But she was nice, and gave it back.  All three times.  Anyhow, we left Ohrigstad after packing up the camping gear and saying good bye to our adoring Peanut. We headed up the road to a place where they collect elephants who were destined to be culled (overpopulation is a huge issue) and train them for education and anti-poaching operations.  It turns out that elephants smell much, much better than dogs when tracking and can track over and through water.  They also offer a much higher vantage point for officers riding them, and can generally scare the hell out of poachers on the ground.

We were there for Gumbo (pronounced GOM-boo) a young bull who arrived there after spending three days with his leg caught in a steel lion snare.  The last course of students spent a lot of time treating him, but we only needed to change his bandage and clean the wound this one last time.  It was a pretty cool deal, darting him with M99 (etorphine, vet nerds) and rushing in to get a line in, get pulse-ox going (my job, had to scrape out an area on his ear with a scalpel first) and get everything going so he was down for as short a time as possible.  This went really well, and ended with him up and woozy as we went for lunch. 

After lunch, we got a talk about elephants and their population issues and a demo of their training.  We all got to sit on and feed them, and they showed us their scent abilities with a hat game.  Three of us who had hats tossed them down on the ground and shuffled ourselves about.  An elephant who'd had her back turned (Mitwah was her name) came over and picked one up. She held it level with our chests giving each of us a sniff in turn, before pushing it at the head of the person it belonged to.  She was a bit confused the first time, so we repeated it and she had much better success (despite standing on my hat for a short time). A trio of warthogs wandered past as we were there, adding another cool element to that part of the trip.

We then took the long drive back to Nelspruit, and the farm sure looked good as we pulled up.  Crouton, the bouncy gray/white cat, chased me up the path towards the dorm area and climbed a tree to give me his leopard impression.  Fun lil' dude. 

So, the trip to Ohrigstad was thrilling, terrifying and generally cool... but there is some disappointment over the lack of rhino work.  They're going to try to get it in later this trip, but it may cost us our outing to Kruger park.  Oh well, I'll just have to come back then :p

Tomorrow is pathology day.  A doctor from Pretoria is here with some samples we took from the crocs earlier in the week, and some general path lectures.  Sunday, we're taking a horseback trip to see some wild horses and then a drive/scenic tour along the Great Escarpment.  It's our day off before getting back to drugging and dragging things on Monday.

We had a nifty stop in the mountains between Ohrigstad and the elephants, at a roadside stand with some cool souvenir options. Gotta keep things light, though, since I don't want my bag to be overweight!  For now, I'm off to get a shower and write this stuff up in my actual notebook.  Catcha later,

-P