Page 20 - 2017 ZAMBIA

surprise here was that elephants wandered in and out of the property

at will. Often we were not allowed to come and go to our cabins
because elephants were dining too close to the trails to the cabins. They

would either delay our departure from the cabins or send an armed
guard to accompany us. Once Kay and I started out to the meeting place

and had to make tracks to an empty range rover because three
elephants unexpectedly came through the forest heading right in our
direction. But we were to have more exciting elephant encounters here

as well.

There was a French group at Chongwe while we were in residence and
that's when we discovered how nice the private dining area between

Jim & Lawrence's suites would be. The French did not really want to be
with us for meals nor we with them. So this was perfect. We had our

own servers and there was a separate kitchen right across the trail from
our dining area. We really enjoyed this aspect of Chongwe.

Of course, that did not mean
that we would not have visitors

anyway—ones that spoke
neither English nor French. Our

guests were the magnificently
huge elephants who did not

mind crashing the party at all.
One evening we gathered for
our dinner and found that Jim

was "trapped" in his suite
because one of the "crashers"

was dining on fruits and seeds
that had fallen on the roof of

his abode from an overhanging
tree! The elephant was

standing just outside the dining