Day 11

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Majestic scenery in the dusk, darkening paths and the quiet of the night can leave you with a sense of serenity and solitude and so it is perhaps understandable that Pam thought she and I were quite alone on the walk down from the bar to our room last night. It was only at breakfast this morning that Pam found out the awful truth.

"Pam, I'd like to say that, as you know, I work late on the bikes outside and so I get to hear things that happen when others think they are alone. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?" said John at breakfast. It took a full three seconds for Pam to realise with horror that he was referring to her new found "musical" abilities with her wind instrument that made us giggle like teenagers on the way back to the room the previous evening. Another illusion shattered perhaps, but Pam was surely now a fully fledged member of the biker babe sorority.



We leave the lodge around 8:00AM because we have an afternoon activity planned at the next stop. We're headed for the Etosha Game Reserve, so we'll be off for a game drive not long after we arrive. Bloody chilly again (according to my internalised version of African temperatures).



Namibia has very straight roads. Not unusual to go 40Kms or more to a slight bend or two, followed by a longer straight than before. Today is mainly about getting there and there is not too much to see along the way, as the bush closes in quite close to the road restricting the view on each side. From 3:30 onwards, the animals tend to start moving around, so you have to watch out for the odd leaping antelope or wandering cow. Mostly on gravel again, but we arrive at the very nice Makuti Lodge around 1:00PM.



We grab a burger and a quick dip before mounting up onto open trucks for the game drive. We trundle off to a couple of watering holes to catch the animals coming back for their evening tank-up.



We take plenty of pics of the animals, but somehow the setting was not that inspiring. It was, however, our first brush with rhino, elephants and giraffe and we enjoyed getting as close as we did.

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