Elephants!

To see Maria’s photos, click here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/znAZZNkwfxyEn3fz6

After we recovered from our night in the Dream Cruiser, Abel took us on our last game drive in the eastern end of Etosha National Park. We saw giraffes and various deer at different water holes and then came upon one that had a fairly large (we thought….more later) family of elephants that were absolutely trashing the waterhole, stirring up mud from the bottom, until, when they got out, they were all a very elegant dark grey.

Yesterday, we (Abel) drove for seven hours through flat, mostly boring countryside. We passed through a small industrial city, stopped for gas in a small commercial city, on and on. 

At one point, we crossed from one province to another. Abel explained how things were going to change, but we were still surprised by the abrupt difference. Most of Namibia’s useful land, that which is outside the parks or the empty desert, is cut up into huge livestock farms, each many square miles, all owned by white people, descendents of the European thieves who stole it 150 years ago. Like our Midwest, including the genocide. These farms are all surrounded by miles of fences, an endless line of fences on either side as you drive along the road. No buildings in sight, these are all down long roads leading away from the highway.

But the northeast of the county is different. As soon as we crossed the provincial line, it looked like other places in Africa, small family farms with little compounds of a few small buildings, frequently constructed of corrugated steel, surrounded by a square corral made of vertical sticks stuck in the ground.

Occasionally we passed people selling wood carvings by the side of the road. Once place had a carved airplane 4 feet long. But most were carvings of animals or bowls, wooden spoons, etc. We stopped at one and meet the carver, Isaac and his little daughter, maybe 8 years old.

We reached the northern border town of Rundu, just across the Kavango River from Angola. After a short break, on to Divundu, a small village at the western end of the Caprivi Strip, a thin strip of Namibian land that stretches to the Zambezi River. Back in colonial days, the Germans wanted a route across southern Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. So they went to the English and traded Zanzibar to the Brits in exchange for this strip of land carved off from what is now Botswana. The Zambezi flows to the Indian Ocean, so the Germans thought they had their trade route. Haha, Victoria Falls is in the way!

Today, Abel took us to a small national park near our new lodge. It’s along the Kavango River, so in contrast to Etosha, which is salty desert, this place is quite green. 

We saw a few giraffes, some zebras, a variety of birds, a couple of crocodiles. On our way back to the lodge for lunch, we saw a large herd of elephants, maybe 20, bathing in a large lagoon off the main river. As we sat watching, more arrived. Because we were parked in a narrow area, Abel backed up the truck so we wouldn’t get cornered. As we watched from a large open area, more elephants arrived. Then more. And more. And more. We started to count, but that became futile. We ended up agreeing that 200 was a reasonable estimate.

Definitely an elephant day!