Elephants in the Zoo

We just returned from the Cologne Zoo, which is currently still collecting money for the new Elephant park. Based on what you can already see it will be magnificent. The weather outside is beautiful at the moment and we had a wonderful time. Some of the pictures I wanted to share here, are from the washing of the elephants and some turned out quite nice.

There were two elephants there at the time and they had clear different preferences. The older one liked going into the water (but was old enough to know that she could wait for apples to be thrown in by the guards ;)) and the younger one liked to be washed.

The younger one sat there silently, while the older one was getting very close, eating some grass and flowers.

Then they finished off by turning themselves around to have the water on them just the right way. You could see they were enjoying themselves.

The older one, 56 years old (oldest one in Europe, 40 is what they get on average in the wild), could even wash herself all on her own!