Before Carol and I leave to host the groups in India, I thought that I had to tell another Elephant story.

Our ranger had parked us in the middle of a river bed in the Mashatu reserve in Botswana.  Perhaps I should explain that an english explorer once said: 'Southern Africa is the only place in the world where, when you fall in a river, you get up and dust yourself off.' The rivers, except when in flood, are basically beds of finely grained sand. However, beneath the surface the water continues to flow, albeit at a slower pace, but protected from the sun driven evaporation. The elephant are the ones that generally smell the water below the surface, especially in the driest times, digging the holes that give access to it, not only for  themselves, but also all their fellow citizens of the bush.
We were watching a herd of elephant feeding on the left-hand side of the bank, when the lady of the herd - the matriarch - broke away and made her way down the bank and across the river to the other bank, where she sought out a shaded and moist part of the river wall.
 
After examining it carefully with her trunk, she started digging away at it with her tusks and flattening out the mud with her feet. It took us a few minutes to realize that she was in the process of constructing, for herself, a Saturday Afternoon spa.

Soon she was, rolling around slowly and sensually in the mud and moist soil, sitting up to appreciate the quiet time, spraying herself all over with cooling moist soil. You could feel pleasure radiating from every cell of her being. She was  having a great time.

One of the younger females of the herd looked down across the river, decided she liked what she saw, and ambled down the bank and headed for the 'spa' to join in the fun.  Well when the lady of the herd saw her, she leapt - or should I say the nearest thing to an elephant leap - up and charged the intruder, ears flapping, trunk raised and trumpeting in anger telling her in no uncertain terms to push off. The youngster did so, and Herd Lady went back to her spa.

But the younger one was made of more persistent stuff and it wasn't long before she made another tentative approach. The same thing happened. The matriarch chased her off, with clearly more irritation. Believe it or not, Miss Persistence was not about to give up and made three or four more attempts a few minutes apart, each time being sent off by an increasingly enraged matriarch. Eventually Herd Lady decided that her afternoon had been spoiled and gave up on her spa, yet still wanting to get away from it all, went up on what had become her side of the bank, to graze in peace away from the herd. 

Needless to say, it didn't take long before Miss Persistence, seeing the spa vacated, decided that it was time for her to take over and enjoy the facilities. As she was within feet of the spa, there was a trumpeting roar from the bank above and Herd Lady came barreling down with the obvious serious intent of committing bodily harm chasing the intruder down the river. She wasn't using it herself, but she had built that spa and her attempt to have an afternoon off  had been frustrated by this pesky parasite who was going to be the last creature on earth to be allowed to take advantage of her efforts. Miss persistence took off rapidly to hide amongst the rest of the herd.

Then we saw a true elephant tantrum. Herd Lady rushed up her bank again having decided that someone was going to pay for her frustrating afternoon. Unfortunately for them, it was the trees and bushes on the side of the bank that were going to take a beating. Bushes, branches and whole young trees went flying in all directions as she stamped around in anger, all the time trumpeting her frustration. The air was filled with flying dust and leaves and you didn't need to understand elephantese to hear what she was saying:

" All week I look after this useless bunch, making sure that they are cared for, finding the right places for them to eat sleep and drink; keeping them and their youngsters in check to make sure that they don't wander away and get lost or into danger at the teeth of those damned cats. Then, when I try to take a few minutes off for myself - can I? No some damn fool insists on coming down and spoiling it all for me! Then, after she has ruined my afternoon she still has the cheek to come and try and use my spa, the one I built without help from anyone for her pleasure. I really don't know why I bother about you lot. Take that tree! - take that bush! If there was a dog around I would kick that too. Ooooeeaahh"

During all this, I had a movie camera lying on my lap useless because the battery was all used up before this started!