephants to do this for humans?
Probably not, you reluctantly admit, but these elephants have been rescued from uncertain fates and lives in zoos, sometimes at a cost of R250 000 an elephant.
I didn't see too much wrong with these elephants having been trained to obey their trainers. An American woman on the trip was far more emotional, or more in tune with the animals' emotional rights. At breakfast Genie Hamlett explained how close she felt to the animal she was brushing.
This was Khumba, one of the cows, and Hamlett felt that feeling her tongue and her nipples was a violation. She asked Khumba for permission. "It was the most amazing thing, I felt her say yes and then her trunk guided me to her nipples."
I listened to her and was moved to hear what she had to say, but couldn't add a similar experience of my own. Perhaps I was simply too busy observing while trying to take photos and absorb the wealth of information.
Then too, unlike Hamlett, I didn't have time alone with my elephant - beautiful, orphaned Temba - and found that to be the biggest problem. I wanted more time with the elephants. Saunders suggest that those wanting more time come during the week when it's less busy.
Sunday morning is a popular time, and although Saunders is determined not to pack the visitors in, or stress the elephants because of it, there is no denying that sharing your time with the elephants with other people is very therapeutic.
If You Go:
- Elephant Sanctuary
: phone: 012 258 0423 or 012 258 0332, fax: 012 258 0329
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.elephantsanctuary.co.za
- Elephant sanctuary, The Crags, phone 044 534 8145; E-mail: [email protected], Website: www.elephantsanctuary.co.za
- Location
: The sanctuary is nestled in the Magaliesberg Mountains, 45 minutes from Johannesburg and Pretoria, 4km from the Hartebeespoort Dam. It lies in natural indigenous bush and is home to local species such as impala, klipspringer, baboons, porcupine, caracal, leopard, and a host of other small mammals and 350 bird species.
- This article was originally published on page 20 of The Sunday Tribune on August 21, 2005