Seeing elephants was Elodie Peyronnet’s childhood dream.
Now a veterinarian, she turned it into reality with Etendues Sauvages, on a journey to Zimbabwe. And she wasn’t disappointed.
“There, I fell in love with these enormous creatures, so delicate, so serene. Their presence left me stunned,” she recounts. The first face-to-face encounter took place on Lake Kariba. “We had just arrived from France, with my husband and children. Dazed and fairly stressed after a 24-hour journey. Our lodge was incredible, in the middle of nowhere, the sun was setting. Suddenly, they arrived. So calm that they calmed me down too,” Elodie recalls.
Breakfast with the elephant… and the rhino
Since Lake Kariba, encounters with these pachyderms have been numerous. And each time, the same surprise.
How do these giants manage to be so delicate? How do these enormous masses approach without a sound, while we, clumsy bipeds, make such a racket moving through the bush with our sixty kilos?
“I remember a breakfast at Mana Pools, with my daughter. We were alone at the lodge, everyone else had gone out on safari. Under the acacias, I suddenly saw an elephant in the distance. He came toward us without a sound, and we stood still. He passed just a few meters from me, keeping an eye on me as he searched for fruit fallen from the marula tree. He was having his breakfast, just like us. I could have touched him!”
Elephants aren’t the only ones joining Elodie for breakfast. Rhinos do too. As at Lake Kariba, where “a rhino simply rested its head on the table”.
The giraffe’s gift
Of course, these shared meals could only touch the heart of a veterinarian. But other moments moved her just as deeply. Elodie recalls a pride of lions encountered on a walking safari, also in Zimbabwe. They were fifty meters away. And even though they looked like big house cats as they stretched, “we weren’t exactly in the mood to show off”.
Other memorable encounters took place in Tanzania. One day, Elodie and her family found themselves face to face with a giraffe, calmly standing in the middle of the road, with no intention whatsoever of moving to let the 4×4 pass. Time seemed to stand still. A minute or an hour? Impossible to say how long the scene lasted. “It was magical. A gift from the giraffe”—the vet’s words are simple, and quite lovely.
Moments of grace with the tigers
Elodie loves sharing all these emotions with her family. Her husband dreams of seeing tigers? No sooner said than done—the family sets off again, this time to India, once more with Etendues Sauvages.
“There, we had the chance to share incredible moments of grace, alone with the tigers, thanks to absolutely remarkable guides and drivers,” recounts Rémi, Elodie’s husband.
As for the children, it’s a safe bet that these journeys through Africa and India will stay with them for life. Noémie and Maxime talk about them often. Stories of hippos and crocodiles on the Zambezi, descriptions of elephants standing on their hind legs to reach fruit in the trees—these fill their conversations, and leave their classmates daydreaming!
Who knows? Perhaps a calling to veterinary medicine is also taking shape, somewhere along these journeys.
Conversation with Karine Welter, for experience Magazine #07, March 2017.
