A whole herd gone silent

Twenty-seven minutes past three in the morning a herd was making noise at a water hole a couple of kilometers from camp. The whole night. I was awake most of it.

We drove to the northwest water hole. Fresh cow and calf tracks everywhere before the turn-off. Our hopes were high.

At the water: one young bull. Cows and calves. Nothing old. We worked the area all morning; no old-bull track anywhere.

South in the afternoon — several old-bull spoors, including a massive print at the big dried-up pan. Two days now of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We still had not seen a single elephant cow or calf since arrival — a strange absence for this country.