The Elephants

 Alex and I finally made it to the elephant conservatory.  It was an absolutely amazing experience!  The conservatory and hospital is one of the only one in the world.  They take care of sick elephants for free.

We spent the day basically feeding, petting and playing with the elephants.

 

 Alex tell's the elephant to be patient and wait for the banana.

 

 

This elephant is 2 years old and was an orphan and has elephant rickets because he didn't get enough calcium since he didn't have any of him mom's milk.  He  really liked sniffing Alex's head.  

 

 This baby is 15 months old and she really wanted to play.  She climbed up on fence and I was afraid she was going to fall onto me.  At one point she almost knocked me over because she was pushing so hard up against me. 

This is the same 15month old that Alex just had a blast playing with. At one point she tried to eat Alex's shirt but Alex was able to eventually pull it back out of her mouth.  We feed her a bunch of banans too.  

 

This is the above baby's mama.  She is 27 years old and really loved the bananas I had. 

 

I am giving a Banana to yet another great elephant.  

 

They did a show with all of the elephants show us how strong they are the thing they can do.  Afterward, school kids feed them all sugar cane and bananas.  Alex got jealous of the  kids and he had to feed the elephants too. 

 

Alex gives a very big elephant a hug!

 

During the "show" the elephants painted for us.  They had a little bit of direction from the trainers as far as brush placement but they made the strokes on their own.  It was actually really amazing!!!

 

Bath time.  It was a lot of fun watching them play in the water.

 

   Bath time.

 I was giving this big boy some trunk loving.

 

 

Little 7 month old baby elephant.