Excitement on the professionally guided trip

Today we were driving around for what seemed like ages. We came around a corner and there was this large bull elephant in musk. Now he was mad. He was peeing through an enormous 5th leg (quoting the guide). He wanted us out of his way. We could pretty much reach out and touch him. He decided to charge us. The guide stood our ground. Now I know the guide is experienced and good but there are degrees of trust. At this moment with my limited knowledge I would have picked flight instead of fight. Controlled panic was my reaction. The guide told us later that had we attempted to flee the elephant would have followed us for 2 km at whatever speed our little Jeep could go. The elephant didn’t give up when we stood our ground. He circled us and made charging attempts several times. The guide waited for the elephant to charge us from the side. He then stepped on the gas and we scooted out of the way. The guide explained later that if an elephant is over the top enraged and thinks he can squish the vehicle he will lift his trunk high, yell, flap his ears and come at us. The guide said he thought the elephant saw our Jeep as a bit big to squish so the charging he was doing was more of a “fake charge”. He was flapping his ears, and pointed his big tusks to ram us as he came running at us. 

The next highlight was we watched a pack of wild dogs attack and kill an impala. The impala is killed by the alpha male and alpha female. The pack forms a ring around the bush area to prevent the impala from escaping. They give certain calls to signal stages of the attack. We saw the impala leaping and the alpha female and male chasing. We then heard a call and the guide said this was the sound the alpha female makes once she has killed the impala. She will swallow the impala and fill her stomach with it. She then returns to the pack and regurgitates the contents. The pack knows this call. They could not contain their excitement at the knowledge of the arrival of their next meal.

Probably one of the most haunting sites we saw was the body of a large impala hanging in the tree. The head was not visible and the abdomen had been eaten. The skin was holding the body together so you could easily see it had been quite a large impala. Now the day before we had seen a leopard in a tree  eating an impala with a hyena waiting below the tree for the bones.