Etosha National Park
To see photos, click here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/znAZZNkwfxyEn3fz6
We were going to get up at 5:30 yesterday morning so we could get breakfast when the restaurant opened at 6:00 to be on the road at sunrise when the park gates open. So at 7:00 am Maria awoke with a start to discover the alarm didn’t go off (an old travel alarm clock which has now been retired in favor of our phones which won’t get their planned overnight rest)! Abel was outside our door in the truck already. So instead of a leisurely start, we scrambled into our clothes, stopped in the restaurant to put together peanut butter sandwiches from the breakfast buffet, gulped down a half cup of coffee and, disheveled, hit the road.
Etosha National Park is huge, roughly the size of New Jersey. It’s dominated by an ancient salt pan that stretches 80 miles east-to-west and 40 miles north-to-south, completely flat. Most of the game viewing is south of the pan.
Natural springs feed waterholes and they have supplemented these with wells feeding man-made waterholes which are magnets for wildlife. We’ve seen lions, cheetahs, rhinos, both black and white, elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, kudus, impalas, hartbeests, steenboks, springboks, oryx, lots of birds, and a thicket where a leopard was hiding (maybe we saw some spots – a guy in another vehicle passed us his camera which definitely showed some leopard fur – nothing like the excellent photo that Roger from our last trip got).
Large herds of various animals cross the dusty roads so we stop and admire. The largest of these was a mixed group of wildebeests and zebras, who often travel together. Wildebeests have an excellent sense of smell and bad vision and eat the long grass. Zebras have a poor sense of smell, excellent vision and like to eat shorter grass, so they’re very compatible, eating comfortably and aware of predators.
High on the cuteness scale are springboks, small deer that hop straight up in the air 3 feet or so when they get excited (see photo).
Today we awoke on time, had a leisurely breakfast and drove across the park to our next lodge. Unlike the open hot and dusty safari vehicles we usually ride in on these journeys, on this trip we’re in a comfortable Toyota SUV with air conditioning. The trip took most of the day as it’s a long way and we stopped many times to look at animals.
In contrast to the 100+ unit government-run camp we started in, this new place is a nice lodge on a 135 square mile private reserve adjacent to Etosha. There are several camps spread across the reserve, ours has 12 very nice units. A major upgrade from the very convenient but somewhat spartan accommodations at the cabins inside the park.
This evening, we had a sundowner drive, seeing a male and female lion couple and later their three cute cubs in their hiding place in the bushes, followed by cocktails. We enjoyed some excellent Namibian gin. On the drive we meet a very nice couple, veterinarians from Belgium. Back at the lodge, we sat with them for dinner (Eland, medium rare and very tender) and had a very nice evening.