Lions and giraffes and elephants oh my!!

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We stopped off in the morning to have some photos at the Tropic of Capricorn before arriving into swakopmund- home for the next few days. Dinner that night would be our first experience of eating local meat- me and Jo rather enjoyed our Oryx meatballs. The boys on the tour tucked into zebra, oryx and kudo amongst other things. Oryx is super lean and no fat to it at all- really tasty! A totally different experience to the one eating local meat in peru!!!
My birthday celebrations started early that evening with drinks after dinner, that turned into shots, that turned into dancing the night away to Whitney Huston in a Namibian nightclub. All in all it resulted in me being pushed home in a shopping trolley from the club- as you can tell, I was well and truly trollied!!!
In the morning I can't lie- I was feeling every day of being 28! I was woken up to a card, cake and a mountain of pink balloons by Jo and the rest of the group! I got a few special little presents- such as a real towel (who would have thought I would have loved a towel so much), princess hats, fizz and who could forget the toga dance in bed from one of the guys on the trip!! A good start to the year I'd say!
The rest of the day is a bit of a blur with regards to sleep, food and trying to stay warm- swakopmund is freezing!
We all went out for food in the evening together again, all be it a much tamer affair this time. Again we explored local delicacies in the form of springbok and more oryx! Bellies full it was time to sleep!
(Dear god I'm getting old!)
The next day we headed north to a place called spitzkok to spend the night camping in the desert under the stars. We stopped off on the way at a small township to say hello to the kids and look at some semi precious stones that they mine and sell. The kids got so excited when we arrived and I caused chaos when I started handing out pencils to them from my bag!
We arrived at camp in time to catch sunset and have an explore on the huge granite rocks, picking out a spot to camp later.
Despite trying to ensure warmth in the form of a wine jacket we woke up the following morning freezing!! It was worth it though as we had a spectacular view of the night sky and witnessed the Luna eclipse before dozing off under the full moon!
Back on the bus again we were headed to Damaraland, making a few stop offs along the way to meet some more locals. We made a stop at the Damaraland living museum, where a group of locals still live in the traditional ways. We were met by our guide and a little girl (3 years old) who really took a shine to us. So much so, she stole our phone and proceeded to take hundreds of selfies on it- to cute! They talked about local medicines, how they make weapons and how they settle disputes in the local language- lots of clicking noises! The highlight had to be 'no fire no wife' which prompted the fire competition for the next few days amongst the boys! That evening we were camping at a spot where a near by elephant had been causing some bother. Our first encounter with an elephant was to be the next morning- in the form of a humongous poo! During the night the elephant had crept past our tent and pooped right outside of it!!!
Up early the next day we were heading to Etosha national park for the first chance of seeing the big five. There has been debate and then finally confirmation that the big five are: Elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino!
We arrive and within five minutes of being at the park we had seen a lion sleeping in the bush and loads of zebras, springboks and oryx drinking at the watering hole. If that wasn't enough we later got up close and personal with more elephants, lions and giraffes! We had died and gone to safari heaven! We quickly pitched our tents at the camp site when we arrived, so we could look for more animals at the watering hole at the campsite.
We didn't have to wait long as there was 10+ giraffes all there drinking amongst more zebras and springboks! After dinner it was back down to the watering hole and we were lucky enough to see a big male elephant and three rhino's!! I think we both went to bed grinning like idiots- best day ever!
The next day didn't disappoint again seeing more elephants and giraffes up really really close- so much so we thought one elephant was going to charge at us. Turns out he was just excited with a huge 'fifth leg' hanging down. The absolute icing on the cake has to be seeing a leopard though. Casually drinking from the watering hole. Even our guides got excited as they had never actually seen a leopard in Etosha before. Words and photos don't really do it- Jo basically cried! Again that afternoon/ evening it was an animal fiesta at our watering hole with 21 elephants including babies all down at the hole, swimming, drinking and cooling off. It's spectacular here!
As you can probably tell we were really sad to be leaving Etosha but Windhoek awaited us with the promise of real beds and heated blankets- it's the small things in life!
Lots of love Jo and Lauren

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