ELEPHANTS!!!!

FINALLY. The day I had been waiting for since birth (just kidding, since about maybe like two years ago when I found out you could swim with elephants) is finally upon us! I GET TO SWIM WITH THE ELEPHANTS TODAY YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAY

I was extremely tired when I woke up, but I dismissed my tiredness because I was too excited for the elephants. Elephants are definitely my favorite animal, especially now. I quickly got my stuff together and headed downstairs to wait to get picked up. I was a little concerned with checkout because checkout was noon and I wasn't 100% sure I'd make it back in time, but there was no one at the desk so I literally couldn't check out even if I wanted to. Eventually, some lady came up to me and said that the driver called and wouldn't get there until 7:15 (he was supposed to show up at 6:30) so I was to go back to my room and she would call when he got there. So I did. This made me a bit more nervous about the checkout time but I just let it go because I was going to the elephants.

When we got there, the rest of the group had already started washing the elephant because we were late. I waited my turn and then I got to wash the elephant too!
Okay, to be honest, I mostly just posed for pictures with the hose and brush instead of actually washing the elephant, but she had just been washed by like 10 other people so she was totally clean enough.
The elephants were a lot smaller than I thought they'd be. They're Sumatra elephants, which I guess is why they're so small. I feel like at our zoos we mostly have African elephants, which are much much larger and I think much less hairy. But these were a good size because they were very cuddly.
The Elephant Safari Park has like 31 or 51 elephants that were rescued from being killed and there are some young ones also that were born at the park. They're adorbs.
After washing them, we went to the lake where we got to swim with them! Yay!
There were only 4 elephants in the lake so I had to wait my turn. They were very photogenic for the people before me and they came up with good pictures. Then when it was my turn they were tired and didn't do lots of fun poses and such, but it was okay because I had lots of pictures anyways and I still got to play in the water with them.
Also beforehand I was rocking my elephant romper from The Elephant Pants and during the lake time I had on my Maryland flag bottoms. Afterwards I wasn't sure whether I wanted to wear my Safari dress or put my romper back on, and I ended up putting my romper back on because it had elephants on it and I was at an elephant park.
Anyways, the elephant trainer said I had really good balance and asked me if I rode horses. :) The last time I rode horses was probably in middle school on Tanya's horses, but hey apparently I have good balance because of it. So that's cool. Standing on elephants is much easier than surfing was the past week. It was fun. It was kinda like back walking on a person except the person was an elephant and it didn't make me feel super uncomfortable because of the bones. Like you could still feel the bones but it wasn't as nasty.
Once I got out of the lake, I went over to another elephant to get more pictures because Gigi (the elephant I was in the lake with) wasn't being very photogenic. But then she got super jealous and came back over to me and wrapped me in her trunk :) It was lovely. A real proper elephant hug. :)
& look at that smile; I never saw a happier elephant.
I don't understand why she couldn't be so loving and photogenic in the water, but better late than never, right?
So then after that I was taken to the showers then to breakfast. At breakfast, I meat Nikki and her boyfriend and his mom. They felt bad because I was all by myself so they invited me to sit with them so I didn't have to be alone. After breakfast we looked around the gift shop for a bit before we realized we could go get our elephant safari ride now. Then we headed down to get in line.
Okay. So everyone that hates people that rides elephants and goes to SeaWorld, I do NOT want to hear about how riding elephants is bad. NO. YOUR STUPID OPINIONS ARE BAD. (Well, okay, no, bc freedom of expression, but forreal if you're gonna judge and criticize me for riding elephants and liking SeaWorld, you can seriously just leave me and my blog and the beautiful elephants and whales alone, okay. bye.)
Okay so these so called elephants rights activists (I totally made that up, idk what they call themselves) that hate places like the Elephant Safari Park and SeaWorld are seriously just ignorant to what actually happens in places like these and just assumes the worse based on false premises and bad situations.

Yes, the elephants are tied up. They're like 3 ton creatures. They do spook. Imagine something scaring them and them taking off; they would literally unintentionally destroy everything in their path. How are they kept in place? By a chain attached to the ground and one ankle cuff. They are held to the ground by ONE ANKLE that can move around as much as it wants within the length of the chain. Literally dogs on runners sometimes have less freedoms. There is absolutely nothing harming the elephant by having them chained up how they are. Horses, cows, and probably many other animals that all you dumb elephant activist have no problems with are most definitely treated a lot worse in some instances.

Ladies carrying buckets on their heads.

Okay, now to the part that's really gonna anger ya, ya dumb so-called elephant lover. The actual riding of the elephant.
So clearly I rode bareback into the lake during the swim with them. I was also on her neck instead of her actual back (except when I was standing on her). This is fine by most of you. That's all fine, well, and good. It's the actual seat on the back that you don't like.
Okay. So. You claim you don't agree with it because it's bad for the elephant. I don't know the elephant and their back situations, so I'm not necessarily going to disagree with that. But have you seen how they treat their humans? (Not the elephants, the other humans.) They literally carry stuff on their heads. I guarantee you this is not good for the humans. It pushes your head down into your neck down into your spine, literally damaging your spine and also making you shorter. It is not healthy. How can you yell at them for making their elephants carry things on their back when the humans must carry things on their head in a similar fashion? It's just the way of life there, so how can you say it's wrong for the animal but right for the human? I don't understand. Also if you take into consideration the weight difference, I'm sure compared to their body weights, the human is carrying a much larger percentage of body weight on her head than the elephant is on his/her back. Therefore it would be much less damaging to the elephant. So why are you so concerned with the elephant being hurt from carrying stuff on their backs than the humans from carrying stuff on their heads? Your crazy activism makes no sense to me.

You can see the elephant's hips.
Nothing on them. Nothing hurting them.

Second, you claim it "breaks their shoulders". No. Well, maybe other elephant riding places do, but not the Elephant Safari Park. See, that's another thing, you cannot place all elephant ride providers in the same bucket and cast hate and disapproval of all of them when there are probably a million different ways people set up rides on elephants. We were not on the elephant's shoulders. We were not on the elephant's hips. We were in the center of their back. Haven't you ever given someone a piggy back ride? That's essentially what the elephant was doing for us.

You can see the elephant's shoulders.
Nothing on them. Nothing hurting them. 

If someone is sitting directly in the middle of your back, or you're wearing a backpack, does it hurt? No. So how can you say that even though it doesn't hurt on humans it hurts the elephant, a much stronger and more able creature? Yes, I understand that elephants and humans are very different and shouldn't be compared as if they were the same, but think about it. Logically it makes sense. 

an elephant handler beginning to put some padding on the elephant,
preparing him/her for the elephant ride.

Even if the mid back would hurt, there is so much padding that goes onto the elephant's back before the seat gets placed on top. SO much padding. With all that padding, I doubt they could feel a piano fall on them (okay so that's definitely an exaggeration, but there's seriously a lot of padding that goes on before the seat).
Then there's the actual seat. It's super minimalistic and probably weighs half of what I weigh. The seat itself probably feels like a piece of paper on their back. Like it's nothing.
So if you want to yell at me for riding an elephant, just know that I will completely ignore you. Yes, I understand that some places probably do actually treat their elephants horribly and do break their elephants. But being a creature born with the ability to reason and think logically, you should realize that there's always a few bad apples in the pack and they're not all like that. #ELEPHANTLIVESMATTER but so do #ELEPHANTRIDESMATTER
The elephant ride was the longest part of my time with the elephants, and the part that got the least amount of pictures. It's actually quite difficult to selfie with the elephant when you're on top of him lol. Thankfully, when we walked back in and around the lake, one of the park workers took my picture (featuring Nikki, her boyfriend, and his mom).
During one part of the ride, we went one way while the other elephants went another way. After the ride, Nikki's boyfriend (sorry idk his name lol) said that it was because our elephant was male and the rest were females and it was mating season so ours had to go the other way to get around the ones coming towards us. Interesting. Not sure if it's true or not but it kinda makes sense lol.
After the elephant ride was an elephant talent show! It was really quick because they're elephants. Although they have lots of talents and can preform many things for us, it would get boring to watch them kick goals and dunk baskets over and over. My favorite was the harmonica playing elephant. It was beautiful haha. They also hula hooped and completed math problems. The equation said 3+3 and two kids held up numbers, 6 and 7. The elephant then picked 6 and put it next to the equation.
Before the talent show but after the ride, I fed some elephants and got more pictures with them. The one elephant kept hugging me with her trunk (I wonder if it was Gigi again). She was wet because she just came out of the lake, and I left the picture part wetter than when I went swimming with them. But its okay because it was fun and they were cute.
The people before me kept getting the elephant to play with the flower ring with them, so I tried that but this elephant didn't want to play with it. The people before me had a different elephant who was replaced by the wet one. But that's okay, I just put the flower wreath on her head like a tiara, which you can see in the second picture of the post. I could cuddle the elephants all day. They're so friendly and nice and cute and smart. They remind me of my beloved doggie that I'm only like 30,000 days away from seeing again, give or take God's plan.
Until then, maybe I'll get myself a pet elephant. Any Caribbean islands where you can legally have a pet elephant?

Until next time,
xoxo,
Tasha