Advertisement
Published: November 25th 2009
We left Swakopmund and headed to Spitzkoppe with a stop at Cape Cross (a large stone cross erected by Portuguese settlers in the 16th century) to see the
fur seals. They have little ears which make them different to most seals, and they do not migrate quite as far. The female seals are pregnant year round - poor things. Once they calf, a couple of days later they breed again and an egg can live up to 3 months in their body before starting the 9 month gestation period. Needless to say, there were lots of seals and a pretty unique smell.
After lunch, we headed onto
Spitzkoppe which has a campsite under these gigantic orange rocks in the desert. We imagined it’s similar to Uluru rock in Australia. Colours were brilliant, especially at sunset and sunrise. We had two nights bush camping at Spitzkoppe. On the second day, half the group climbed to the top of one of the rocks. While they were away, Matt and a guy from our group, Michael, went on a two hour walk taking photos of parrots and wildlife. This particular day was really hot and by mid-day everyone retired to have a siesta in the shade. That evening we saw bushmen rock paintings - some up to 2000 years old. Then our cook made us a traditional African dinner - it was beef stew and we ate with our hands using some bread and cornflour mash. It was a good meal and kept us warm as we slept under the stars.
From Spitzkoppe we headed to
Etosha National Park. We got to the park about 3pm and did a game drive to the camp. The campsite was nice. It had a swimming pool which was was really dirty but nice for cooling off. The campsite had a waterhole with a viewing platform, and we saw elephants, rhinos and giraffes. The giraffes cautiously approached the waterhole. They would continuously look around for predators and it took them a total of 30 minutes before they reached the water.
The next day we had a full day in Etosha National Park and went for two game drives. In the morning, we saw a pride of lions eating a rhino. It appeared that the rhino had died of natural causes, and by the time we arrived the lions had already eaten the inside of the rhino and only the carcass remained. Our guide said that the hyenas would gang up on the lions and scare them off so they can eat the remaining bits (bones included!). In the afternoon, we saw another lion pride eating a zebra but this time it was under a tree and was a bit harder to see - we felt very lucky to see two kills and two large prides. We saw many other animals, but we were still searching for the elusive leopard. After our experience in Etosha, Matt and I started to realize how lucky we were at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi.
After Etosha we went to a
Bushman, or Sans people camp (think of “The Gods Must be Crazy” movie). Most of the San people have been moved to Northern Namibia. We stayed at a village where the San people live and played with the children before heading on a bushman walk. At the start of our walk, it began to rain so 16 of us squeezed into a hut which normally houses 7. We spent the next 20 minutes getting fresh with each other, while the rain, hail, and lightening continued. Once the rain let up, the Bushmen and women played games and danced with us, before taking us around the bush to show us what trees they use for medicinal purposes. It was good to see their way of life but it felt a bit unauthentic, especially when another tourist bus came. Overall, the San people do not live like this anymore and this is more of a “living museum.”
We left the Bushmen camp and headed to Rundu, which is located on the border of Angola. This was our first experience of a proper wet season. It started raining around 3pm and rained most of the night. Lucky for us, the campsite served good beer. We played lots of pool and went to bed early.
For those of you wondering what type of food we ate, it’s very western. For breakfast, we had a choice of cereal (corn flakes or weetabix) or eggs on toast with bake beans and tea or instant coffee. For lunch, it was a sandwich with fresh fruit and vegetables. And dinner normally consisted of instant soup followed by a main of pasta, chicken, fish or beef with veggies and rice or potatoes.
As far as hygiene, we had a three step hand washing system. First pan was soap and water with a nail brush. Second pan was a rinse in disinfectant and last pan was hot water. For washing dishes, we had a four pan system; similar to the hand washing but also included an extra pan of soap. As far as drinking water, we were able to drink the water in Namibia. Also, the truck carried a few containers of drinkable water. All the techniques worked because no one got sick.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.008s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0411s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Bollers
non-member comment
Photos
Great Photos!!!