Going to try typing this as we drive back from the safari. Yesterday was quite awesome if I do say so. We had a morning safari walk and then an evening boat safari. Everyone woke up before 6 to go on the walking safari. They were split into 2 groups and off they went. I found it hard to climb out of my warm bed so I stayed back. Everyone said it was great and they had a chance to see some things they hadn’t seen the evening before. After breakfast we all settled into the “safari” schedule. Typically this calls for a lot of resting, reading, sunbathing and eating until its time for the next safari. In our case it was a boat safari leaving at 4pm. The day was gorgeous and warm. Everyone seemed to really need the break and we all took some quiet time just to rest and be a little lazy. Once it was time to meet for our boat ride we all had some tea and coffee and then set out.
Again we broke into 2 groups and planned on each going different directions in the river and meeting up in an hour or so to tie the boats together and watch the sunset. As we left the dock we all had know idea what we would see. Almost immediately both boats cruised over to the same spot to see a mother and baby hippo. The baby was the smallest I have ever seen. It was only just under a week old and let me say just the cutest little guy! His eyes were still just barely open and he wobbled a bit when he walked. Mostly just weaving in and out around his mothers legs. We sat for a little while just ohhh ing and ahhhh ing at how neat that was to see. Just then our driver pointed way down river to one of the banks and said he could see some elephants lingering there near the river. It was off in the distance so to us it just looked like a small family maybe. We turned up the speed and headed up river to see what there was to see there. As we began to approach we realized that we were seeing almost 30 elephants all gathered at the rivers edge. Some were in the water swimming and playing and some were just standing near the bank. There were elephants of every size. One very large male, some small babies and some adolescent males and females. There was also one older female who seemed to be one of the leaders. The very large male was apart from the heard and standing just a few meters away. We were enjoying just watching them all play and fight and tumble in the water when all of a sudden the big daddy let out a noise. It was a noise I hadn’t heard from an elephant before, but the driver told us that he felt the big daddy was attempting to organize the heard. Seems he was right. As soon as the noise stopped all the elephants one by one got out of the water or stopped what they were doing and lined up along the bank. One behind the other all in a row. 28 elephants all lined up began to march along the bank. A few of the adolescent males lagged behind stll playing, but eventually after some stern words from big daddy they fell into line. All of us still in the boats just memorized by the sight. Cameras clicking away and then the driver asked if we wanted to move on. The consensus was an overwhelming “no!” We all said we could watch this all evening. After a short walk up river three of the elephants began to walk into the river, it was about this time that the driver started to say that he believed “something was getting ready to happen”. In fact it was. One by one and all in a very organized single file line (babies in the middle) the string of elephants began to sink into the river. The river is shallow on the edges and deep on the middle so they were able to walk for a ways and then began to swim. This is a sight that must be seen to appreciate, but there we sat in our boats at sunset watching a trail of 28 elephants swim from one side of the river to the other. It almost looked like one of those scary mythical sea creatures as the line bobbed up and down in a wavy way. Some trumpeting and water blowing, but for the most part just a beautiful up and down motion elegantly going across the river. The river is quite wide and on one side is the national park while on the other side there are villages and people. We were told that it is rare to see the elephants cross and that it may be 3 or 4 months before they cross back into the park. Sometimes villagers actually have to chase them back to the banks because they are not welcome in the village. I can’t imagine 28 elephants showing up in my neighborhood either so I can see how it might become a problem.  After seeing the elephants all climb up on to the opposite bank we took some pictures of the beautiful sunset and enjoyed a cold drink. It was also about the time that we noticed it was a full moon. Not just a full moon, but the super moon! We all couldn’t stop chatting about how lucky we felt that we had just seem what we had seen. I would think most people will live an entire lifetime and never experience a sight like that. What an adventure!
I think everyone really enjoyed this couple of days break and now feels refreshed to head back to the school tomorrow.
Today marks one week that the volunteers and I have been in Malawi. Time seems to always stand still in a way but also go so fast…not sure that will make sense to many of you, but trust me its true 😉
Hope you all are still enjoying reading about our adventures. I will have more next week!

Erin