BURKINA FASO – Elephant Reserves - Sunday 23rd November

Despite being the 5th and final group to travel through the Safari park, we did quite well in terms of seeing animals. At first the largest things we saw were butterflies, but slowly as we moved through the park we saw baboons, parrots and much to everyone’s excitement real elephants. The first elephant we saw was at the half way point between the two parks we were visiting. We had just missed him swimming with another elephant, but, against advice from organization, we carefully followed the elephant which was walking behind a safari sign! We managed to get a few car lengths away before he started getting a little annoyed and moved off. We carried on again, over some cobbled bridges and saw some breathtaking lagoons and water lilies. We later caught up with another group who had stopped to look at a mother and daughter elephants. Upon arrival the mother was again a little annoyed with the company, so we turned off our engines, which seemed to calm her down. Unfortunately the arrival of the diesel Landrover of the camera team stressed her again and resulted in her charging straight at Cookie side on, much to the horror of everyone there at the time. Everyone panicked to start their engines but fortunately she stopped about two car lengths away and moved off with her baby. We swiftly moved on after this. Shortly after we arrived at our Safari lodge camp where we enjoyed a refreshing nights swim under the stars, a hot shower and real bed! Generally most places we had stayed had only had cold water and room for a tent. Now both our roll mats had developed slow punctures in Mali. We always slept as we were so tired but it often meant you awoke with a dead arm in the morning. So this night we definitely savored the luxury!