T A B L E_T A L K The ugly American: Share your favorite anecdotes of obnoxious Yanks abroad in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y High on Huautla By Derek Peck Mushrooms are still the best way to travel in this legendary Mexican mountain village (10/05/98) Why I hate B&Bs By Julie Garagliano On the depravities of teddy bears, claw-foot bathtubs, breakfast quiches and shared bonhomie (10/02/98) A desert affair By Tehila Lieberman An eerie and magical encounter in the Sinai (10/01/98) Iowa heartland By Jennifer New The joys and dilemmas of being a traveler from Iowa (09/30/98) An Italian romance: Chapter Two By Laura Fraser The first time, he had helped heal her heartbreak. Could their second fling be as good as the first? (09/29/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		--------------------------An elephant herd teaches a dad and his ---------------------------------teenage daughter a valuable lesson. BY DAVID KRAVITZ | We first saw the lions as our Kenya safari van turned past a dense stand of shrubs. Immediately a polite "Shhhhh" rolled past us and crested against Jessica, my 14-year-old daughter, and her newly found friend, Elise, lounging in the back. Aroused from their teenage "I can't be bothered" stupor, they jumped up in the open-roofed van to get a better view. But their tangled legs wouldn't allow it and they fell back with a groan. "Quiet!" I whispered in my sternest librarian voice. It was a father's compulsive reaction and Jessica's response was equally pre-programmed. "Yeah, yeah," Jessie said as she untied her feet from Elise's. "Hush, you two," my wife, Linda, said. James, our Kenyan guide and driver, raised his fingers to his lips and we all sheepishly acknowledged the stupidity of our family vaudeville routine. In a moment we were close enough to reach out the side windows and almost touch the lion. It was a young male lounging beneath a bushlike tree. Flies flitted across his face and stomach. He was out cold. James clicked his tongue to get our attention, then directed our view to a second young male snoozing beneath a similar tree about 20 yards to our right, diagonally across a small patch of grass. We knew that they had eaten recently. Lions hunt primarily at night, but even during the day, if they are hungry, they are on the prowl. Instead, these two were hiding from the late afternoon heat. After snapping too many pictures, wondering what it would take to wake our nearby lion, and mouthing many times to each other how amazing it was to be here in Kenya so close to wild lions, our attention waned. The kids fell back in their seats. David and Karen, a friendly couple from Houston who were sharing the van, and my wife and I looked to James. "Pictures? OK? Ready?" James quietly inquired. "Yes," we nodded. For a fleeting moment I flashed on how quickly we had become blasé about the once-in-a-lifetime sights that continued to appear before us on this trip -- lions, hippos, cheetahs, elephants. Only days before, a group of us had stood in an open field just 15 feet from towering giraffes; like ambling light poles, they had strolled past us into the trees. And now here we were, almost close enough to touch a lion. It was amazing. There was no other word for it. But then we were slowly rolling ahead, and I joined the kids in their unsaid sense of "OK, that's done, what's next?" Are we that spoiled? I wondered. Are we that jaded? Have we lost the true sense of wonder? It seemed like it. Would the kids even remember this moment? They were already too busy with their portable CD players. After all, the lions were asleep. No growling. No ripping prey limb from limb. Not much of anything, actually. You see more on TV nature shows -- except that these lions were living and breathing, in the flesh, on their home turf. And so were we. We had moved hardly more than 50 feet when we stopped on a bluff overlooking a wide, shallow river. Clearly James knew something we didn't. The sun was filtering through the trees on the opposite bank at a low angle. Crocodiles? I thought. Hippos? No. Elephants. From between the thick trees and shrubs across the river a proud matronly elephant appeared. Her tusks -- maybe six or seven feet long -- were almost glimmering in the sunlight. She looked upriver and down. Then, after what seemed like an all-clear sign, 500 pounds of baby elephant -- her child, we assumed -- pushed through the bush, followed by an older sister. Most elephant herds are matriarchal groups. They consist of a mother and her dependent offspring, including grown daughters and their children. It's a close-knit family. Even when browsing on grass, shrubs or trees, elephants seldom stray more than 50 yards from a sibling or child. Should one herd member become sick or injured, the entire group will remain beside it, often struggling together to get the downed animal to its feet. In fact, too many stories are told of hunters easily killing an entire herd that refused to leave a downed companion. Adult males, on the other hand, mostly wander alone or in pairs. Occasionally they group together. But a male in a herd of females is there for only one reason -- to find a female with which to mate. A moment later four more adults joined the trio at the riverbank, and the shaking of treetops behind them signaled even more. In all 11 elephants eventually lumbered to the water. According to James they ranged in age from about 1 year to around 30. Seven were female. Four were juvenile males, all younger than 12. That's when young males -- adolescents by elephant accounting -- become too troublesome and are forced to leave their mother, sisters and aunts and set out on their own. The juveniles in the herd across the river bumped and splashed each other in the shallow waters. One particularly playful youngster slid between the adults, grabbed a trunkful of water, then retraced his steps to ambush his friend with a forceful spray. Others wove their trunks together as they stood side-by-side or swung them in the river, splashing their neighbors. One matron curled her knees under and awkwardly sat down in the water. A second stepped beside her and carefully looked upriver as if guarding her sister's bath. The 4-foot-tall baby toyed with the water as it stood between its mom and its older relative. Reaching into its mother's mouth, the baby played joyfully. The matriarch, however, was always watchful. She kept her eye on the baby even as she gathered water with her trunk and slid it down her own throat to drink. Elephants are especially protective of their young. This is true despite the fact that only newborn elephants are at much risk from predators, and then only for a few weeks. Still, mothers keep babies within a few feet of them and even a 9-year-old will spend half of its time within five yards of its mother. In fact, if there is a real king of the jungle, it's the elephant. No sane animal, no matter how ferocious, will mess with an adult elephant, which can weigh as much as 14,000 pounds and run as fast as 25 miles per hour. They've got all the numbers on their side. N E X T+P A G E | Elephants vs. lions; teenagers vs. the world