For tonight I decided to splurge and stay at an elephant park with a great cause. I booked the accommodation months ago so I was super excited to spend the night there and get to interact with elephants!

The knysna elephant park was created in order to help those elephants struggling in the knysna Forrest, all of them are rescued orphans or attacked elephants. All the elephants at the park are unable to live in the wild and if they weren't at the park they wouldn't be alive! Everybody working at the park has a passion for animals and they make sure they are well taken care of. All elephants are trained to be around humans and can be touched and fed!

Of course I had to ask them how they train the elephants is a humane way... The answer: POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT!!! Jajaja just like "training" a kid!!!

I got to the park at 3:45 and by 4 I was already "playing" with the animals... We went for a walk and then put them in their "cage" at night.  They are on their cage from 5pm to 7am everyday and their behavior during the night is monitored by volunteers. Watching the volunteers work and gather data was fascinating! They sleep in cages because they are hard to control at night and could easily walk past the fence! 

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

One of my very favorites, just because I look totally ridiculous... I even got a double-triple chin! Jajaja I was wearing flip flops and the elephant touched my feet with his trunk.. Which was very spiky and ticklish!!!

Elephants eat 18 hours a day so from 5pm until 9pm (when they turn off the light) they are being fed good branches and leaves.

The hotel has an amazing lounge overlooking the elephant cages. For hours I got to write and look at the "ellies." It was fascinating to see them eat! At 9pm they turned off the regular lights and for about 5 mins it was dark and then a red light came off. It was amazing to see the animals lay down and go to sleep :-) 

I loved it!

The next day I was up bright and early to see the elephants get out of their cages and take my morning ride on an elephant!

Riding was super scary! I held tightly to the guy!! And it was amazing... Not holding the guy, but the ride!!!! Many times I said to myself "oh my god! Oh my god" and squinted... It had been raining all night and the guy kept saying "it's very slippery, we need to becareful the elephant doesn't slide down"... Way to keep me calm dude!!!

There we go