O&L Leisure Today - December 2018

Posted on Wed November 28, 2018.

A star is born in Chobe

Any baby that is born, human or animal, is a miracle and celebrated, but not all are so lucky as to witness this little miracle taking place. Not so for our Australian guests that were on a sunset cruise in the Chobe National Park on 2 October this year.

The guests were fondly looking at a 2 week old baby elephant when all of a sudden there was a lot of confusion. At first giggles, then amazement as the guests thought that they had spotted a very frisky and well endowed male elephant. Wink wink,,,say no more!

But alas, they were terribly wrong....

Calvin, their experienced tour guide, quickly assessed the situation and announced that they were indeed witnessing a miracle.  What they were actually looking at was a female elephant giving birth to her youngster. Our guests were the only ones on the scene while this little one was being born.
 
There was total silence on the boat.
 
Once born, the herd fondly assisted the new mommy in making sure her baby was safe.  The mother also gently helped the little baby to get up from the ground and take its first wobbly steps.
 
Tears were flowing in the boat.  Happy tears!
 
This was definitely a very good reason to celebrate and our Australian guests came back to the lodge to celebrate that a star had been born with a good few bottles of bubbly.