Elephants, for better or for worse

Happy May! I come home this month!

Yesterday, we did indeed go to see the elephants, and what an ordeal it was. After I wrote the last blog entry, I ran into the guide again, and he said that we would leave at 5:30 instead of 6. That night, I cooked up split pea soup with Ashley and Maia, the British girl, then got sick later that night and threw it all up. I was afraid I would still be sick when I had to go see the elephants, but luckily my stomach was fine after getting rid of all of that delicious soup.

I got up at 4:45am when my alarm went off and got ready in the dark. At 5am, the rumbling of an engine announced the arrival of the 4x4 in front of our door. The guide was there, along with the driver and the owner of the car. I hadn’t wanted to give money for the gas up front, preferring to go with the station to make sure we actually got all the gas we were paying for, but that morning, they were like, “The owner says it takes 80 liters, so give us the money and we’ll go put it in.” I was sick of arguing, so I just gave them the money and asked for a receipt (which are all hand written and easily forged). In the meantime, I had to go pick up Maia on the motorcycle, since she lives across town. As I’m preparing to go, the owner and the guide are like, “Go quickly, we have to get going, don’t take a long time.” I just wanted to say, “Chill out, dude,” but their lack of English prevented me.

I drove my motorcycle over to the radio, where Maia lives, as dawn crept imperceptibly into the deserted streets of Douentza. The courtyard door was locked, which was to be expected; but no matter how much I knocked, the guard didn’t wake up to let me in. I was starting to get frustrated, having forgotten my phone, but then Maia came out and woke him up so she could leave. We got back to the house just as the car was getting back from the gas station.

Even then, as we were preparing, getting our final things together, the guide and owner kept hassling us about the time. When the guide was like, “This is how we do it in Africa,” I found a decent French equivalent of “seriously, chill out” because anyone who knows anything about Africa knows that hustle is not how they do it.

Finally, we were all piled in, with me sharing the front seat with the guide so I could stick my head out the window in case of emergency. We dropped the owner off at the freeway (what was he in such a rush for anyway?) then continued up the freeway towards Gao, that is to say, the opposite direction from Sevare.

I have to say, the drive up was the best part of the whole day. The sun, a hazy semicircle, was rising before us through the dust, flanked on either side by the surrounding cliffs. Seeing it made me want to get up early every day just to witness it.

We turned off of the freeway about 50 kilometers up and commenced our long journey off-road to where the elephants presumably were. A while later, we started seeing elephant poop, balls of grassy waste as big as your head. We arrived at a wooded area where the elephants are known to hang out, but alas, no elephants were to be found. When we asked a herder in the area, he said the elephants had left a while ago, and he pointed us in the right direction.

We arrived in a village with fresh elephant poop—apparently some had just passed right through the village not long before—where we picked up someone to show us the way. I might add that every time we stopped to ask for directions from someone, the guide felt the need to physically get out of the car, so I had to get out and let him out, then he always was kind of annoying and hesitant about getting back in the middle. Just outside the village, we saw two beefy elephants grazing in a stand of trees. They were pretty cool, but kind of hidden, and whenever you even wanted to approach a little bit, the guide would tell you not to. I understand—you shouldn’t get too close to wild elephants because they have killed tourists in the region before this year, and apparently if a tourist is killed by an elephant, the guide has to go to jail. But he was a little overprotective.

We looked at those two for a little while, then got back in to find the rest of the herd, apparently 20 or 30 animals. I switched out of the front seat at that point—I got sick of sitting next to the guide. The two hours that followed were some of the bleakest in the trip. We drove from where there was fresh elephant poop (not to mention two elephants) into the most depressingly empty landscape I’ve ever been in: sand, scrub, no birds, not even any cow poop, which is so ubiquitous everywhere else. I’m thinking, “This guy has no idea what he’s doing. Where on earth are we going?” To make matters worse, the engine would overheat about every forty-five minutes, and we’d have to stop and pour water on it.

Just when I’d given up all hope of ever liking life again, we got to a different bunch of trees, where the guide hopped out to go ask a herder if he’d seen the elephants. He motioned for us to come over from off in the distance, so we all piled out of the car with our cameras and picked our way across the cracked ground of a dry lakebed. When we approached, there was indeed a lone elephant taking a mud bath out across the lakebed. Then when we looked to the right, we saw a big group of them, maybe 35, bathing in a shallow lake along with a bunch of cows. Josh and Dan, the two American exchange students among us, were particularly excited and got closer than I thought was prudent. I was just hot, dehydrated (hadn’t brought enough water), tired (hadn’t slept well the night before), and only mildly happy. Yes, the elephants were cool, but the trip before was so harrowing and I’d already seen elephants twice before, so the happiness of seeing them couldn’t overcome my displeasure at the rest of the situation.

After a while of taking pictures, we headed back to find the car, which, in the meantime, had driven off to some unknown location. My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t swallow, and I was getting extremely grumpy with our guide, who’s like, “Oh, the car’s probably just behind that dune.” That dune was probably 100 meters away in direct sunlight.

Eventually we found the car, not over the dune, but the hood was up and the driver was dinking around with something. The guide told us to wait in the shade until they brought the car over, but finally it was taking so long that our desire for water outweighed our desire to stay in the shade, and we just walked over.

The drive back was awful. I was sitting in the far back, where the seats aren’t actually attached to the floor of the car, so every bump that the driver took too fast sent your chair flying into the air. The road was hot and sandy and long. Finally, we emerged on the road to Timbuktu at a village called Bambara-Maoude. I lost all faith in the guide when I asked him, “We’re north of Douentza, right?” and he said we were south. I knew we were north of Douentza. Timbuktu is north of Douentza. So clearly this village, along the way, also is. Really now.

Some people bought water and drinks for exorbitant prices, but I figured we weren’t far from Douentza, so I would just wait for something legitimately cold. It turns out, we were still 90 kilometers away on a terrible road. A few kilometers in, the guide asked, “Who knows how to drive?” and thinking it was just a question, I put my hand up. He told me the driver was tired and asked if someone else could drive. We all kind of looked at each other, unsure of whether he was joking or not. I said I knew how to drive stick shift, but not for a 4x4 vehicle on a terrible gravel/sand road. In the end, the guide was like, “Forget about it, it’s fine,” but then the whole way back I was not only hot and grumpy, but also afraid that our driver would fall asleep at the wheel, sending us tumbling down a sand dune.

We got back to Douentza at around 3:30, 10 hours after we set out. I gave the guide 6000, which he didn’t seem to pleased with, but he was a terrible guide, so I don’t care. After washing our faces and hands, we immediately set off on motos to the Tango for cold drinks. I stopped and got ice and sheep meat on the way, since I hadn’t eaten anything other than a couple of pieces of mango since the previous afternoon, considering none of my dinner stayed in me. We stayed there for about 3 hours, drinking soda and beer and either commiserating about the trip (Steve and I) or sharing the excitement of seeing elephants (Dan and Josh). Ashley didn’t come and Maia came later and remained largely neutral.

I went to bed at 9:30 and slept ten hours. Today I feel significantly more human. Tomorrow it’s off to Tongo-Tongo for the last time to install some solar panels, give out gifts, and say my goodbyes.