Namibia - Etosha National Park & Cheetah Farm

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Hi everyone
its me once again from beautiful Namibia. Our first stop in Namibia was Etosha National Park, an immense salt pan full of wildlife. The temperatures in Namibia are an absolute killer. We had three days of gamedriving, nearly all of it happened in the early morning and just before dusk as it gets unbearable during the day. The amount of game we saw wasn't too impressive, but strangely enough we saw an immense number of lions! The cats are usually hardest to spot, but everytime we left the gates of the camp sites to check out the waterholes which are spread all over the park, they were flooded with cats! We nearly saw a kill happening, but the lions were young and unexperienced, so the antelopes saw them coming from miles.
I had a good time in the park, though i have to say i'm past the hippowatching at this stage, and i much more enjoyed lazing by the side of the pool in the beautiful campsites. Most of the camps also have floodlit waterholes, where you can watch elephants and rhinos pretty close up in the dark. Definitely worth a visit, I am just spoilt already with the amount of wildlife i've seen before 😊.
From Etosha, we headed further west towards the Cheetah Park. As soon as we arrived there, we were greeted by three tame cheetahs in front of the farmhouse. The owner let us in, where we could pet the cheetahs, had our fotos taken and the cheetah i was petting even licked my leg and arms with its very rough tongue. All in all, they were much more behaving like pussycats than predators. A very enjoyable day! In the evening they brought us out into the area where the wild cheetahs are kept. We watched the cheetahs being fed, and they were much less like pussycats fighting for their meat 😊!
The next day, we set off in the direction of Swakopmund. We bushcamped on the skeleton coast on our way there, a windy and uncomfortable experience. We all slept in the truck, cooking was impossible as in the upcoming storm everything got covered in sand. We had sandwiches on the truck and watched the sunset on the atlantic ocean. One small comfort 😊.
You will hear again from me from Swakopmund soon. Love to all at home, Katja

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