Training & Riding Elephants, Antelope Park, near Gweru, Zimbabwe, Africa
Having already spent 85 USD per person on the lion walk the day before and being happy that the sun was out, we felt like what the heck, let’s splurge again! Elephant training was on the agenda, for only 20 USD. This included elephants performing all kinds of tricks (lifting their legs, kneeling down, kicking a ball) and putting up with us. Hopefully they did not mind us sitting on their legs, on top of them, grabbing their trunk, touching their rough skin and taking photos as if there is no tomorrow. The only thing that irritated us was that one foot of each elephant was tied down with a chain. What looked like a precaution still felt funny.
Training & Riding Elephants, Antelope Park, near Gweru, Zimbabwe, Africa
Since there is no free lunch, the elephants demanded their rewards, relentlessly! We must have thrown two pounds of maize pellets into the elephants’ mouths or shoved them up their hairy trunks…
Having spent so much money already, adding another 40 USD for a short elephant ride did not seem improper. Not really exciting, except the mahout asking Heidi to hold on to him really tightly.
Training & Riding Elephants, Antelope Park, near Gweru, Zimbabwe, Africa
How the elephant deal with the temperature at night, we do not know, but we were freezing. Climbing down in the middle of the night from our roof top tent to go to the bathroom was murder. We would not have been surprised to find frost on the tent the next morning, but we stayed inside until the sun was strong enough to make slipping from the cozy sleeping bag bearable.
We would have paid everything for a room that night, but the resort with all its bungalows was completely booked by conference. Also in Uganda, we noticed that such resorts in national parks or game reserves are popular with conferences. Especially religious organization like to invite their opinion leaders to such attractive places.
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