‘You want to see Craig?’ asked Simon, our guide, stone-deadpan.
‘Why would I want to meet a dude called Craig?’ asked John (not his real name). Simon looked at me, like I was obviously an idiot. Not far off.
‘Craig,’ I explained, ‘is that giant tusked elephant festooning the lodge walls.’
‘Oooooh!’ said Kathryn, aged in her mid 60s, ‘Yes please, I want to see him. Where does he live?’ I paused to look up at the cloud-covered slopes of Kilimanjaro.
‘Well, Kathryn, we are in the middle of the greater Amboseli conservation area…Craig’s address is…how to put this…somewhat inexact.’
‘Oh,’ disappointed.
I gathered the six guests and explained that Craig had wandered out of the national park and into the Maasai land to the south for some peace and quiet. Faces dropped.
‘No no,’ I explained, ‘this is good. We can go and see him there – Simon knows a guy with a motorbike.’
‘A motorbike?’ Sarah was confused.
A little while later, Simon had somehow managed to connect with George – way south of the national park – garbed in Masai shukas, gumboots on feet, phone attached to left ear. George’s decrepit Chinese motorcycle was buzzing through the roadless scrub, our Land Cruiser in hot pursuit. Kilimanjaro loomed in the background, the ice cap twinkling in the morning sun. After 30 minutes, a thousand bumps and not a few scratches, George began gesticulating. His motorcycle veered alarmingly into a bush, but he emerged the other side, enthusiasm undaunted. We came round a thorny tree and there he was…Craig.
Before I describe this animal, his name comes from his membership of the C research group. You can find out more from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants.
Normally when you see an elephant of any kind, you watch from a safe distance. Craig, aged 52, is unique in many ways. Not only does he possess the biggest tusks I have ever seen, he is also the most tolerant elephant bull I’ve met. As Simon stopped the vehicle, George prevailed upon us to get out of the car – Craig was around 50 metres away, browsing on some sort of tasty herb.
Now, to suggest that my group of six consisted of athletes in their prime, would be a stretch…it’s all very well viewing an elephant on foot, but it is advisable to be able to execute a fast getaway should the pachyderm become irritated. A rapid evacuation with my crew would have been impossible – it would have been much more a slow stagger and fall.
Under George’s guidance, we lined up like skittles in front of the great bull. He fed in profile for a few minutes, and then turned his massive head, bringing his astounding set of ivory to bear. It was a heart-stopping, spine-tingling moment. He breathed out loudly and started walking - straight towards us. I looked at George, assuming he’d order a retreat so that my guests could take the requisite time (a lot) to climb back onto the vehicle. George picked his teeth unconcernedly with an acacia thorn.
Craig came on. He scuffed some sand, sucked it into his trunk and then blew it out loudly in a giant cloud that enveloped his enormous head. When he was just 15 metres from us, and still walking, George mumbled,
‘You move, you move, back to car.'
This precipitated a flurry of activity and very little actual movement.
The guests, slack-jawed, covered in dust, tears on some of their cheeks, shuffled back to the Land Cruiser. Three had made it to their seats when the gigantic animal loomed up and over us. He paused briefly as no-one breathed and then ambled past the vehicle - on his way back to verdant Amboseli.
Meeting an elephant like this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Just to see him would have been astounding. To stand in front of him, to be accepted into his awesome ambit was to touch the heart of wilderness - a life changing encounter, never to be forgotten.
