Ehra patrol week
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Ehra patrol week
Patrol week is when they more or less become elephant stalkers: track them through the bush, read their footprints, trace their routes, take notes and photos.
Elephants stalkers
Patrol week is when they more or less become elephant stalkers. By day, they track them through the bush, read their footprints, trace their routes, take notes and photos. By night, they camp, cook over the fire, eat, and turn in early.
They stay fascinated, while elephants barely seem to register they’re there. A gentle reminder that curiosity often travels in only one direction.
The road
Patrol week is also when they catch sight of other wildlife, get lost in Namibia’s desert landscapes, and pass through villages whose general stores are so small even my pantry back home feels better stocked.
This isn’t a safari
This week, they spent more time reading their tracks and droppings than photographing them.
You can follow them, predict their path, spot them from a car roof, but they might still move on the moment you try to catch up.
This isn’t a safari. Desert elephants are monitored because there are so few left.
Still, it was fascinating to learn how much you can tell from the shape of a puddle, the texture of dung, or the pattern of footprints: how many, what gender, what age, which direction, how long ago, how fast they were moving.
