A Day in the Park

On Saturday, I went to Etosha with Moses, Paul, George, and Bas, a Dutch architect helping out at Treesleeper. Moses, Paul, and George don’t get to travel much, so it was a special trip for them.

We all piled into the Pajero, the project’s jeep, at 5:30 as the sun was rising and set off for Etosha, a 1.5 hour drive west from Tsintsabis. Normally leaving so early in the morning means that the driver drives while the passengers sleep, but everyone was excited and kept me company. The first part of the drive was uneventful. About an hour into the drive, though, I had to slow down to avoid a flock of guinea fowl (pheasant-like birds) that was in the middle of the road. “What are you doing?!” Moses yelled. “That’s meat, man! You should hit the gas and not the brakes.” Apologizing, I promised to get him a guinea fowl before we got to the park gate. In a couple of minutes, I saw another flock in the middle of the road and hit the gas. We exploded through the flock in a cloud of feathers. The guys cheered. Judging by the number of feathers raining down, I figured I had hit 3 or 4 birds, but actually I had hit only one really feathery fowl. Grinning widely, Moses jumped out of the car, grabbed the bird, and stuffed it under the back seat to hide it from the national park officials at the Etosha gate. Meat for the evening had been secured.

 

We got to the Eastern gate of Etosha around 7, paid and drove into the park. No less than 30 seconds later, I spotted a group of big lions in the road some 150 yards away. As we approached, they turned right and walked off into the bush. When we reached point where they had entered the bush, we found that they were walking parallel to the road. There were five big, beautiful lions, four females and a young male, and they were walking single file not more than 30 feet from us. Bas reached for his camera and Moses knocked on the window to get the lions to look at the camera. We followed the pride for about a mile until they found a small water source and stopped to drink. After they had their fill, they walked away from the road and disappeared into the bushes. It was a good way to start the day.

 

After driving 12km to the first big camp in Etosha, Namutoni, we turned north to check out a couple of well-known water holes, but found nothing out of the ordinary. We did see some giraffes, kudu, springbok, zebra, oryx, but no big cats or elephants. So we returned to Namutoni to lounge by the pool.

 

Namutoni was originally a German military outpost and is famous for a battle that took place there in 1907 in which seven German soldiers repelled an attack by 2000 Ovambo warriors. The old white brick fort is still standing and has been turned into a museum. My favorite part of the camp is the pool, although there is also a small shop and a water hole where you can sit under a grass roof and watch animals (mostly giraffes, warthogs, and zebras) come and go. The first thing I did at the pool was take a nap. After I woke up, I fooled around in the water with George and ate some lunch. After lunch we left for another game drive.

 

The highlights of the afternoon drive were seeing a couple of herds of elephants, a pair of mating lions, and about a bajillion giraffes. The giraffes drove the guys crazy. Moses asked me at one point, “What do you see when you look at that giraffe?” “Uh, a big antelope. Why, what do you see?” “Man, I see meat, a lot of meat. One time my grandfather killed a giraffe and we ate for a month. If you dry the meat, it breaks very nicely and tastes very good.” We drove on and saw many more giraffes. George had my binoculars and was identifying the animals in the distance; Moses had Bas’ digital camera and was taking pictures of every animal within shooting distance. Paul sat staring intently out the window looking for elephants. They were quiet most of the time, taking in the wild surroundings and not wanting to miss a thing.

 

Soon, the sun started getting low in the sky and we turned back toward Namutoni to make it out of the park by sunset. On the way out of the park, we saw the same group of lions we had seen in the morning; our day had come full circle.

 

We left the park at about 5:30, 12 hours after leaving Tsintsabis, and headed home as the sun set behind us ending another great day in Namibia.