A Day with Elephants

One of the things that I promised myself when I decided that I wanted to go to Africa was that I would not allow myself to buy into stereotypical tourist activities--like safaris. Then I read about Mole National Park in the Northern Region of Ghana. My guidebook calls Mole the unsung safari destination. Not only is it much less expensive than better-known destinations like Kenya or South Africa, it also offers a unique opportunity, one found nowhere else in Africa: in Mole, it is possible to get close to elephants, really close. I could probably do without the typical lions and cheetahs of traditional safaris. I probably will do without them, because who knows when I will get the chance to come back to Africa. But the opportunity to see elephants up close was irresistible. And I did get close--probably within fifteen feet. On a morning safari walk, we encountered a group of six elephants, five adults and an child, and followed them to the watering hole near the park hotel. They spent the day swimming and eating, and I spent the day watching them, first from the opposite shore of the watering hole, then from the observation balcony at the hotel. The whole thing was a magical experience: a day with elephants. A day with kind giants.