What goes crunch crunch hmpff in the night?

You’d think that it’s easy to tell an elephant from a lion, but apparently some of us have more trouble than others. One difficulty is that elephants have many more vocalizations and noises than usually mentioned. They make deep sighs, roar-like groans, and mini-trumpets.

Last night Sara and I stayed in the bush (after our attempted supply run). Sitting around the fire, Sara told me about the time lions fought under her tent and another night when two hyenas settled some business under her tent. (The tents at De Batana camp aren’t little camping tents, but permanent structures built on stilts.) Note to Sara, these stories are not the best bedtime stories.

It was the middle of the night when I woke up in fear. There was all kinds of noise right outside my tent. “Lions won’t scratch open a tent. Lions won’t scratch open a tent. Don’t freak out; they can smell fear.” It felt like an eternity of just lying in my bed completely frozen and focusing on controlling my F.O. (fear odor).

The next morning, we found elephant prints all around my tent and a bull (with gorgeous tusks) still making a racket a few hundred meters from camp. As an FYI to anyone who is planning on coming to the bush, elephants don’t have to worry about making noise and they sometimes rustle a heck of a lot of leaves when they want to have a good go at an acacia tree.