Giant African elephant stops by for a drink as people frolic in swimming pool
There’s nothing like a refreshing dip in a pool when the weather gets warm. That goes for humans and animals.
In a video filmed at the Elephant Sands bush lodge located in Botswana, a family got one heck of a pool crasher back in 2010. Since the footage was uploaded it’s been viewed over 18.3 million times!
That’s probably because the party crasher was a giant African elephant – and there were swimmers in the pool at the time!
The short clip was uploaded by Kerry Dunne, whose YouTube channel is full of travel and nature videos. And it appears she was either in the video or the one taking it since her caption is written firsthand:
“Best chicken fight partner ever. And at least he was polite enough to not knock over the beer. PS, this wasn’t zoomed it, this was actual distance,” she wrote.
Luckily, the elephant doesn’t want the pool to itself. It merely stopped by for a nice, refreshing drink.
And don’t worry, the lodge has confirmed the water in the pool is not chlorinated and completely safe for the elephant to ingest. That makes us think this isn’t their first visit from one of the native locals (the facility is called Elephant Sands, after all).
Seeing the presumptuous pachyderm sidle up to the pool makes us wonder just what we would do if we were the ones behind the camera. And once the person recording changes the angle, you can see what there are actually people IN the pool at the time!
Luckily, the majestic creature wasn’t interested in a swim. Still, sitting in the water while such an enormous creature helps itself to your leisure vacation amenities might be rather frightening. Frankly, we don’t know if it’s better to get out of the pool at that point or just stay still.
But since the motto of Elephant Sands is “Where Elephants Rule…” we know the staff probably isn’t coming out to shoo the animal away.
At first, it looks like the elephant might be thinking about taking a drink of the beer in the can next to the pool. But after sniffing it out, it’s clearly rejecting that option.
The most intimidating moment comes when the huge creature just stares at the people in the pool. What’s the right reaction here?
Perhaps the animal is just annoyed that there’s no room for it because it settles for dipping its long trunk into the water and taking a huge sip.
But elephants aren’t very elegant drinkers and quite a bit of water dribbles out as well.
Now, the facility does boast its own “watering hole” which appears to be a natural body of water where guests can “watch these impressive creatures whilst they drink at only a couple of meters away from you…” But they make no mention of sharing the pool as well.
Maybe you have to pay extra for that.
It was undoubtedly a moment to remember for anyone swimming at the time. But just as quickly as the elephant trundles up to the pool, it walks away again after its thirst-quenching.
After that, the swimmers and onlookers can only marvel at what they just witnessed.
Be sure to scroll down below to catch the short clip.
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Source: Elephant Sands, Kerry Dunne via YouTube