It is afternoon and we are heading towards the end of another wonderful day. Hours spent in the car, experiencing African nature at its best, though with slightly fewer sightings than the day before. The African sun is intense above our heads, but the pop-up roof provides perfect shade, and I have started to acclimatize to the constant shaking from the mud road. There are no other cars in sight, and for a moment it feels like we are completely alone in the bush. No horizon in sight either - just endless grasslands and some acacias scattered around. 

A brief feeling of tiredness has sneaked up on me after a very early morning. I feel a mild sunburn on my right hand, the camera hand, and my mind has discreetly started to wander to the thought of a shower and a warm meal in the dining tent. 

We spot an elephant family in the distance and change course towards them. The large grey masses move slowly but silently across the savanna. They bring to mind something extinct, something prehistoric. Maybe it would have been a little like this to witness the dinosaurs roaming the savanna 60 million years ago.

It is a big family, spread over a large area. From a distance they look like small grey islands in a sea of green and yellow. Just floating through the grass. We stop the car in the middle of the herd and stand there for quite a while, no camera, no hurry - just watching them. It is the perfect image of peace. The shower is not that important anymore. 

The giants do not seem to mind us. They are mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, teenagers and babies. They walk, eat and play. To us, that seems like all they do. Walking, eating and playing. But the reality is far deeper. They are also communicating, observing, learning, teaching, protecting, correcting. They are raising their young ones and conveying generations of accumulated wisdom and survival skills to those who will follow.

And then, there is the silence. The lack of noise.

A large group of animals the size of trucks is walking around just meters away from you, yet, aside from the distant background of birdsong, insects and a gentle breeze swooshing through the grass, the only sound you can hear is the soft rhytm of them chewing the grass. Not their massive footsteps, not their weight against the ground - just the steady, peaceful sound of chewing.