Cheetahs!

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We left Etosha in the morning for Cheetah Park (Otjitotongwe). Lots of places cheetahs are a big pain for farmers because they kill their animals so the farmers shoot them. This place takes the cheetahs so that they don't get shot. They live in a pretty large fenced-in area and are fed in the evenings, but they're still pretty wild. They also have a couple that are really tame that live with the family (orphans or injured) and we got to pet them. So we saw a bunch of cheetahs! It wasn't the same as seeing them in the complete wild of course, but it was still pretty cool. They're pretty big! Especially compared to the leopard we saw! We got to see them being fed. They didn't really fight over the meat because they knew that they would all get a piece eventually. They have red eyes...cool but kind of creepy almost...and whenever a new one showed up the others would almost fight him/challenge him, but then they would relax and let him join the group. The family also has a orphaned giraffe that they saved. It sucked on our thumbs...and interesting experience...very weird feeling.

After Cheetah Park we entered the Namib Desert. Before the landscape was deserty, but just dry desert: small bushes/trees, hard-packed sand. In the Namib Desert there are actual sand dunes. And it's right by the coast. We went off-road on the way there to make it more exciting. We were basically just driving on hard-packed sand. All the roads were dirt roads, but these were hardly even tracks. They looked like the kinds of roads that you might take a jeep on but we were going on them in our massive truck. We had a stop-off in the Brandberg Mountains. And when I say mountains they were actually more like hills. Some places almost looked like the Red Rocks in Nevada. We went on a 2-hour walk to look at some cave paintings from around 5000 BC (supposedly). The White Lady painting is supposedly world-famous. It was neat to see the changing landscape: hard-packed desert to rocky "mountains" to coastline to grasslands to sand dunes all in the same day. The desert areas that we've been in have been completely flat. You can see basically forever. We have been able to see it raining in multiple different places in the distance and we have seen tons of electrical storms without getting wet! The mountains were nice to break up the landscape a little bit. We stopped at the beach right before we reached our bush camp. The air was actually quite cold but a couple of us went wave jumping anyway and ended up getting wet basically up to our waists (Dena, Sarah, Chandy, Toni, and I). Then we had a night of bush camping. It was my favorite bush camp so far after the Delta. We were right in amongst the sand dunes and we couldn't see the road so it felt like we were right in the middle of the desert. Pretty cold though; we drank lots of hot chocolate and kept the fire built up.
In the morning, Chandy, Sarah, and I walked up the sand dunes for the sunrise. They were pretty tall dunes but it only took us 10 minutes so we were there early. And then it was just completely cloudy so there was no sunrise to speak of. So we went back to bed. We have a sunrise crew consisting of Chandy, myself, sometimes Sarah, and sometimes Will. When in Africa might as well try to see the sunrises and sunsets! We usually have to wake up early anyway.

The next morning (November 23) we stopped at a seal colony. The seals were EVERYWHERE! I've seen a lot of seals in various countries, but this, I think, was the most I've ever seen! Literally thousands of them! And it's baby time! There were tons of new born babies! We even saw one giving birth! There were some dead ones though too and some who looked like their mothers had abandoned them (they may have just been finding food though...). Then to Swakopmund!

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Photos

Brandberg Mountains
Left to Right: Back Row: Randy, me, Toni, Chandy, Craig In the Front: Sarah, Andy