Vasco Galante

Stephanie Hanes, for the Pulitzer Center

I exchanged a few emails today with Vasco Galante, the communications director at the park. He has been reading this blog, and wanted to share a story about running into a herd of elephants yesterday... It is still the rainy season at the park, which means it's extra special to see animals - the grasses are very tall and thick, and even elephants can disappear quickly.

(here's his picture of some Gorongosa elephants)

He talks about checking the state of the roads - there is a huge amount of work involved in keep a park's infrastructure up and running.

Here's what he writes:

Yesterday, while checking the state of the safari tracks, we were surprised to find a herd of elephants very close (less than 3 miles) to Chitengo Camp. The group saw us, but didn't panic or act aggressively. (Which we have to say doesn't happen all the time when we meet elephants.)

In addition to the elephants, we saw a couple of black sables and a nice herd of impala.

It was short drive as the roads were in bad condition due to a recent heavy rain. (We expect to open the Park for the 2007 season on the 15th of April, but of course it will depend very much on the amount of rain that we have the next week.)

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If you have any questions for Vasco or anyone else at the park, just let us know.