Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Elephants are Rad.

Yesterday the highlight was the elephant park. Not as hokey as it might seem, the park get a lot of traffic from tourists for the "elephant show" and rides, (we skipped the show) but is also a preserve of sorts. At any rate, it is confirmed once and for all that elephants are indeed lovable and have a sweet and thoughtful disposition, at least when trained.

I took a ton of photos (shot up my card), some of which can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruensk/sets/72157626911849834/

The ride was kind of nuts. Robbie and I kept reminding ourselves that it was probably the least dangerous thing we have done so far, since we didn't have to trained. Elephants are big, perhaps you already knew that, and so you're pretty far off the ground, and their gate and stride is slow but their weight shift quite a lot. We were lead up along something like a hiking trail in the foothills and going uphill, and especially downhill was a trip. I would add more detail, but mostly I just want to stress how rad elephants are. Very rad. Their trunks, rad, and super articulate. Their feet, super rad. Their mouths, really odd and rad also. They are vertical, which I didn't know.

This park was very relaxed, and after the ride we bought some banana's and sugar cane and met some elephants up close and personal. The park has all ages, from babies in the nursery (more on that in a moment) who are a few months old, to the oldest elephant who is 78. (Elephants are rad.) Elephants love bananas and sugar cane. Elephants pick things up with their trunk - out of your hand.


We finally headed over to the nursery and met a baby and mama:IMG_5535
This baby was so so rad. (see pictures) So playful and funny. Unlike the other elephants that were admittedly more interested in us when we had bananas than when we didn't, the baby just wanted to play. Also, just like a human baby, he was still getting used to his body, and especially the trunk. While the older elephants had this amazingly articulate way of pincing with the top and bottom tips of their trunks, (see elephant painting) the baby really didn't have it down. He would have something for a moment, and then drop it and try again and again. While the older ones sort of pop thing into their mouth (think popcorn) the baby was less accurate when it did get up there and would sort of smash it in there off to the side and try to use the feet a bit. Anyway, I love this elephant most of all.

IMG_5540

Lastly we saw them training elephants to paint. Amazing, but a little less interesting than elephants just being elephants.

Anyway, I know this is a lot about elephants, but they are seriously seriously rad animals. Way more interesting than the report I did about them in third grade.

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