Blogs from Etosha National Park, Namibia, Africa - page 7

Day 16 (Wednesday 06-May-09, NJJ & JRJ) Up early at 5.40am for a game drive. Straight away we saw two male lions which we hoped would be an indicator that the day would be full of animal fun. Jamie was gutted because his lion shots were pants though as he'd forgotten to adjust the settings on his camera from the night before - don't think he'll make that mistake again. Also saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, etc. Brunch at 10am, well done once again to Johannes for rustling up a delicious meal. Spent few hours at poolside, was bliss, wasn't expecting this sort of relaxation time at such a lovely pool area during this trip. Had a lesson from Alex on exposure (Jamie later commented on my use of tips from the lesson yippee). 3:00 second game ... read more

Etosha We left Swakopmund Saturday, after a variety of incidents. I was laid low for a few days, but was pretty good to go and, oither than tiredness--the pills took everything out of me--I was fine. Now I'm nearly 100%. After a stop at Spitzkoppe to view amazing rock formations , we travelled on to Etosha, one of the world's premier game parts. Two nights there, several game drives, and we had an amazing success story to tell. Thousands of springboks, zebras and impalas, probably a hundred giraffes, hundreds of wildebeests, about a dozen lions, in two visits, several hyenas, jackals, mongeese, gemsbok and one black rhino. It was amazing! We're now on our way to the bush people to spend a night away from civilization. Because of all the rain, we can't cross the Caprivi ... read more

Hi We managed to get on the internet quickly before we go back into the wilderness for the next week. So after Swakopmund we travelled to Spitzkoppe via the Cape Cross Seal Colony where there is around 60,000 seals and it smells a tad to say the least! There were lots of babies though which were quite cute and a few jackals lurking to welcome the baby seals into the world! Spitzkoppe is stunning - its a massive rock formation and on the approach we went up on the roof seats on top of Helena and the view was phenomenol!! Because its rainy season a few issues getting the truck up to the bush camp - Jimmy and some of the locals had to spend 2 hours digging her out of the mud. We climbed up ... read more

After the Okavqango Delta we crossed into Namibia. The Delta and Chobe are really the only things to do in Botswana so we didn't spend too much time there. Our first couple nights in Namibia we bushcamped so basically we just pitched our tents along the side of the road. Apparently you aren't supposed to in Namibia but everyone does it anyway. The first night all the guys were trying to start fires and failing. Granted, some of them were trying to do it without matched, but still... So I went out there and showed them how it's done! Alaskan girls, woot! :) The second night we camped at a traditional village of the Ju/'Huansi-san tribe (bushmen). Going back the road to the campsite the truck got stuck and we had to dig it out. Fun ... read more

We were up at 5:00am from our bush camp on the side of the road so that we could clear out of there early. We were going to spend the next few nights staying at campsites within Etosha National Park so we entered the park straight away that morning. Immediately we were told that there were some strict rules in Etosha such as no music playing to disturb the animals. As we would be game driving all the way through the park to get to our campsites we were also told that we should be on the lookout for animals and to buzz Pat the driver if we wanted to stop at any point to take photographs. On the game drive we obviously saw the usual Zebra, Giraffe etc. We saw them mainly at watering holes ... read more