On my travels I’ve been lucky to see plenty of unique animals in their natural habitats (an important thing for me). And I realised just recently that I’ve actually almost ticked off seeing all of the animals on the World Wildlife Fund‘s (WWF) Flagship Species list.Their list consists of: tigers, giant pandas, rhinoceros, polar bears, whales and dolphins, elephants, marine turtles and great apes. I’m South African, so I’ve probably seen more rhinoceros and elephant than most people. But, while on a five-week overland trip around Southern Africa in 2004, I was lucky enough to do a rhino walk as well as ride an African elephant at Victoria Falls in Zambia. And then while in Thailand in 2005, I rode an Asian elephant in Chiang Mai as well.
I’ll tell you that riding an African elephant is, in no uncertain terms, the far better experience! In Thailand you sit on top of a seat that is attached to the elephant and I never really got the feeling that these elephants were much more than a business for the people offering the trips. But I adored my experience of riding an African elephant. I sat on the elephant’s back and my bare feet could feel his rough skin. I had to hold on tight because he was quite playful and my guide told me all about this young bull’s personality. There was a real bond between the guide and his elephant.
While in Mozambique on the same Southern African overland trip, I was lucky enough to snorkel with whale sharks (okay, not a whale) in Tofo. I also had an absolutely awesome experience snorkelling with dolphins in Ponta d’Ouro, Mozambique in 2005. However, this is a tricky one to recommend to people because, although I had a fantastic experience both times, I am an experienced snorkeller and scuba diver. There were other people on the same boats as me who didn’t have nearly the same experience. In fact I don’t think anyone else on the boat with us even saw the dolphins. My ex-boyfriend and I were lucky enough to get into the water second and managed to keep up with the pod as they swam. By the time the dolphins eventually swum away, we lifted our heads out of the water to see everyone else sitting on the boat just watching us.
These experiences vary, but I’d highly recommend them both! I’d still absolutely love to be underwater with a humpback whale too though. We heard one and tried to catch up with it while diving in Zanzibar in 2008, but it was on the move and sadly we missed the experience.
Turtles are my absolutely favourite thing to see while diving or snorkelling and I’ve had some awesome experiences where they just let you float above them and watch them for ages. I’ve also been to St Lucia, in KwaZulu-Natal, in 2006 to try and see either the giant leatherback or the loggerhead turtles laying their eggs. Sadly, I wasn’t lucky enough on that trip, so I will have to go back and try again another time.
In 2007 I went to East Africa for the wildebeest migration in Kenya (sadly I missed them actually crossing the river by mere days, but the experience was still completely awesome) and to see the mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This was yet another awe-inspiring experience, and it wasn’t even the best of our tour-group (the tour split into smaller groups when we hiked to see the gorillas). Sometimes you get lucky and have gorgeous weather or find the gorillas nearby and relaxing. My experience was nothing like that at all: a full day of hiking and rain, and gorillas on the move. But let me tell you that when you see them sitting and grooming, the young ones playing and tumbling around, or the Silverback striding through the group, it doesn’t matter how far you’ve hiked or how soaked through you are or that you can only spend an hour with them, because it is all worth it. For the record, in my experience, you are never going anywhere to see the gorillas in the Virunga National Park except in the DRC. They tell you it could be Uganda, Rwanda or the DRC but, it’s always the DRC (or it was then) because they offer the cheapest rates.
In 2009, I travelled from Johannesburg to Frankfurt, Toronto, Winnipeg and finally Churchill to spend a few days on the edge of Hudson Bay watching polar bears. I won’t tell you how many people were amazed that I travelled all that way for such a short visit, and I won’t tell you how few Canadians actually go and see the polar bears for themselves (I gather they’d prefer to go somewhere warmer but, to me it’s like a South African who’s never seen a lion, elephant, giraffe or similar – yes, I’m sure there are plenty out there too).
The polar bears have, I think, been the ultimate animal experience of all my travels.The entire trip was geared just for them, but I spent 2 full days on the Tundra Buggies and had such amazing and varied experiences seeing them in the wild. The highlight of the sights must’ve been a mother-bear and her two twenty-month old cubs who we watched for ages and who eventually came up close to our buggy on Day Two (so much so that even with my camera fully zoomed out I couldn’t fit an entire bear into the frame). They are amazing creatures – and so much more so in this environment than when watching them eat fish with both paws floating in a zoo enclosure.
Giant panda’s are a must-see for me in China, so here’s hoping I’ll tick that off in May 2011. And that just leaves tigers (which I have already “technically” seen at the rhino & lion Park, but that’s not quite in the same spirit of things as the rest) … guess I’ll have to make a plan.
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