Safari Time

Bonjour,

After Cape Town, we headed off to Namibia.

We spent one day visiting Lon and Val Garber, and seeing the good work that they are doing with people of Okhandja, including the development of a women's art cooperative and an under-construction youth center.

Then, it was safari time in Etosha National Park.

Because it was wintertime and very dry, animals were pretty easy to spot, usually near the waterholes. The animals were amazing -- even on our first day we saw nearly everything.

For sheer variety and number of animals, this place certainly rivals the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, but you have the added advantage of being able to drive your own vehicle through the park, at your own pace.

One highlight for us was when we watched these five elephants frolicking in a waterhole. They were having the best time. One of them playfully scared away the ducks by swinging his trunk at them and shooting some water.

But you once you see them, you quickly realize who is really in charge out there.

Yes, Big Daddy here was close (think 10-15 feet). Even Tommy rolled up his window (not that a sheet of glass was going to do much good if this 400 or 500 pound lion got angry). Mostly, though, he seemed content to pose for pictures, especially since he had nine or ten tough-looking ladies looking out for his next meal.

That last photo captured a fairly tense moment in and out of our car. Luckily for these impalas, the girls were not hungry: They had just killed another impala earlier that day and were still munching on some of the bones.

These cats were so powerful. Later on, Bob spotted a young leopard and a (young?) hyena. But even those carnivores looked positively puny after the lions.

And then there is this odd creature.

We had stopped at one of the designated "toilets", which was a fenced in area not far from the lions. The only thing is that the fence was partially torn down.

We didn't stay long.

When we weren't out searching for the animals, we could hang out at one of the nice rest camps in the Park. We stayed at one of them, and they reminded me of the facilities at Yellowstone (although the Etosha facilities are nicer). But it's a similar set-up.


One thing you definitely don't want to see on a self-guided game drive?

A flat tire.

After stopping by one waterhole to watch a couple of elephants coat themselves in cool, green mud, we began to drive away only to discover that one of the tires was very, very flat. With no other alternative, Bob got out of the car and started to change it as fast as he could, with me keeping watch (from the safe confines of the car).

A tour bus pulled up and the driver hopped out to tell us that there was a large pride of lions about a block away.

Wonderful.

So while I continued to keep watch (although, of course, the problem is not the lions that you can see, but the lions that you can't), Bob and the very helpful bus driver quickly changed that tire.

Then we had a slow, tense ride (about 50 km) to the nearest rest camp -- these are not great roads and the spare was kind of crummy -- where they patched the hole in the flat (and very bald) tire. En route, we had to stop until this charming fellow decided to clear off the road.

Goodbye, Big Guy.

You'll be happy to hear that the tire patch, with some reinforcement the next day, made it through the rest of the trip... although maybe not quite as happy as Bob and I were.

A bientot,

Kim