Knysna Elephant Farm

Probably the coolest day of my life in South Africa so far. The Knysna elephant is just about extinct at this point, with only a handful of rescues on this farm and about 450 at the much larger Addo park. We came to the former because we?d heard rumors we'd be allowed to touch the elephants rather than watch them from a Land Rover, and we were overwhelmed. In a nutshell, the tour guides dropped us out in a big field where the females/calves were grazing and let us follow them on foot for an hour, interacting as we pleased. Being the tactile learner I am, I couldn?t keep my hands off of them, and couldn?t help but push every now and then to see if I could move one, but no luck. The smaller of the two babies, bellybutton height, weighs 500 lbs. Their skin looks and feels like a new basketball, and they can express how they?re feeling. Although they?re tame and follow commands from the trainers, the farm is hugely opposed to tricks or any sort of forced performances, so the elephants just get to roam, eat, make babies as they please, and get petted and cooed at by wide-eyed Ricains like us.

Immaturity warning: at one point I was playing with one of the baby elephants, and when Lindsey came up to pat it on the rump, it let off with the longest, breathiest wuffffffffffffffff I?ve ever heard from a living creature, which will probably make me laugh for the rest of my life.