I was at Djuma on a slow game drive. Our tracker Abel, spots an elephant track going into the bush. Driver/ranger Piet(read Pete) asks if we want to track the ellie on foot? We all say yes and go off into the bush. About 100 feet in Piet points at something. He sees an ellie about 100ft away from us...I see what I think he is showing us but only 20ft away!! A big male ellie in musth noless, flapping his ears and waving his trunk. I figured Piet saw it and was getting ready for some pictures. Then Piet spots the ellie I saw!! He says to get down!! Now ellie has his ears flat and his head down!!(charge mode!) One girl did a great rock imitation, never looking up again. I of course was on one knee waiting for the perfect picture. Piet then tells me to remove my baseball cap as the ellie will see the white on it. I knew then it was more serious then I thought so decided pictures were a bad idea LOL. After a few motionless breathless moments, Piet said to back away. At that "rock girl "was back at the jeep. As I backed away, I saw Piet cock his gun, when Piet had seen ellie it had ears back and head down (charge mode). Now this was really serious!! We all got back to the jeep fine, but Piet said for sure that ellie was going to charge us. A few nites later while in the jeep they did. We had to reverse hard! After the fact it was amusing, Rock girl got her colour back about 20 minutes later! Another funny note brother of Rock Girl had known nothing of ellies prior to his visit to Djuma, so we suggested he read a book at camp. The main story in it is about a photographer that barely survived being stomped and gored . That and that brother of rock girl was terrified of snakes, all he could think of while crouched on the ground was that he would open his eyes and find a snake infront of him on the ground! Hope U enjoyed the story! More Adventures
