Blogs from Etosha National Park, Namibia, Africa - page 3

Etosha, or Great White Place in the Herero language is a 120km long dry lake, now a salt pan that makes up part of the Kalahari basin. The drive from Windhoek is long and arduous, unimaginably hot, dry, dusty. Others snooze, I sit nose to window fascinated by the sheer expanse of land, the monotony suddenly broken by brilliant yellow carpets of flowers or bold, boastful, impossibly phallic giant termite mounds. Namutoni, first camp just outside the park, like so much of the local culture around here bears the scars of the German war and occupation. In the park is a wonderful flood lit water hole fed by a natural spring, that evening approaching it I see a plaque, the water hole is named for chief Nehale, the head of the Wambo people who were driven ... read more

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 ... read more

Etosha National Park, Namibia 30 and 31 August 2012 The 1st night we stayed at the eastern end of the Park at Namutoni and then drove to the other end of the Park to Okaukuejo. Namutoni is on the site of an old German fort which was burned down many years ago in a raid by the Ovambo people from the north. Today the fort is a hotel. There was also a shop where we could buy food and basic supplies. We stopped off at Halali for a drink and and icecream. Halali is South of the pan and situated about half way between the other two rest camps. This has the most impressive floodlit water hole with a viewing platform - you can walk down after setting up camp and sit here at sunset, drink ... read more

At night it is difficult to sleep with the wind blowing and the thunder and lightning outside. So we are ready for the early breakfast which is again a cold buffet and eggs. The waterhole receives a lot of birds in the morning so we are able to see quite a few interesting and nicely colored birds while we are moving our luggage to the car and check out. Today we have a smaller distance to cover than in previous days however it is mostly through Etosha National Park where the speed limit is only 60 km/h compared to 100 km/h on dirt roads outside the National Park. Even though now we know that the road through Onguma up to the main road is full of animals we are again surprised by the number of animals ... read more

Today was going to be our first game drive and boy was everyone excited about that. Even I was excited, even though animals were not the reason I came to Africa (despite what everyone seems to believe). After a short drive we made it to the park gates where our game drive officially began. On the way into camp we saw some springbok, kudu and zebra, as well as a few more giraffe. After making camp first we went for a look at the waterhole near camp where we saw some zebra and oryx, then we went out on a longer game drive. This one was much more successful. We managed to see two white rhinos, a herd of elephants and a pride of lions. The lions and elephants crossed the road right in fron of ... read more