Playing truant

I'm  eating scrumptious french toast for breakfast  and trying to hatch a plan to kidnap Jonas and take him back home with me...his cooking is so good, all done over a wood fire too! Six of us have decided that we won't go on safari this morning.  We want to have a catch up time, do our washing, buy coffee in the restaurant, most of all, relax!!  We truants are now sitting around the table at camp writing our diaries and feeling a bit wicked.  It is very quiet in camp as all the other campers are on safari, the birds are singing, it is not yet searingly hot,...bliss!  This trip is fantastic, all you could wish for and our guides are first class, but it is also physically demanding.  We load and unload the trucks almost daily, pitch and unpitch our tents, help with the camp chores and spend many hours on the truck so this rest morning is a real treat.  We wander up to the restaurant and have melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts and coffee then lie by the pool relaxing and writing postcards. When the rest of the group return from safari they tell us that the only new animal they saw today was an owl so we are pleased with our decision to rest.  We spend the afternoon by the pool chatting. 



 A school group arrives and the children sit beside the pool, eyeing us nervously, while their teachers have a cool drink at the bar.  I swim over to the children and talk to them a bit.  I get them to put their hands in the pool and encourage them in for a swim.  Soon a half dozen are happily splashing about in the pool in their underwear.  They are touring the game park for three days and for most of them it is the first time they have seen many of the animals.  They are delightful, so natural and lacking in guile, so refreshing. There is nothing planned until the camp flag lowering ceremony scheduled for 6pm so "the tight five (the singles)", Hils, Gary, Raewyn, Judy and myself go to The Obama Bush Bar for a drink.  It is a ramshackle, thatched roofed, open sided affair set in the bush...great fun.  The barman is playing the world cup soccer games on a loop on TV and seems to be thrilled by the games no matter how many times he has seen them.

 

  

  At 5.30 everyone heads up to the fort courtyard to see the flag lowering ceremony.  We buy drinks and sit patiently waiting and chatting until someone notices that the flag has been lowered without us realising.  We all think this is a great joke and there is a lot of talk about how many drinks we have had etc etc. The answer is, in reality, one or at most two but we are in a frivolous mood so decide to hold our own ceremony. We form up into two lines and start marching around the courtyard in a variety of silly and unique styles.  The shop keepers are all leaning out of their shops grinning at this bunch of idiots making a show of themselves.
 Ronney suggests he climbs the tower and performs a ceremony for us and we then follow him up to look at the wonderful views. 




 



Before dinner we take a short drive out into the game park to see our last sunset in Etosha...it is glorious.  Back at camp I help Jonas carry some groceries from the shop to our campsite.  He tells me that when we were marching around the square the shop keepers were impressed by what a happy group we were and how much fun we seemed to be having.   Jonas said that he felt very proud that we were his group.  He cooks us a very Namibian meal tonight, maize meal porridge and oryx stew with salad.  Ronney has warned us that we have a very long bus trip tomorrow so we are in bed by 9.



 Photos: (1) I have fun with a group of Namibian school children, (2) Waiting for the flag lowering ceremony....(3)...but he did it without us noticing....(4)....so Ronney performed his own ceremony for us.

(5) Namutoni Fort from the tower, (6) The thatched roof is the viewing shelter within the camp.  The waterhole (left) is outside the camp fence and within the game park.

Next stop, Namutoni

With hyenas howling and lions roaring round the camp  it was another restless night for Hils and me! Today we are off to the final camp in Etosha, Namutoni. 


 There are some spectacular vistas this morning...one in particular which has taken my breath away and which I will always remember is a vast wide open view across the golden savannah of thousands of animals grazing - springbok, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, hyena, jackals and various birds amongst them.  It is a gorgeous, National Geographic, kind of scene, but impossible to capture in a photo. We come to a waterhole where two giraffe are involved in a vicious fight, bashing their  necks together so hard we fear they will break them.  Ronney says that the two males are fighting over a female who stands nearby looking rather pleased with herself.

 We see an adorable baby zebra and, in the distance, an eland, the largest of the deer family. The male eland typically measures around 183cm to the shoulder We arrive at Namutoni,  around midday.   This camp is set in the grounds of a handsome and imposing old castle-like fort, snow white against the blue sky. It is stifflingly hot again today, in the high 30s, and unpacking the truck and setting up the tents is hard work in the heat so after lunch we go to the pool for a cooling swim.  I am a bit freaked out by a snake crawling around our camp site but the gardeners at the camp tell me it is harmless.  I'm not entirely convinced. though, so we keep our tent securely zipped.

 

 Late afternoon we set off for a safari.  Having seen the largest of the deer family this morning, we see the smallest this afternoon, the dik-dik.  Fully grown it is about the size of a  dog, around 40cm tall, an adorable minature bambi. The two giraffe we had seen fighting this morning are still fighting at 5.30pm, they must be exhausted! We are watching the giraffes when we notice a herd of elephants coming through the trees towards the waterhole.  They start to run with excitement when they  near the water and we watch entranced as they happily wallow and drink and squirt water over themselves.

 

 

There are 21 in the herd and the very small babies are delightful to watch.  They haven't yet learned how to use their trunks so just bury their faces in the water to drink.  The older females treat them tenderly and carefully and all assist in bathing them. The juvenile boys yahoo and frolic and generally make nuisances of themselves.  The adults  take a dust bath and, once satisfied and with babies in tow, walk off again into the bush.  The "teenagers" keep fooling around for a while and then suddenly realise the rest of the herd has gone.  They leap out of the pool, trumpeting and flapping their ears and run full pelt to catch up with the herd.  It is thoroughly entertaining. We can just imagine them shouting "Hey, wait for me!"  We are driving back to camp when another safari guide stops to tell us there is a leopard further along the road so we go to investigate but get only a brief glimpse of it as it darts through the bushes.

 

We go back to camp for a refreshing shower, a glass of wine and a delicious meal of sweet and sour pork and mashed potatos.  It is Ronney's 32 birthday today and we honour him by singing Po Kare Kare Ana and presenting him with a big happy birthday banner we have all signed and a calendar of New Zealand birds.  He seems touched.  Jonas has baked him a chocolate cake and we put candles on it and sing happy birthday.  We are in a celebratory mood and it is an especially happy evening.  We are pleased to see Ronney enjoy himself, he works so hard and never seems to get any time off.  This afternoon while we were resting he had to take the truck for repairs and then it was straight out on safari again. Hils and I are in bed around 9.30 and have a hysterical, laughing conversation with Gary in the next tent on one side and Ruth shouting "shut up" every now and then from her and Murray's tent on the other side.  We can tell she is secretly enjoying it all, though.

 Photos: (1) Herds of many different animals surround the water hole, (2) A Kudu and Zebra, (3) Namutoni Fort Camp, (4) The tiny and adorable Dik-Dik, (5) Elephants running towards the water hole, (6) And then enjoying a bath.  Note the baby elephants and the fighting giraffes to the left.  The female they are fighting over stands to the right looking rather smug, (7) Springbok, (8) All that is left of a Kudu,

















On to Halali

It wasn't the lions that woke us this morning.  It was the  Spanish group in the next camp site who got up at 5am and were very noisy  packing up their site.  We have to pack up today too so we get up at 6am anyway  There is a high stone tower in this camp which provides wonderful panoramic views of Etosha, so we climb all 108 steps  after breakfast and admire the wide open landscape.  Then it is off to our next camp  safariing on the way.  

We visit several water holes and spot vultures, wildebeest, a huge herd of zebra and many impala, including one injured animal who,sadly,  will be lucky to see the day out...there are always lions on the alert for the weak and injured animals. I am enjoying observing the behaviour of the animals at the water holes and working out the pecking order.  The zebra and the wildebeest drink happily together, the springbok and impala have to hold back and wait their turn while warthogs, and jackals just suit themselves. We also see a chameleon, handsome egyptian geese and a variety of other birds.  There is a small library of reference books on the truck and each time we spot a new animal or bird Ronney finds the appropriate page about it in a book and passes it around the truck.  It makes the safari so much more interesting. We come across a herd of springbok springing backwards and forwards across the grassland.  It is a very entertaining sight but Ronney tells us they do this  to look bigger and confuse predators and that there must be something stalking them, probably a lion.



 We travel along the edge of the Etosha Pan, a 4731 square kilometre inland ocean.  It is completely dry at the moment but fills with rain during the rainy season, something that  is hard to comprehend, the rains must be torrential. We arrive at Halali Camp around midday and set up camp.  Halali is very well appointed with excellent facilities,  a shop, restaurant and best of all, swimming pool. We have lunch, do our chores and swim.  At 3.30 we are off on a game drive.  Very soon we come across two young male lions lying together right beside the road.  Young males are banished from the pride as they compete with the mature males for mates.  We watch them for a while and then drive further around the water hole. 

 

Ronney spots a leopard on a tree in the distance and also a mature male lion stalking the young males so we head back to watch them.  The mature male is about 20 metres from us and magnificent.  We hold our breath as he paws the ground, roars and sprays urine around to claim his territory.  The young males play it cool and just ignore him.  We notice that one of the young males has a swollen wound on his back which he keeps licking, no doubt the result of a fight.  We watch them for a while and then drive further on  to look at the leopard.  It is basking on a tree trunk, looking very relaxed,  but, as we watch, a large army of mongoose scuttle past the water hole in the direction of the leopard.  The leopard springs from the tree, like a flash of lightning, and leaps on the mongoose which run screaming in all directions.  Although this is the natural order of things in the animal kingdom it is still chilling to hear their screams of distress.  We can't see how many the leopard has killed but Ronney thinks he would have got at least a couple.  He tells us we are very lucky as many people come on safari and never see a leopard and to see one make a kill is very rare.






  Next Ronney drives us out on a causeway into the Etosha Pan.  It is  vast and dry and dazzling in the sun.  It is hard to believe that  during the rainy season this becomes an inland sea.

We take the obligatory tourist photos of each other jumping in the air and then high tail it back to camp before the gates shut. 



Spaghetti bolognese and a carrot and pineapple salad for dinner and then off to the camp waterhole.  We walk along the sandy, lantern lit path and sit on stone walls waiting for the animals to appear.  Eventually some rhinoceros arrive and a hyena and we watch them for quite some time but their movements are slow, as if frozen in time, and after the excitement of today this water hole seems a bit low key.





Photos: (1) Kori Bustard and black backed jackals, (2) Etosha Pan, (3) Young male lions play it cool....
(4)...while the older male stamps and roars and shows who's boss, (5) Leopard lurks in the shadows before making a kill, (6) Vultures finish off a kill, (7) On Etosha Pan, (8) Our group on Etosha Pan,
(9) Mother Rhinoceros and baby, (10) Lilac Breasted Roller, more beautiful than this picture shows

Lions in the night

Well, that was a first!  I've never been kept awake by lions roaring before!  They sounded very close but Ronney told me that their roars carry and they were probably at least a couple of kilometres away. We have coffee and a piece of toast early so that we can get out on safari by 7am. The roof of our truck lifts up so that we can stand on the seats and view the game from the roof.  This gives us an intimacy with the wild life and is ideal for those special photo opportunities.  We travel down a number of tracks in the park and visit  various water holes to view the animals in their natural habitat. 



We see large herds of zebra, springbok, giraffe, steenbock, kudu, and a red hartebeest, all up close, also jackals and occasionally comical little warthogs running about.  It is all marvellous but, for me, the greatest thrill is seeing lions up close, in the wild, for the first time.  We see 3 females, lounging in the grass.  They yawn, look at us disdainfully and one saunters up very close to our truck.  They seem to be well aware of their position as jungle royalty. Ronney tells us that the animals see the truck as a single entity and not the individual people within it.  They  are used to the trucks and don't fear them however, if any of us should get out of the truck the lions would certainly attack.



The bird life within the park is rich and varied and we see a number of different birds including the hideous and chilling vulture and the colourful little bee eater.  Ronney has eagle eyes and is able to spot birds and animals long before any of us. A mere twitch in the long grass and he knows exactly what animal it is, and he is always right. This is a fantastic first morning in the game park and we arrive back at camp buzzing with excitement.  Jonas has prepared an excellent brunch for us of bacon, scrambled eggs and baked beans and  we now have 3 hours to relax in the heat of the day...bliss! We do our laundry, write our diaries, and go for a swim. At 3.30pm we head out on safari again spotting a number of different birds, zebra, giraffe, and springbok. 



We come to a water hole surrounded by elephants.  What a wonderful sight!  36 elephants of various ages drinking, bathing and playing.  The older female elephants surround a tiny baby and bathe it tenderly.  It is a touching scene.  They are only about 30 metres from us and we sit watching for at least half an hour.  Ronney is keen to see if the lions we spotted this morning are still there so we head back to the spot. It is getting late in the day and we are not hopeful but we are lucky...they are still there lounging under a tree.  We watch them for a while when suddenly 2 young cubs come scampering through the grass mewling and playing.  The cubs are unfazed by us, sweet, innocent and adorable, they come right up to our truck.  They look straight at us and then lie down on the road beside the truck.  We are all beside ourselves with delight.  Soon the adult females follow and before long there are 11 lions lying on the road around the truck.  We watch them for an hour but eventually they get up and stroll off into the grass.  We race back to camp, towards the brilliant setting sun, arriving just before the gates are locked, and excitedly relive our day over chicken, chips and vegetables.  Another early night, but we go to bed grinning...what a great result for our first day's safari!



Photos: (1-4) Animals of Etosha (5-9) The thrilling lion viewing

We're on Safari!

Breakfast this morning included a traditional African

 sweet porridge made with maize.  It reminded me of semolina custard and it was delicious. Up early and on the road again by 8.

   We have a hitchhiker with us for part of the trip today.  She is a young mother with  two small, beautiful and well behaved children.  As there is very little in the way of public transport in Namibia hitch hiking is a normal way of life.  There are designated spots where people sit patiently to wait for any ride that might come along.  They make a donation towards petrol, if they can, or offer produce in return for the lift. The scenery this morning is a bit uninspiring, flat countryside and bare trees, but before long we stop at the petrified forest at Khorixas.  Boy, talk about feeling insignificant in the history of the world!  These petrified trees are estimated to be between 250 and 280 million years old.  Apparently they are from a northern part of Africa and were washed down to Namibia in a  flood, of biblical proportions, all those years ago. 


It is fascinating to see what look like normal tree trunks but are now solid stone, scattered around the landscape,  their growth rings still obvious. The forest is a national monument  and also contains many examples of the most unusual plant I have ever seen, the welwitschia mirabilis.  This plant is one of a kind, there is nothing else like it on earth.  It consists of a stem base and two leaves only, however the leaves tend to get shredded into several strands by the wind.  The average age of these plants is 500 to 600 years old but they can live up to 2000 years.  

 



We stop at the town of Outjo to stock up on food and water before travelling to the Etosha game reserve where supplies will be limited.  The supermarket is well stocked and busy and we are intrigued by the guard who stands at the door with a whip which he uses quite freely on anyone who looks like a beggar, thief, or nuisance.  Fortunately none of us fit that category!! We are captivated by a woman from the Himba tribe who is walking proudly through the main street.  Her bare breasted body and hair are smeared with a mixture of butter and ochre giving it a red sheen..  She walks with an easy grace which I find quite beautiful. 

  We drive on for another hour and a half until we arrive at the gates to Etosha Game Park.  It is thrilling to drive through the gates and see the signs warning people not to leave their cars.  We are staying at Okaukuejo, a beautiful, huge complex within the park with every type of accommodation available from luxurious to  basic camping. There is a very smart restaurant and three swimming pools.  We waste no time going to the pools and find the water surprisingly cold but divinely refreshing. The camp site overlooks a water hole where the wild animals come to drink.  We wander down to look and are thrilled to see a rhinoceros there.  This evening we have a delicious meal of macaroni, stroganoff, lentils and squash....Jonas is a mighty fine cook!. 

After dinner we go back to the waterhole which is

on a lower level and fenced off from the camp.   At night it is softly floodlit and there is seating within the camp where people sit quietly waiting to see the animals arrive.  It is a stunning sight...out of the darkness come zebra, two very affectionate elephants, two adult rhinoceros with a baby and about a dozen giraffes with several black backed jackals running around amongst them all.  The animals arrive  in stages and it is clear there is a pecking order for who drinks at the water first.  It is fascinating to watch the interplay between animals.  The whole scene is marvellous and rather surreal.  Despite my best intentions, and despite not wanting to miss anything, I start to doze off ..... it's time for bed.




Photos: (1) Our adorable hitch hiker, (2) 250 million year old petrified tree, (3) The extraordinary welwitschia mirabilis, about 500 years old, (4) Great excitement! We enter Etosha Game Park, (5) Hilary and I enjoy a swim at Okaukuejo Camp, (6) Rhinoceros at the camp water hole

Burnt Mountain and searing heat



 The wind rattled and shook our tent during the night but we still managed to sleep quite well. We were up, breakfasted, packed up and ready to go by 8 and are now travelling through fairly nondescript, flat, countryside. It is very hot and we are all feeling tired and lethargic so there is not much conversation in the truck

We make a brief stop, for fuel, at a scruffy village and another stop at a roadside craft market where the women from the Herera tribe are selling dolls.  I buy one, more out of sympathy than desire, because I feel sorry for these women who stand all day in the hot sun hoping for the occasional sale. They dress in similar clothes to the Damara women, German colonial dress with a horned hat, The animals we see today are mainly domestic animals, goats and cattle, on the many farms we pass through. The people appear to be very poor, even  the farmers have basic, shanty-style houses.


  Donkey carts are a favourite mode of transport and we stop to give some local men in a cart some fruit.  They are delighted with their windfall.  I have been impressed by how kind the Namibians are to each other.  From what I have seen there is a real culture of care, concern for others and sharing here. We arrive at our camp around lunch time. It is The Aba Huab Community Camp and is located on the edge of a dry river bed.  We eat lunch before setting camp  It is sweltering...38 in our tent... and we are hot, sticky and tired so all race off to have showers. The showers are primitive but we don't care, they are refreshing. 



  At 3.30 we leave camp to view the rock drawings at Burnt Mountain.  This is a world heritage site with hundreds of ancient drawings dating back anywhere between 2000 and 6000 years. It is searingly hot, we estimate it to be in the high 40s, the sun being absorbed and then reflected off the red rock mountain. We begin  our guided walk up the track and after about 100 metres  one of the women in our group faints from the heat.  A couple of our group stay with her while the rest of us carry on up to see the drawings.  They are very accurate depictions of the animals hunted and prized by early man.  There are many pictures of giraffes which symbolised the precious commodity of water.  I have forgotten my camera so feel cross with myself as the drawings are impressive and astounding. It is simply too hot, though, and we are all parched and exhausted and probably don't give the drawings the attention they deserve. Back at camp we freshen up and then  go to the bar for a drink.  We sit upstairs on an attractive open balcony looking out over the countryside and  pull our chairs into a circle. We are an harmonious group and have a very convivial time as the day cools and the sun sets.  Dinner tonight is shepherds pie and fruit salad with custard.... tasty.  Several of our group go across to the bar after dinner to watch the locals performing traditional dance but Hils and I are too tired and are in bed by 8pm, still finding time for our nightly banter between tents with Gary, nevertheless.

Photos: (1) Ronney shows us a highly toxic plant capable of killing both humans and animals, (2)  A Herera doll seller, (3) ...and her colourful doll display, (4) Donkey cart, a popular mode of transport in Namibia,

(5) Ancient rock drawings at Burnt Mountain (photo Gary Willcocks)

Sand, Shipwrecks, Seals and Spitzkoppe

Not much sleep last night....the hotel disco thumped a loud base beat right up to 2am but breakfast made up for it, muesli, yoghurt, fruit, pancakes and bacon. 



 Our trip out of town was delayed a short while as we waited for a spare part for the truck but now we are on our way travelling through an endless landscape of golden sand.  The scenery is flat and featureless so we spend the time chatting, joking and dozing in the truck. 



   We stop at the lower reaches of the Skeleton Coast and walk across the sand to view a ship wrecked trawler.  A fairly recent wreck it is eerie to view it through the mist as it wallows abandoned at the edge of the breakers.  The Skeleton Coast is so named for the bleached whale and seal bones scattered along its length but it is also infamous for the number of ship wrecks that have occurred there over the years.  The combination of an 

inhospitable climate, constant rolling surf and regular sea fogs have made the coast fearsome for sailors and the subject of myth and legend. 

We can smell our next stop before we even see it.  This is the Cape Cross seal colony, home to approximately 80,000 seals.  At first it is hard to discern them  but as we get closer they become a seething mass lying on the rocks.  A walkway takes us right up to, over, and around them.  It is quite a sight to see but I keep a perfumed wipe over my nose the whole way. Cape Cross was named by Diego Cao, a Portuguese explorer who landed there in 1486 and planted a cross on the spot. We eat lunch a little further up the coast beside great crashing waves and several of us run into the icy water to have, at least, a paddle in the Atlantic. 

 

After lunch we head inland again, pass through a strange little settlement,  Hientjes Bay, built entirely on sand and after a while the scenery begins to change.  There is more vegetation and in the distance we can see large red mountain peaks rising out of the Namib desert.  We are heading to Spitzkoppe, the highest at 1728 metres and will camp there over night.  Spitzkoppe, like the other mountains in this area is 700 million years old, solid granite and referred to as the Matterhorn of Namibia because it has a similar shape to the Swiss mountain.  As we arrive at the entrance to the camp site our truck becomes deeply bogged in sand.  We all climb out and the men in our group start digging the truck out.  After several attempts at freeing it, and with the help of a good push from everyone, the truck is free and we continue on to camp.  We drive between the giant red mountains and into a canyon to our stunning camp site.  There are no facilities here, no water or showers and just a long drop toilet but we are all awe struck by the setting and after pitching our tents set out to explore it. 



  We spot several hyrax or dassies basking on the rocks.  They are a very cute little animal, a cross between a guinea pig and a rabbit.  We clamber about over the rocks and pose to photograph our own version of rock drawings.  We sit on the warm red rock and watch the sun go down behind the mountains.  The sun is always a bright red ball as it goes down in this part of Africa but we have noticed the colour does not really spread across the sky.  We spend the most magical evening, sitting around the camp fire, chatting and singing and telling stories.  We are in the wilderness and it is wonderful.  The stars in the sky are spectacular.


 



 Photos: (1) Our truck in the Namib Desert, (2) Shipwreck on the Skeleton Coast, (3) Cape Cross seal colony, (4) Spitzkoppe, (5) Hyax or Dassie, very cute, they live on the warm rocks, (6) We make our own rock drawings, (7) Our campsite at Spitzkoppe, (8) View of Spitzkoppe from our camp