I’ve always had a serious travel bug–my favorite sound in the entire world is having my passport stamped– and I have been feeling a little home-bound lately thanks to my darling one year old. This often leads me to daydream about recent adventures, and this image has been my desktop wallpaper for the past week. Today’s photo comes from an amazing trip to a water camp on the Okavanga Delta in the Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana. Baines Camp is constructed entirely out of tin cans and local wood. The camp teams up with a local guy (a Boston transplant actually), who spent several years training elephants at zoos or for movie appearances. Over 20 years ago, he adopted 3 elephants that had been orphaned due to culling operations and settled with them on a farm in Botswana. Because they have been raised by humans since they were babies, we were able to get up close and walk with these truly incredible animals. It can be hard to capture their sheer size on film, but I think this detail shot (not using much of a zoom lens, just framing what was close to me) of Jabu gives an idea of their size and beauty…just look at those eyelashes and the rough detail of his ear. Get out there and explore…Happy Friday!
Jabu, Botswana, 2010