Wow! What a photo op day we had. I have too many photos to post and I have to start eliminating some as they take so long to download. We started off with a tour of the city of Port Elizabeth and my first impression was this is not a pretty city and this city is what I thought Cape Town would look like. Sprawling. The only pic I chose for this part of the tour is the truck delivering coke machines to the new stadium being built for the 2011 World Cup. The stadium is big but not very impressive and I eliminated that pic.

We were then on our way to the Addo Elephant Park and arrived early so we took one of the loops with a watering hole before lunch. We saw warthogs, kudu, ostrich and a jackal but no elephants and I was beginning to get a little pessimistic about our chances. So I decided to at least take a photo of the watering hole and to prove to you there are elephants here I took this photo of the dung.

The elephant dung is very important and vehicles are asked to not run over the dung. The Dung Beetle takes a portion of the dung, digs a hole near a bush, puts the dung in the hole, then lays her eggs. The babies get their nourishment from the dung. The Dung Beetle is endangered but my goodness, I saw enough dung to handle a billion of those little guys. By the way they are not so little. I saw one and he or she was larger than a quarter.

Now I know this site is family friendly and I do not want to get into graphic descriptions but this photo tells all about the birds and bees. These tortoises were oblivious to their audience.

We then had a simple barbecue lunch which was quite good and I found an exquisite necklace and earring set which I could not say no to, and then we were on our way to another watering hole with much anticipation. You could feel it in the air and then it happened. ELEPHANT at 3:00. He went to the watering hole, drank and then splashed mud all over his head and back. This is to cool himself and to seal any wounds he may have so infections will not take hold.

We proceeded on seeing many kudu and hartebeest, ostrich, warthogs, birds, jackals and elephants. Then we saw this big guy walking along the road to a watering hole. He was magnificent and still handsome as he didn’t seem to be that old. Of course, I never have been good at guessing the age of an elephant. Now how can I say this as not to seem pornographic but his fifth leg was showing and he was leaving his scent to be followed by some sweetie. AND, she came on a run. This hussy was very cozy to him and I got this magnificent photo and many more. Notice the difference in coloring between the male and female. For those of you city folk the male is the one with the tusks.

We were not fortunate in seeing lion, live cape buffalo, leopards, or rhinoceros but did spot this dead carcass of a cape buffalo who apparently died of natural causes since there were no signs of slaughter.

There are actually nine photos I want to post and I will start with the must sees and end with the others so if nine do not post then it will be the extras of various animals mentioned.