A Magical New Experience at The Wallow

We recently had the pleasure of attending a brand new Victoria Falls activity - the new Art of Africa workshop at The Wallow. The Elephant Wallow is where the Wild Horizons elephants are kept, and elephant interactions are conducted.

The activity started with being collected at 11h30 and after being transferred in a luxury bus from town, we arrived at the Elephant Wallow on the Wild Horizons Private Game Reserve. We were met by friendly faces with welcome drinks and given a short introduction to the Wallow and the elephant program they run from there with their orphaned elephants.

Once this was completed we were given a chance to interact and meet the elephants and their handlers. The deck that we were on gave us an elevated view of the elephants whilst their heads and trunks are right at your feet – but in a very safe environment. Once the photos and the meeting of the elephants was done, we moved to where we were able to feed them again safely behind a protection barrier. It’s all about the food with these guys – and they even do tricks with their trunks to receive the handful of pellets into either their trunk or mouth direct. The close up view of their tongues and inside of their mouth is incredible. Once we had finished enjoying this very special time with the elephants we moved over to the art workshop.

Set under a tree within metres of the mud wallow were our easels and chairs ready for us. Everything is provided including aprons, paint pallets (shaped like Africa) small paint brushes and of course paper. This particular workshop was working with “Finger Painting’ which in itself was unique and a lot of fun. KK the leading artist was in front of the group and gave some good advice on how to start with the skyline etc., moving through the background to eventually the elephants – who were by now in the mud wallow giving us an incredible display and having as much fun as we were painting them only metres away. KK and Tich his assistance seemed to do magic with the colours and were always there for advice and to give a much needed splash of colour to your painting should you want.

Both Stacey and I have not done much art before and both of us enjoyed getting stuck in to the paint with our fingers giving a feeling of complete freedom and creativity. KK was worried that the elephants would not hang around the mud long enough for us to paint them but somehow they seemed to know and a feeling of complete calm and magic between the artists and subject incurred.

It was interesting to see the different pictures that were created – some of them better than others but on a whole, everyone seemed pleased with their final pieces, which were given to take home with us.
After the Art Workshop we moved back to the Wallow to enjoy a glorious two course lunch with a beautiful view – a great way to spend 3 hours of your holiday. We were back in town around about 14h00 and we both agreed that this as a lunch time activity is great as not many other activities take place around this time.