The travels of Tim and Megan: Africa Safari: Namibia

Day 44: Travel to Rundu, Namibia

Sunday 20 November was our last "big" day of travel, and it wasn't even too bad. We departed our campsite in Maun at 6.45am and we drove north-west across Botswana towards the Namibian border. It was a cooler morning with patches of rain, which was actually a welcome relief after a few very hot days.

It was a fairly smooth drive, although there were a lot of donkeys and cattle on the road, which slowed us down a little. We had a very quick and easy border crossing into Namibia (the immigration staff on the Botswana side were extremely friendly and happy). We arrived in Rundu just after 3pm and we stopped to get some Namibian currency and any supplies we needed, before carrying on to our campsite.

Our camp was right on the banks of the Okavango River, which marks the border between Namibia and Angola. We could see Angola on the other side of the river, so very close. Our campsite was pretty nice. Thankfully we got there around 4pm, meaning there was plenty of daylight left! You will see why this was important below...

We had been warned by our tour leader, Darlington, that Namibia has a lot of snakes and that, due to the very hot weather mixed with the odd heavy downpour we had experienced of late, there would be more snakes about than normal. To add a little spice, Namibia is home to a lot of puff adders - deadly snakes that will not slither away when you walk near them like most snakes. They will hold their ground and strike if you get too close.

So we managed to get our tents up and gear unpacked, being very careful where we walked. Once that was done, Megs went for a shower. That turned out to be cut short, when she saw a decent sized scorpion was sharing the shower with her. Needless to say, Megs got out of the shower and back to our tent fairly quickly. Later in the afternoon we went over to the bar to watch some football on TV. Neena joined us there a few minutes later, very upset, as a snake had reared up out of a hole in the ground and hissed at her.

After a drink in the bar, we had a delicious dinner of lamb chops, potatoes and carrots. There were so many bugs around, which made eating the delicious dinner a challenge. The lights around our truck, where we were eating, attracted moths to go with the flies, ants, cockroaches and a large stick insect. This attracted frogs, one of which jumped on to Tim's shoe during dinner. The frogs are OK, but they are what bring out the snakes...

It was all a bit much and we were a little worried about snakes and scorpions, especially as it got dark, so we retired to our tent after dinner and hung out there, with the door very firmly zipped up.

Day 45: Etosha National Park

Namibia is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Its official language is English.

Namibia was inhabited since early times by Bushmen, Damara and Namaqua, and since about the 14th century AD by immigrating Bantu people. It became a German Imperial protectorate in 1884 and remained a German colony until the end of WWI. In 1920, the League of Nations mandated the country to South Africa. There are strong German influences throughout Namibia today in place names, architecture, and even food in some parts.

Namibia has a population of 2.1 million people and a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy. Agriculture, herding, tourism and the mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, uranium, gold, silver and base metals – form the backbone of Namibia's economy. Given the presence of the arid Namib Desert, it is the second least densely populated country in the world, after Mongolia.

We got up and going early on Monday - Tim showered just after 6am (no sign of scorpions thankfully) - and we left the camp around 8am. We had a half-day drive across the top of Namibia heading west towards Etosha National Park. We stopped in a town called Grootfontein just after 11am, where we visited the nicest supermarket in all of Africa. We then carried on our merry way across Namibia and we arrived at Etosha Naional Park just after lunch at about 2.30pm.

Etosha is a national park in north-western Namibia covering an area of more than 22,000 square kilometres. The Etosha Pan dominates the park. The salt pan desert is roughly 130km long and as wide as 50km in places. The hypersaline conditions of the pan limit the species that can permanently inhabit the pan itself. The salt pan is usually dry, but fills with water briefly in the summer, when it attracts pelicans and flamingos in particular. Perennial springs attract a variety of animals and birds throughout the year, including the endangered black rhinoceros!!

The park is extremely dry, as you will see from the photos below. Its ground is sort of sandy and stoney. There are no buffaloes at all in the whole park due to how dry it is. So it is impossible to spot the Big Five in Etosha. However, there are several water holes scattered throughout the park and that is where many of the animals tend to hang out. We were not long through the gates of Etosha when we came across a big group of giraffes, looking as elegant as ever.

The sky was incredibly black and stormy looking as we drove around Etosha (photos below). It looked like we were due a massive thunderstorm, but it never eventuated. We saw plenty of springboks, an oryx or two, some zebras, wildebeest, vultures, lots more giraffes and a small pride of lions lying lazily under a tree. We couldn't get a great view of the lions as they were well camouflaged in long grass and bushes and they were quite far from the truck.

At the end of the afternoon, just before we headed to camp, we saw a giraffe drinking from a water hole. It was very funny. Giraffes look rather odd when they have a drink. Because their mouths are so far from the ground, they either need to spread their front legs apart and lower their head right down to the water to drink or they need to bend their knees on their front legs and lower their head (as in our photo below). Either way, they cannot leave their head down low for too long or the blood will rush to their head and they will pass out!

We arrived at our camp (within the Etosha National Park) at 5.30pm and got set up. There was a thunderstorm (it was that time of year!), which forced us under shelter for half an hour. After dinner, we walked to a viewing platform over a flood-lit water hole at our camp, to try to see animals having a drink at night. Sadly there was nothing there other than a few birds and some fish jumping about in the water. The rain probably didn't help, as this usually makes the animals take shelter out of sight!

Day 46: Etosha National Park

It rained heavily in the night and our tent leaked and our sleeping bags got a bit wet. Not cool. We got going fairly early - brekkie at 5.20am and left camp at 6am. We headed back into the game park for another big day of game viewing. Sadly the overnight rain and on-and-off drizzle throughout the morning meant that there was not a lot to see before lunch. We saw a few zebras, wildebeest, springboks, impala, giraffes, lots of birds and a few mongooses. But nothing terribly exciting.

We stopped at different camping ground in Etosha for lunch. It was very impressive - it had a brilliant swimming pool, a restaurant, a souvenir shop where we picked up a fridge magnet, and a viewing platform overlooking another water hole. We had delicious filled rolls for lunch and then checked out the viewing platform. Again, no animals drinking at the water hole, but we did see a large dead scorpion on the path - it had been squashed by something.

After lunch, the weather was a bit clearer and we managed to see more animals, including two elusive rhinos!!! First we saw a white rhino off in the distance and shortly afterwards we saw a rare black rhino right on the side of the road, just metres from our truck! It hung around near the truck for ages, so we managed to get some good photos. We also saw a pride of lions, including a few cubs who were play fighting, which was quite fun to watch.

Later in the afternoon we saw a hyena and a jackal at a water hole. Jackals are interesting creatures. They will steal your shoes from outside your tent at night, but they will also try to steal a lion's lunch from under his nose. Brave or stupid...perhaps both. We actually saw a jackal trying to steal a kill from under a lion's nose as we were leaving Etosha National Park. The lions were not happy at all and chased him away a few times. But the jackal kept coming back... Sadly, we had to keep moving so we will never know if the jackal survived or not!

After an amazing afternoon in the game park (the last game drive of the whole tour) we arrived at camp around 5pm. It was a beautiful sunny evening, which allowed our tents to dry out. We chilled out and played around with a rugby ball before dinner. Megs found a fantastic bird nest hanging down from a branch of a tree. The birds were coming and going from an opening pretty much at the bottom of the nest - it was incredible (photo below). Chicken drumsticks and corn on the cob rounded off a great day in Namibia.

Day 47: Cheetah Park

We were a little later leaving on Wednesday. We had showers and breakfast and left at 8.15am. We drove for an hour and then stopped in a nice little town, where we visited an internet cafe/bakery. We did some internet and Tim tried a game (kudu) pie - kudu is a large delicious-tasting antelope found in southern Africa. There was also a supermarket and a bottle store for those who wanted to re-stock supplies.

An hour and a half down the road, we arrived at the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park, where we would camp for the night. The day had started off quite cool, but by lunchtime it was stunning blue sky and scorching hot! We got unpacked and had yummy bread rolls, meat, cheese and green salad for lunch, before retiring to the pool for a couple of hours. At 4pm, we got picked up in a ute with a big trailer on the back and we were driven a couple of kilometres to the house where the owners of the cheetah park live.

They have three tame cheetahs as pets and we got to play with them! It was awesome. We walked around the yard with the cheetahs, patted them, posed for photos with them and generally watched them go about their business. Unfortunately some of our photos came out a little blurry. The cheetahs were just like house cats in all their mannerisms. They even licked our hands and legs for the salt in our sweat!

After a while, the cheetah handler brought out three chunks of meat and the cheetahs got very excited. We weren't allowed to get too close while they were eating! They growled and snarled as they ate - and yet they still looked like little house cats.

After feeding time for the tame cheetahs, we hopped back on the ute/trailer and went off to the wild cheetah enclosure. The main purpose of the cheetah park is for conservation. Cheetah numbers have rapidly declined of late and they are now very rare. The wild enclosure is home to about 20 cheetahs and they live in a semi-wild environment enclosed by a fence. They are fed every day or two by the cheetah handlers, but also kill and eat the odd bird or small animal that finds its way inside the fence.

We drove through some big gates and immediately attracted the attention of a dozen or so cheetahs. As we drove slowly through the enclosure, the cheetahs stalked the ute, knowing that there would be food before long. Eventually we stopped and watched the cheetahs pace around next to the ute, patiently waiting for feeding time. Again the cheetah handlers threw big chunks of meat, one at a time, off the back the trailer and the cheetahs jostled for position and leapt high in the air to grab the meat before the other cheetahs. We got some fantastic action shots of cheetahs fighting over the meat.

However, there was enough to go around and one by one, all of the cheetahs got their dinner. They are such majestic creatures, so athletic and powerful and yet so gentle. It was a truly amazing experience. We had seen a couple of cheetahs in the game parks earlier on the tour, but to see so many of them, up so close, and to see them jumping about and eating, and to have the opportunity to actually pat and play with tame cheetahs too, was simply spectacular.

We had dinner and drinks back at camp and then Tim and Mike played pool in the bar - but they were both pretty average! But we had all had another brilliant day in Africa. As we were seeing and doing so much every day, it would have been easy to overlook some of our experiences or take them for granted. But what we had seen at the cheetah park, like so many of the other things we had seen, was very special - a once in a lifetime experience.

Day 48: Spitzkoppe

We had another cruisy start to the day on Thursday, departing the Cheetah Park camp at 8am. We drove south / south-west through central Namibia towards Spitzkoppe. It was a beautiful sunny morning but not super hot when we hit the road. It was a really nice drive - the further south we got (into Botswana and Namibia especially) the better the roads and more fascinating the scenery became.

We stopped at a couple of roadside stalls along the way, each operated by a traditional tribal group of Namibia. The first stall was run by the Herero people, traditionally pastoralists. The women dress in beautiful, extravagant and old-fashioned dresses, often with matching hats and parasols, heavily influenced by Western culture during the colonial period. The women were selling hand-crafted cushions and Herero people figurines. There were a couple of little kids there, who were fascinated with Megan's sunglasses and took turns trying them on. It was very cute.

Further down the road we stopped at a second roadside stall, this one operated by a group of Himba people. The Himba people are an ethnic group of about 20,000 to 50,000 people living in northern Namibia. They are mostly a nomadic, pastoral people, closely related to the Herero. The Himba wear little clothing, but the women are famous for covering themselves with otjize, a mixture of butter fat and ochre, possibly to protect themselves from the sun. The mixture gives their skin a reddish tinge. This symbolises the earth's rich red colour and the blood that symbolises life, and is consistent with the Himba ideal of beauty. Women braid each other's hair and cover it in the ochre mixture (photo below). They were so happy when our truck stopped and we got out to look at their stall. A few of us bought some little bracelets and necklaces etc, which were pretty cool.

Just past the Himba stall, we stopped for lunch in a small tin mining town called Uis. There was a supermarket and not much else in Uis, so we bought some cold drinks at the supermarket and we had tuna and salad sandwiches for lunch. We then drove on to Spitzkoppe. The landscape was incredible - so flat and dry, except for the odd huge rock formation rising up out of nowhere. The last stretch of road before Spitzkoppe was a gravel road and very bumpy. We arrived at Spitzkoppe around 3pm.

Spitzkoppe (from German words meaning "pointed dome") is a group of bald granite peaks located in the Namib Desert. The granite is more than 700 million years old and the highest outcrop rises 1784 metres above sea level. The peaks stand out dramatically from the flat surrounding plains, almost like a smaller version of Ayres Rock. Many examples of Bushmen artwork can be seen painted on the rock in the Spitzkoppe area.

There was no camping ground at Spitzkoppe, so we were bush camping - no electricity, no running water and no protection from wild animals. Darlington gave us a talk about how we had to be exceptionally careful. We had to be on the lookout for snakes and scorpions at all times and we were told to avoid leaving our tents at night unless it was really necessary, as there had been leopards and wild cats spotted in the area in recent months.

We got our tents set up and wandered around our new surroundings, taking some photos. It was such a beautiful setting - incredibly rugged but also beautiful. Then we chilled out and chucked around a rugby ball in the shade. Just before sunset, we walked up one of the largest "rock hills", where we got a spectacular view over the barren plains of the desert and watched the sun go down.

It got dark very quickly and we had a lovely dinner around the campfire. It was a very chilled out and fun night. There was not much else to do, so most of us went to bed very early. As we were brushing our teeth just outside our tents, Simon and Carlissa yelled out that they had just seen a pair of glowing eyes, possibly belonging to a wild cat or a leopard, watching us from the rocks about 30 metres away. Whatever it was, it scurried away quickly and everyone went to bed.

At around 1am, we were all suddenly woken by blood-curdling screams, screams of absolute terror, coming from Carlissa. We sat bolt upright in our tent and we were convinced that someone was dying! Nobody wanted to get out of their tents. We all yelled out to try to find out what was happening. Then the screams stopped. There was silence for a few seconds and then various people popped their heads out of their tents and asked what was happening. Darlington had run and got a big stick and came over, expecting to have to fight off a leopard!

What had actually happened was that Simon (who has a tendency to have very vivid dreams) had dreamed that a leopard was trying to get into their tent and, while still fully asleep, he had thought that he was kicking the leopard and trying to stop it from getting in. He was actually kicking Carlissa's legs, and shouting as he did so. Carlissa had woken up and thought that there actually was a leopard biting her legs and that Simon was trying to kick it away. So she started screaming - loud. When they worked out what had really happened, they were super embarrassed and sorry for waking everyone. The rest of us were so grateful that they were OK and, once we knew it was a false alarm, we all thought it was hilarious!