He stopped after a few steps, but I did not run. The day before the ranger had said not to run away but to rather walk away at the right time. He said this after an elephant wanted to charge our Land Rover. One of the ladies who worked the gift shop yelled to me to come into the shop before he decided to come after me. Looking at the giant beast I was forced to agree. The longer he looked the more worried I became. After I walked away he walked over to the lunch area and began to tear down tree limbs and eat the bark. I worked my way over to the lunch area and started shooting pictures again. Some other people started to get a little too curious and he charged them, I shot pictures as they ran past me and fortunately I was safe. He stopped and began to eat again. He eventually pushed down a tree and started to eat it as well. Of course he also deposited a little something extra before rangers shooting shotguns in the air finally drove him off. I , complete with zebra strip hat was then lifted into the air in a chair attached to two poles by the locals shouting “JUNGLE DEVIL”, “JUNGLE DEVIL”. Ok, actually the local rangers commented that I never stopped taking pictures and were laughing that my fellow guests had stumbled over one another to get away from the elephant while I kept taking pictures.
Perhaps of interest to some, my tracker was a local native named Elvis!!! He was 32 and had been tracking since he was 15. He is the best tracker at Ngala. After the elephant incident Elvis must have heard about it because when we went on our evening drive he asked me if I wanted to see the elephants at night. "That would be great!" was my response, and true to his word we saw some elephants that night and they were doing what they almost always do, eat!