Guess what we saw!

After an uncomfortable night's sleep on the concrete, and a few minutes massaging feeling back into hips and back, we got up and got ready for the long hike back. The earlier the better over here - seriously trying to do anything between the hours of about 11am and 2pm is crazy. That says we only seem to be doing things then... During the night, I'd tried going to the toilet, with a headtorch, but kept hearing the rangers' voices in my head - "Don't go too far from the camp, there are wild animals in this area". Quite a nervy time to be honest. I was hearing all sorts of cracks and rustles in the darkness. The night before, I forgot to say, Labere heard some animal down by the roadside, about 20m away, and set off alone to check it out. We followed behind for a bit, then his torch went off and he was very quiet. We turned back to the safety of the fire!

We packed up everything and set off just after 6am - great sunrise. We were 3/4 of the way back to Molè and Labere felt bad for not going to the tree hut overnight, and tried to make it up to us by going on a detour that morning to see the hide and another viewing post. We walked for about another 5km that morning around the dried salt lakes, forest and watering holes, and didn't feel that convinced we were going to see anything more than some bush buck. We saw fresh tracks of hyenas, buffalo and even caught sight of a few kob.

Our first stop was the tree hide, which unfortunately would have been awesome to stay overnight in. It overlooked a small watering hole, with a big open area, so that night and the early morning we could have seen (possibly) loads of animals. No matter. When we arrived there were some American teenagers up there, making a load of noise that we could hear from way off. I think they were volunteers, as everyone seems to be in Ghana, and very "Oh my God!". Stayed up the hide for a little while before continuing on - presumably back to the motel for a shower and some brekkie. It was now about 9am and we'd walked a lot further than the night before.

Labere made a few phone calls and discovered that there was a large elephant near one of the watering holes. I think he felt bad about the misunderstanding about the hide, and we set off tracking Dumbo. We then caught a sight of him vanishing into scrub across one of the watering holes. About half an hour later we still hadn't caught sight of him, and were ready to give up when Labere stopped....

Hidden in the trees up ahead was a large grey lump, and as we got closer we saw a swinging tail and flapping ears. We'd found him. Definitely worth the hunger and the miles of walking about that morning. It was incredible. We got within about 50ft and Labere answered some questions for us. Then he moved out of the trees for a closer look at us. He was massive and as he lumbered along we all sat, crouched in silence. Labere told us this was one of the old males in the park, and was missing one tusk. He was quite used to humans but caould still be very dangerous. We were in awe as he kept coming closer, but Labere motioned for us to move back a bit. We all crept backwards, and got some great pictures from about 40ft away. Then he turned a bit further towards us, flaring his trunk and swinging his head.

Labere took the rifle off his shoulder and told us to get back. We all moved, apart from Maric, who seemed to be entranced by the elephant, and was sat on his bag. Labere eventually moved him by shouting (in a low voice) "Move - it's a WILD animal!". We took more pictures and watched in amazement as the giant moved past us about 20ft away and into trees the other side of the pathway. Bloody incredible! Up there with best experiences of this trip.

Filled with happiness at seeing an elephant, we walked back to the Motel, and spent the day eating and chilling out by the pool. Unfortunately, we were in for an early morning trip on the Metro Mass bus back to Tamalè - 3:30am; is that an early morning or just a late night! The only other incident was that as Kez was packing that afternoon, a baboon waltzed into the girl's dorm, right past her. She quickly exited, remembering that baboons can turn violent, but we think it was just inquisitive (they stole some food from Maric's bag, and we also saw them sitting on cars!). The motel was pretty cool like that - baboons and monkeys would pass very closely to the rooms or pool.

But the main memory from Molè would be how close we got to a wild elephant. Just incredible.