Etosha National Park - February 17, 2007
After a night of semi-restless sleep and wondering (what the hell is that outside the tent?) I awoke bright and early - 5 o’clock in the am. This early hour was not a shock, we found out about it last night when our guide, Martin did our next-day briefing over dinner. There was a bit of protest from the group, but I’m not sure why I thought we might actually get to sleep in. I was ready to get up, regardless, even though I hardly slept at all. Yesterday was so cool I was anxious to see what would happen today.
The plan for the morning was to get up, quickly break camp, have a coffee or tea and rusks and hit the road for an early morning game drive. We’d have breakfast further down the road. Everyone did their thing and we were on the road, seeing elephants by 5:45! A great start to the morning! The sunset was beautiful and it was so surreal to see the my favorite lumbering beast at this time of day.
Shortly after the elephants, a bit further down the road, we came across a small herd of zebra. We’d seen quite a lot of zebra the day before, but not in the magical light of sunrise. Luckily we stopped for a bit and watched. Two males had a bit of a row while we were there. I didn’t quite catch the encounter, but the dust hadn’t quite cleared from the air when I took my shot.
It was a great morning. I could have gone the rest of the day without seeing anything! It was beautiful and the air was crisp and we were standing with our heads poking out the top of the cruiser, smiling. Scanning the flat landscape for anything of interest. We didn’t see anything for a while and headed on for several hours, on our way to breakfast.
We ended up having breakfast around 7:30-8:00 o’clock and I, for one, was a wee bit hungry by the time we ate. We stopped at a fenced-in rest-spot near a watering hole. There were pit-toilets which some of our party complained about … I mean, come on! Your shit stinks, people! I’m not sure what they expected toilets to be like in the middle of nowhere. I guess some just people complain no matter how good the circumstances. Manilow set up the wash basin and started a fire to warm the water for coffee, tea and dishwashing. We had a breakfast of cereals (corn flakes, muesli and weet-bix), bread, yogurt and milk. They had a spread of marmite, buttery-like spread, peanut butter, jam, etc. It was really quite decent and we could eat as much as we wanted.
As we left breakfast, we paused at the watering hole to observe some new activity. There was a decent size group of impala and this was the first time we’d had a good, clear view of a kudu. Interestingly enough, a lone warthog made his way to the watering hole and spooked the whole group of impala and the kudu.
I’d think with horns like a kudu, the animal would be a bit tougher than to be run off by a tusky pig. While the warthog was drinking, an oryx joined the fun on the opposite side of the hole for a sip. Watering holes are definitely a good bet for finding animals. We stopped at another hole shortly after and saw a larger bunch of kudu, and even got to see two males locking horns a bit. A pair of warthogs, a mom and cutie baby, came up to this hole, but didn’t seem to bother the kudu. I thought maybe at the last hole the skittish impala must haved freaked out the lone kudu. Who knows.
Next up was the Etosha Pan itself. The word Etosha is two words together, Eto and sha. If I remember correctly, Eto means something white and sha means something big and colorful. The Etosha Pan is undoubtely big, and is definitely several shades of white. Big doesn’t really describe it. It is vast. It is so strange to stand in what once was a huge lake and see nothing but flat plain. We had some gorgeous clouds to contrast with the flatness. It was a surreal place.
But, you can only stare at the flat-ness for so long. We moved on as we had a few miles to go before we reached our lunch spot and even further before we got to camp. For lunch we stopped at the Halali rest camp. There was a pool at this stop too, but I didn’t partake. It was a decision I regretted later, as I thought we’d have time at camp to take a swim. (We didn’t.) I also didn’t have a swimsuit and didn’t want to be sitting in the cruiser all afternoon with wet britches. The camp was nice, and the large, girl-laden safari that we met the day before was at this rest-camp as well. Hanging out by the pool, at least, was quite entertaining! (Unfortunately, I did not carry my camera to the pool this time …) After quite a bit of resistance and prodding, I shared a beer with Rob and Roy (the Australian couple) while gabbing about this and that. It was nice, but on an empty stomach it went straight to my head and I felt the alcohol right away. I am such a light-weight anymore! Luckily, lunch was ready shortly thereafter and it quelled my wooziness from the beer. At this lunch stop we had a tuna-corn salad and some other goodies I can’t remember.
After lunch, it was a shorter drive than I had thought to the Namutoni rest camp. (Alas, I did not do a good job documenting the actual camps and camp sites.) It’s quite an interesting place, as it is an old German fort/outpost. It has a varied past, but after a couple reconstructions, Namibia made it a historical spot and it is currently undergoing extensive renovations to make it into what looks to be an excellent resort/camp. There was a small pool at camp, but it wasn’t very attractive and we didn’t have time to swim (not to mention the loud, obnoxious Germans that were crowding the space.) We took a walk through the fort, visited the one-room museum and had a short history lesson from Martin. After that, we found our camp site and set up.
The night before, I was paired up as tent-mates with Martin from Australia. He proved to be an excellent tent-mate, and we bonded quickly over our shared hatred of snoring sleepers. The night before we were nearest to Rob and Roy’s tent, and they are both unabashed snorers. Tonight, we were dead-set on putting our tent as far away from the group as possible, in the hopes of getting some peace and quiet. We set up our tent on the fringe of our camp site, only to quickly be told we couldn’t put it quite there. We moved it 2 meters and called it good.
After we set up, we went on a game drive with Manilow while Martin cooked. The sky was looking quite threatening, and we weren’t sure how far we’d get. We quickly saw a big herd of zebra and the usual springbok all over the place (I was still hoping to see a big cat dash out and steal a springbok!) and found some giraffe at a watering hole. As we were admiring them, the first spotted hyena of the trip walked by, but didn’t get any closer to us or the watering hole. One of the giraffes ended up chasing the hyena off as there was a young giraffe at the hole drinking. The sky was amazing and dramatic. We were luckily in between two far away rain clouds.
Most of the group seemed very ready to get the game drive over and head back to camp. I must not have been the only one who didn’t sleep that well the night before, and just about everyone seemed a bit cranky by this time of day. So, Manilow cut it short and we headed back to camp.
Martin was there working away at dinner. It seemed he had it pretty much squared away when we got there. We stood around chatting, getting to know each other better and talking about the animals of the day. Around dusk, a man in brown cargo shorts, black t-shirt and a safari hat walked up to Martin. He had a rifle slung over his right shoulder. He was talking in Africaans, so I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Martin translated for us after this man with the gun was gone.
There were lions in the camp.
This, apparently, was not good for us. Us being the two young blokes who don’t want to be so close to the snoring group. And, of course, not good for anyone who was planning to walk around the camp alone that evening as we could most definitely be attacked. The gun-toting man advised us to concentrate our camp (with tents in a tight group) closer to the road and vehicles. Af first, I felt a wave of fear. I didn’t even want to walk to the tent alone at this point, and it wasn’t even 20 meters away. It was quickly becoming dark and I could not go to bed without a shower. Everyone else had gotten a shower earlier. After some reassurance from Martin and Manilow, I settled down a bit. We’d all be fine as long as we were careful. Only after we ate a really excellent dinner of lamb stew and what they call pap, which is a corn-based, grits-type starchy side-dish, only after eating did the reality that we’d be sleeping near to the snorers again sink in.
Oh well. To make our lion-fear worse, after dinner, my tent-mate Martin was standing near the fire, just observing the camp ground when he sort of froze, and maybe even said “holy shit” before he realized what he saw. A big, fury, yellow dog walking through the camp. Which, he quickly realized, was a lion, not a dog! Thankfully, though, the lion was closely followed by a 4×4 and I think the only reason Martin saw the lion was the 4×4 was following and illuminating it with headlights. Wow!
After eating dinner and then talking with Jason for a while traveling, photography and the like, I did get my shower, which was cold, but refreshing. We all turned in to the tents early, as we were getting up early again the next morning. Unfortunately, we discovered that Jason and Jade apparently saved up all their tension and frustrations from the day and verbally took them out on each other after they were in their tent. It was highly annoying, and the only thing I can think is that they didn’t think anyone could hear. We all could, and it seemed between the snoring couple and the couple bitching each other out, Martin and I couldn’t win. The only thing that distracted us from their whining at each other was the sound of car engines racing, a bit of commotion and shots being fired. We couldn’t really tell where they trucks were, but it almost sounded as if they’d be careening through the camp at any second. It was quite exciting, but short lived. I settled back into my sleeping back to read some more of the excellent book I had brought: Bill Bryson’s - A Short History of Nearly Everything.