I met my first wild Elephant on the 16th of August 1997. You never forget your first.
It was first thing in the morning of our first day on safari, Mombo, Botswana. I had the rear seat of an open safari vehicle. We came upon a youngish male. He was running along thrashing the vegetation. The driver/guide pointed out the secretion of temporin running down its face and the seminal fluid dripping from its penis. Told us that its testosterone levels were through the roof. Its mania was due to the state of musth, an annual event for bull elephants over about 30 years of age. After a while we overtook it and continued on our way.
About 15 minutes later we came upon our first collection of Impala. We stopped with our rear wheels in a bit of a ditch and turned off the engine. Our driver/guide pointed out that this was a male and his harem and began to explain the exhausting and competitive life of the male Impala. Turned three quarters around to address his guests he was well placed to notice a maniacal male elephant charging the back of the vehicle. He immediately started the engine and set about rectifying the situation.
But forgot that the rear wheels were in a bit of a ditch and stalled the engine. Valuable moments were lost. The engine was restarted, many more revs were injected and we were on the way again. The elephant had its head down, fortunately for me because those tusks could easily have impaled me. Its forehead hit the rear end of the vehicle but by that stage our relative velocities dampened the impact to a minor blow.
Those were the days of single shot exposures and 200 ASA colour slide film. The head filled the frame but it wasn’t a keeper, poor focus and too much motion blur.
bobmcgee 