Elephants.

Elephants have always made a big impression on me. They are such intelligent, social creatures. If you are not convinced of this already, just sit for an hour and watch elephants interact with each other.

I got the opportunity the other day to do just that. Two of the younger elephants were especially entertaining to watch. While the keepers were busy trying to untangle the parents of one particular youngster, he managed to get into the basket of the keepers motorcycle and steal a chilli pepper. After placing it in his mouth and chewing for a while, the spice kicked in and the poor little elephant just didn't know what to do. He kept reaching into his mouth with his trunk, trying to remove the chilli pepper but to no avail for it had already been chewed and swallowed. This went on for quite some time until the spice finally wore off in his mouth. Of course being a youngster, the opportunity to steal another chilli pepper would not go unanswered, regardless of the fact that he had just learned the hard way of the potency of chili peppers. This time however the keepers spotted him before he was able to procure another chili pepper, and averted him from another unpleasant run in with spice.