I ride on an Elephant!!! I could do it every year in the Orange County Fair, during Summer, but for one reason or another this is my first time. I was so happy!!! Let me explain:

Detema and Laduma were the name of the elephants we meet and took a ride in a very large preservation reserve. The elephants were so beautiful and the difference between the African Elephants and the Indian Elephants is the size of the ears and that they are bigger. We went early in the morning to meet them, and after a long roaming we fed them and pampered them; they were so nice! Our guides Benjamine and Heritage gave us the paw print of the elephants after our ride; they also explained us a lot of facts about the animals. We needed to be quiet and careful to watch our steps ore where to put our legs if we didn’t want them to be crushed!… We saw the sun of the early morning; it was so fresh and beautiful. We saw Pumbas running all around us they were so funny and playful. African elephants are very intelligent. They have like humans, apes and some kind of dolphins a highly convoluted neocortex. The mass of their brain is larger than any other land animal. The structure and complexity of their brain is similar to the human’s brain with the same amount of neurons too.

They go in large groups to the Victoria Falls to look for plants that only grow in that region. They learn, grief, have humor and altruism, use tools, are compassionate and cooperative. They have self-awareness and memory. I would say excellent memory!!! They do art!! Some time ago I saw some elephants painting with a brush their own image on a video in the internet, so, if that was mimicry is also pretty outstanding, but, you can see them dancing in a circus. They are absolutely adorable and they were one of the big fives that we saw in this unforgettable trip to Africa.

You see, I am not the only one who traveled to Africa… There are people travelling there and doing business meetings in the cities in the Northern part, like Erik Schmidt that is one of the richest persons in the world. The three things he concluded about his trip, and I quote, were these; “

a) The despotic leadership in Africa from the 1970s and 1980 is in decline, replaced by younger and more democratic leaders
b) a huge youth demographic boom is underway, with a majority of the population of 25, or even under 20
c) mobile phones are everywhere, and the Internet in Africa will be primarily a mobile one…”

I totally agree with the mobile phones statement, and I shall say that it is amazing how useful and practical is the cell phone to everybody over there, they were using it all the time to know how the preserve was behaving, to help each other to get ready the transportation, the food, and to take care of the animals.  In such larger spaces they need to cover distance and knowledge of this part of the world with precision and effectiveness. And they did it!!
Erik Schmidt also did a super interesting analysis of his vision of the sub-Saharan region which you can find in his writings in Google+.

Now we are in February!! So many things have happened, like a super flash trip to Mexico that I will tell you in my next blog before I return to the writings about Africa; and also, we are celebrating the Chinese New Year that around the area where I live is a huge, celebration!!! Ahh!!! Without letting behind our next Valentine’s Day, our recent Super Bowl or the tomorrow’s Grammy Awards so delightful!!! Until next… 😀 ♥ !