In
the company of elephants, I found a deep and enriching experience and it
happened at a waterhole in Talamati bush camp, one of the intimate bush camps
tucked away in a corner of the park near Satara.
Talamati
has 15 self-contained thatch bungalows where guests are given the opportunity
to immerse themselves in the bush veld away from the buzz of the modern world
of electronic devices yet still enjoying the convenience of comfortable
accommodation with all basic services.
The
camp has two hides one overlooking a waterhole and the other positioned to
afford a view of the surrounding veld. By day a constant stream of animals frequents
the waterhole on a natural rotation. Groups of elephants can be followed by a
small herd of buffalo and then a group of feisty zebra, the procession of
animals is constant throughout the day but at night, as the sun quickly turns
the African sky a crimson red silhouetting the Mopani trees, is when the magic really
begins.
Wait
patiently as the gloom folds into darkness and suddenly without a sound and
emerging from the shadows into the ambient light in single file a small family
of elephants moves toward the water. They are like ghost ships in the night as
they quietly drift forward lowering their trunks into the water. From another direction a new family emerge
from the shadows and one can detect a soundless language here as they mingle
and move in and out of the light some of them brushing by each other, the
sounds of water splashing from their trunks the only sound as they quench their
thirst against the heat of the day. Even more families now arrive at the
waterhole appearing soundlessly out of the shadows of the bush, some sounds now
as the herds acknowledge each other or jostle for dominance at the water
source, the larger adults dominating the water reservoir with their trunks
dangling over the edge as they siphon water into their mighty bodies. Then some
of the small family groups that had earlier arrived, their thirst now
satisfied, start to gather in a huddle, they separate and form a line single
file in the order in which they arrived. The matriarch at the front with the
younger bulls and calves in the middle and then the massive giant bull at the
rear. As soundlessly as they arrived, they now depart they are so close as they
pass by, We can almost touch them but soon they are enclosed behind the curtain
of the dark bush. All the families that had arrived at the waterhole that night
all gathered in the same way and then quietly left the way they had arrived. The
language of elephants is not fully understood by humans, elephants can
communicate sub sonically over great distances and it is known that they also
communicate by touch but that night at the waterhole in the silence of the
African bush we sensed their language rather than heard it.
