One of the most amazing experiences one can hope to have is an elephant safari in Africa!

Starting off with the most sublime – is an elephant back safari – which – if you want the real thing – only occurs in Botswana. It is expensive, but to be frank, it is an experience of a lifetime and one really cannot put a price to the privilege of spending around three or four days, immersed in an elephant herd, spending time with adults and calves alike, riding them, understanding their behaviour and being accepted into their family.

Have a look at this latest video which shows a three day old baby called Warona at Abu’s Camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, where this is filmed.

One can either take a three/four day elephant safari in the Okavango Delta, or perhaps take a four hour walk with three elephants and Doug Groves, a zoologist – who explains every facet of his habituated elephants, as you walk with them and they place their trunks either on your shoulder or in your hand – little can be so moving! We also arrange wonderful safaris to the most elephant rich regions in Africa – being Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya!

Elephant Safari in Africa with AfricanExplorations.com

Abu  Camp is a wonderful phenomenon – especially for those who either feel a real empathy with elephants or for those who are interested in elephant safaris.

This is the most magical experience that we have ever witnessed. One spends three nights at the beautiful Abu’s Camp and each morning, your mahout and guide tells you all about your elephant family. Learn all about their behaviour, their bonding and then ride them into the heart of the Okavango Delta – watching the elephant calves running alongside their mothers and family – splashing around in the water and playing and generally having a glorious time. This is a real privilege and the most warming experience one could possibly have!Learn about conservation issues and participate or observe mud bathing, training and veterinary care. Watch wildlife from the back of an elephant – completely peaceful and quiet – simply observing in an unobtrusive manner.

Abu Camp with AfricanExplorations.com

The rooms are beautiful and open fronted, set beneath a grove of mature trees and overlooking the waterway of the Delta yet they blend in beautifully with the environment.There is even a star bed which we can request for you so that one night you sleep beneath the vast canopy of stars – ever closer to the elephants.

Abu Camp with AfricanExplorations.com

The camp itself is gorgeous and spoiling – but in addition, one can also go out on game drives to search for other mammals and predators and also glide along the floodplains in a mokoro – a canoe – as you are poled along the floodplains. This is one of the most beautiful experiences and iconic of the Okavango Delta. Call us to arrange your elephant safari of a lifetime!

Elephant Safaris can come under the guise of many different types of safari!

Elephant Safaris with AfricanExplorations.com

Does one mean a safari whereby one has a lot of interaction with elephants – such as in Kenya where one can go out with a researcher for a day and learn everything about an elephant and perhaps even be involved in a tagging process. Or in Botswana where one can either ride on an elephant’s back for three days or even walk alongside it, with its trunk in your hand, in the Okavango Delta?

Perhaps it just means those areas where one is most likely to see the greatest concentration of elephant – which means – Amboseli and Samburu National Parks in Kenya – although Meru and the Masai Mara have a good population of elephant too! The Caprivi Strip in Namibia where I used to live, where herds of up to 500 elephants would congregate at the water’s edge on a nightly basis. Chobe National Park in Botswana has its numbers swelling to 60 000 elephants in the park at certain times of year although it has good populations elsewhere such as south Chobe and Moremi.

Hwange, in Zimbabwe is renowned for its Presidential Herd of elephant which is really impressive. Tarangire National Park in Tanzania is also home to one of the strongest elephant herds – again 500 strong can be seen at certain times of year.In Mana Pools one can get really close to them in a canoe – being silent they dont see you as a threat, more part of the river!

Addo National Park in South Africa also has a tremendous elephant population and one can spend time observing them at a waterhole.

I confess they are my favourite mammal, so I follow them closely in all the parks they appear! We would love to assist you on your next elephant safari!

Elephant Safari Africa- These are my favourite as they are absolutely my favourite mammal! Why do I adore them? Because of their complicated yet endearing family structure – the unique bonding of the matriarchal society. Their unique intelligence – I remember when I was living in Namibia and I used to drive in the Mahango National Park where the elephant population was the most concentrated in Namibia. I used to watch huge family herds walk a familiar trodden path each day. One day I saw a ground plover’s nest with eggs and I watched with incredulity how the entire family herd gingerly stepped over the nest, feeling the strange sensation of the eggs on the pads of their feet. What other creature, of that size or even half that size, would have responded with such sensitivity – such agility? Just Loxodonta Africana!

Elephant safari Africa with AfricanExplorations.com

We offer the most amazing elephant back safaris. Probably the most unique are in Botswana where one can embark upon an elephant back safari for three days or more. There is a very large price tag attached to it (roughly $7500 per person for three days), but if you can afford it – its the experience of a lifetime! Next up, also in Botswana is the elephant experience with Doug Groves. I simply adored this and felt completely humbled by the whole experience! Four hours are set aside whilst one takes an elephant on a walk – one of his three orphans whom he has habituated on an elephant walking safari. Doug, being a zoologist, gives you four hours of unabated pleasure and an insight into these magnificent pachyderms!

Elephant Back Safaris with AfricanExplorations.com

Then, in Kenya, Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, world authority on the African Elephant and author of several scientific books, has two research stations in East Africa. One in Samburu in Kenya and one in Lake Manyara in Tanzania. In Kenya, for a donation (around $1000.00 which goes directly to the Save The Elephant Research Centre), one can go out with a researcher for a day and learn all about collaring the elephants, identifying families and learning about their migratory routes. This is one of the best things I have ever done. We even discovered a baby elephant that had been born and was literally hours old! Lastly, in Kenya, is the Daphne Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. This is such a worthwhile charity! Here one can see orphaned calves being nursed and nurtured back to health before joining a matriarchal herd in Tsavo National park.

Abu's Camp with AfricanExplorations.com

We are all completely elephant mad at African Explorations. Let us share our passion with you!!

An update on the recently flooded elephant research station in Samburu, belonging to Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, world authority on the African Elephant and Elephant Watch Camp in Samburu where one can have the most wonderful elephant safaris Whilst I was in Kenya in March 2010, I witnessed the extraordinary flooding of the Samburu region. Some of the camps were affected, such as Oria Douglas-Hamilton’s gorgeous Elephant Watch Camp as well as the Research Centre. Luckily they were able to retrieve all the data. Oria is in the midst of redoing her amazing camp with her inimitable style, I recently received an e mail from her saying  “things like a new solar system is SO expensive, but I have managed to get that  and other new things to start up again.  The camp is just about ready to be dressed up  at the end of week I will go up with my friends and we will hang and drape all its fineries” And what fineries! This is one of our favourite camps in Samburu and everyone should visit it! Oria’s cuisine is spectacular, she grows everything on her farm in Lake Naivasha and the cooks are simply amazing! In fact, I had better Italian food here than at some of the best restaurants in London!

The exotic Elephant Watch Camp is perched on the sand banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River, beneath big Kigelia trees and Acacia Elatiors. This area is home to some of the largest bulls in Samburu, which can often be spotted resting under an acacia tree or picking pods beside the tents. The trees are filled with a multitude of birds and monkeys; at dawn a gentle chorus echoes overhead announcing the new day in the wild.

Elephant Watch is very eco-friendly and has been specially constructed for comfort and coolness, accommodating a maximum of ten guests with its wide and breezy desert tents. These latter are individually styled, draped with colourful cloth and unusual furniture. Bathrooms are built around trees, giving guests a novel washing experience with plenty of sun heated water and light. You can visit the Save The Elephant Research Centre and for a donation, learn more about these gentle creatures.

Everything about Elephant Watch is a feast for the senses, with bright swathes of cotton fanning in the breeze, huge cushioned sofas, woven local mats and special beds and furniture made from fallen trees.  Books, films and information on Elephants are provided for guests. At night, flame torches and lanterns light up the camp along the river. Baboons call out as leopards stalk, while lions and elephants are always nearby. It is the only camp of its kind in Samburu. Elephant Watching begins on arrival! Their film is out on Animal Planet this week in the US.

Iain recently released the following press release:  For the first time elephants have been found to produce an alarm call associated with the threat of bees, and have been shown to retreat when a recording of the call is played even when there are no bees around.

A team of scientists from Oxford University, Save the Elephants, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, made the discovery as part of an ongoing study of elephants in Kenya. They report their results in the journal PLoS One.

Anyone who has an interest in conservation or luxury safaris to Africa (or India) in general as well as walking safaris, elephant safaris or special interest safaris will welcome the CITES decision late last month to uphold the ongoing ban on ivory trading. The story is well reported by CNN, which we precis as follows:

Quote:
(CNN) — Conservationists have welcomed the decision to reject a bid from Tanzania and Zambia to temporarily suspend a worldwide ban on trading in African elephant ivory so they can offload legal stockpiles in a one-off sale.
The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Monday, voted to reject the proposal amid concerns about elephant poaching.
A petition from the two African countries to remove elephants from a list of animals “threatened with extinction” to allow trade in other parts of the animal was also thrown out.
“It’s welcome news, but my anxieties remain about the increased levels of poaching in Africa,” Save the Elephant’s Dr. Ian Douglas-Hamilton told CNN.
“There are huge problems ahead for the elephants,” he said. “I do see this huge demand which is emanating mainly from the prosperity of China. We have to win their hearts and minds for conservation and for the elephant so that they have more of an idea of sustainable use and not over-taxing populations.”
CITES banned the international commercial ivory trade in 1989 after elephant populations dropped dramatically across the world due to widespread poaching.
But in 1997 and 2002 it permitted Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe to sell limited stocks of ivory to Japan, in recognition of the fact that some southern African elephant populations were healthy and well managed.
Five years later at a CITES meeting at The Hague further sales of stockpiled ivory were permitted in return for a nine-year moratorium on further sales.
Both Zambia and Tanzania claimed elephant numbers in their territories were on the rise after years of decline. They also said the proceeds from the sale of government stockpiles would be put back into conservation and enforcement projects. But wildlife experts in Kenya, part of a coalition of 23 African elephant range countries calling for an outright ban, say poaching has increased since the announcement of the last sale.
“Though Zambia’s anti-poaching enforcement measures are better than those of Tanzania, there is no justification for downgrading the elephants from the endangered list,” said Douglas-Hamilton, an expert on Kenya’s elephant population. Tanzania has increased poaching and increased illegal markets. Their main elephant population has decreased by some 30,000 in the last three years. In Zambia there were huge declines in the elephant population in the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas other elephant populations across Africa have recovered slightly since the introduction of the ivory trade ban, Zambia’s never have. They remain the same. In the mid-1970s the population was something like 160,000. It is currently estimated to sit at around 26,000.”
He added that the situation was particularly desperate in central Africa where there are estimated to be just 20,000 elephants left from a population numbering 1 million 30 years ago.
CNN’s David McKenzie contributed to this report.
Unquote

Naturally we are all delighted at the announcement but it is clear that charities such as Iain’s Save The Elephants, which can be visited as part of an itinerary to Kenya (and is a charity we support, as is the Sheldrick Elephant Foundation, see the video below), and those involved with our special interest safaris and Elephant safaris in the Okavango Delta need ongoing support, as do all those with a focus on elephant conservation in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana and Zambia.