Lunch with the elephants was amazing! I am glad we ate first though... it's messy feeding them and they started going after our leftovers pulling fruit right from the bowl with their trunk. (They got a reprimand for that.) So I was the first volunteer to feed Sam. First he sucked the pellets from my hand which felt like a very powerful Hoover vacuum. Then Sam wanted me to pour the pellets into his trunk for which he kept sucking them in his trunk to make room for more - quite greedy. They do need to eat a lot!

Then Sam was instructed to lift his trunk over it's head to allow me to hand feed the pellets into his mouth. At first I just put it at the edge and most of the pellets fell out of his mouth. (Notice Sam's "get on with it" look as if saying will you learn to feed me right?) The trainer told me to put it way into the back of his mouth and feel the smooth tongue. It was smooth alright and slimy! But way cool!!!

So let me show you my husband feeding him in his mouth at the side angle to get a feel of how far you actually go in. It's quite scary to be that close to an animal so large. When they first walked up, as he got close to me, I immediately backed away - very intimidating.

So while we spoke to the trainer, I had to ask about the jewelry that is made from the elephant hair. I have a bracelet with a strand of elephant hair in it. A friend from work had said that elephants have no hair and that it came from his butt... that I have an elephant butt hair bracelet. Well I got close enough to the elephant to see he had hair on this tail and chin whiskers (many of them). So Damien, no longer do I wear an elephant butt hair bracelet!

So the two elephants we met were actually in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" where they get drunk off the amarula berries, which makes a great liquor by the way!