Elephant Nightmare
“Don’t move or make a sound so you don’t get trampled by the elephant” was the only thought going through my head as I was awoken from my sleep in what I believed could have been the my last moments.
Okay, so how did I end up here, possibly about to be flattened by an elephant? Me, Sarah, and a half dozen other travelers had left from Johannesburg the day before and were on a 12ish hour ride to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We were staying at a place called Elephant Sands, south of the Delta, for the night. I had thought it was so cool hours earlier when I was told elephants walk right out of the bush and drink from the pool at night, and I was a bit heartbroken that it didn’t happen during dinner.
It was really hot when we were putting up our tents in the afternoon, so I found an acacia tree that provided some shade and set up our tent in a place that would stay cool until sunset. We had gone to sleep pretty early because we knew we had another early morning with more driving ahead of us.
An unknown number of hours later I was awakened by Bob, our new friend, in the tent next to me. He was whisper yelling, “EVAN! EVAN!” As I woke up, I asked “What?” in a groggy still half asleep way, to which he responded “There is something outside!” That woke me up really quick.
Immediately I was totally alert and listening for any noise, anywhere. I didn’t have to strain too hard to hear though, because the noise came quick and close. At first it was branches cracking, then leaves and small branches falling on the tent. Then a loud munch happening DIRECTLY OVERHEAD. I froze and then suddenly knew what to do: Don’t move or make a sound, so you don’t get trampled by the elephant. Never had I been more still and never been so focused on every tiny sound. I was even doing my best not to breath if I could help it. I didn’t want to make any surprising sound that would startle the elephant into running, because that could very well leave us underneath its giant feet.
The next few minutes felt like hours. In those long seconds, I found myself thinking about every single fact I had learned in third grade during our class’s presentation on the culture and animals of Kenya. This African elephant was the larger of the world’s two elephant species. That much larger to step on me. This creature was the largest land animal on the planet. Again, largest animal that might have the opportunity to flatten my head. African elephants can weigh up to 13,000 pounds. That would be a whole lot of weight to crush my tiny human body. Elephant feet can be up to a foot and a half in diameter. That foot would be big enough to cover my entire head if it stepped on it.
As silently as the elephant had snuck up in my sleep, all the sudden the branches stopped breaking, the munching ceased, and I heard nothing. I listened for a long time, but I could not even hear any breathing. Somehow in total silence, without shaking the ground, or even causing some sort of noise, the elephant was totally gone. Lands largest animal somehow walked off without the slightest sound. I lied awake with my heart racing for a long time that night, but never heard anything else.
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was unzip my tent and look at the sand next to us. Sure enough, right outside the tent were the footprints from an elephant. These round footprints were enormous. They were bigger than a dinner plate. They were bigger than a frisbee. And they were a reminder that I was totally right. One step in the wrong direction by this elephant and I would have been plastered to the ground of Elephant Sands.