Date of Entry: November 8th 2016
Date of Writing: March 7th 2017
We wake up early again, glad to see that the rain has stopped, and pack our partially soaked tents into their bags and into the truck. Peter says goodbye to our friendly neighbour horse and I try to get myself psyched up for today despite the sadness of Canada denying Renata’s visa to visit for 6 days over christmas. Crazy right? But today is our first Safari in a national park and it’s hard not to be excited about that.
After a hearty breakfast we pack up the truck and hit the road. Etosha is just over an hour or so away and it passes pretty quickly rocking out to some music to keep myself awake. I didn’t sleep well the night before, upset with my own country. Don’t worry, soon I’ll be wide awake.
We reach the park gate and Honary dissapears to organize the logistics of our visit and pay our fees (included in what we paid nomads) and then he climbs back into the truck and we start our first safari. About 15 seconds we’re greeted by this little impala just beside the road, exciting but hardly one of the big 5 right? Just you wait.
After about 10 minutes in the park we’re pulling up to our first waterhole when the struck suddenly stops short and Honory expertly points out two male lions in some shade a short distance off from the waterhole.We almost tip the truck all rushing to the wide open windows on one side, (I’m already there) and we stare in awe at these amazing creatures. It takes me a second to remember I have a camera and start snapping.
As we sit and watch these incredible lions socializing and lazing around more animals approach the waterhole cautiously, including some more impalas and a giraffe grazing off trees in the distance. All this ten minutes in. I’m awake now, and I can’t seem to open my eyes wide enough. The animals retreat a bit but don’t disappear when one of the young male lions gets up and saunters over for a drink from the waterhole.
Our other lion friend seems to want to make a move but can’t quite be bothered in the slowly growing heat of the rising sun. Instead he yawns, shifts position and regards us from a distance watching him. I’m upset when we leave as I could have watched these guys for days, but that’s the issue with safari, and in fact travel, no matter how awesome the place you are, there’s always more to see.
We drive for a while now without seeing all that much though I do spot a hornbill and a type of squirrels like creature that burrows in the dirt, but then the truck slams to a stop again and we spot a family of elephants some distance off in the forest, again on my side of the truck.
The trees have made photography hard here so it’s not too long before we’re moving on and being told not to worry we will see more elephants on this trip. (They’re not kidding) And it doesn’t take long before we spot a giraffe quite near the road walking through shrubs. These gentle and silent giants might be my favourite animals yet, incredibly beautiful and unique the patterns on their skin are unbelievable and they are so incredibly tall. I love them very much.
Eventually the giraffe gets so distant that we move on, driving through the parched savannah of northern Namibia eyes peeled for more animals. It doesn’t take too long before we’ve spotted a jackal (think fox) and then a kuru (think giant deer), and a long line of Oryx and our first plain Zebras all making the long hot trudge towards a waterhole.
We drive on towards the waterhole but again the truck pulls to a sudden stop. The elephants and lions we’re pretty obvious but I have no idea how Honory spotted this. It’s a tiny little baby bird, the species name I can’t quite remember and it’s just below the truck. We really almost ran it over. Quickly enough it’s mum shows up and hide s it behind a small rock looking up at us and telling us to move on. Africa has wildlife of all shapes and sizes. From the massive elephants down to palm of the hand size baby bird seen below.
We snap some pictures of the zebras and Oryxs enjoying a well earned cool drink from the waterhole, skittish and clearly watching for lions but none show themselves so we drive onwards. The truck stops abruptly again and Honory points out a giant Harpy eagle perched in a tree just beside the road. He has a great eye for these things and were lucky to have him. And trust me when I say just how big these birds are.
You’ll notice my safari entries will be heavier on photos then words so I’ll just say it plain, we drive on for another short while before finding a family of lions including two young cubs. They are hidden behind a tree and a ton of branches and photos are tough but I manage a few worth showing.
Eventually we pull in to one of the two campsites seeing a long line of wildabeasts on our way in. Honareystops to set up our camping for tomorrow night and tells us to take a walk to the waterhole observation area. after buying a cold drink I do just that wandering through the murderous midday heat with no shelter in sight and only the consolation of a cold coke zero. The prices in the camp our overpriced but not ridiculously so meaning that I’ll drink quite a few cold drinks over the next few days. I’m sorry I don’t remember exact figures.
I get to the waterhole and am instantly lost to one of the single most impressive sights I’ve ever seen. The waterhole is maybe 30 meters from the observation area, and there gathered around the waterhole is I don’t even know how many elephants. Somewhere around 100 split into three family groups. Never in my life have I seen something like this. Something so wildly impressive and beautiful and something that I could watch for days on end. Let’s show you some pictures though they cannot hope to capture the impossible beauty of the sight as my eyes did.
Elephants are social animals. So watching them and trying to understand their behaviours as three separate huge family groups made up of mostly of females and young is beyond fascinating. Especially since they’re all looking to share one waterhole. Along with a ton of other animals, like springbok, oryx, and zebras. It’s crazy and the sounds, interactions and everything is almost too much for me to take. Add in to that fact that they are constantly in and out of the water to beat the heat and that there are countless tiny elephant babies all throughout the group and I’m practically laughing from pure unfiltered joy.
For a decent chunk of time I sit there wishing I wasn’t due to report to the truck for lunch soon. As I stand there leaning over the raised barrier to make the campsite safe one adolescent male elephant enters the centre of the waterhole and decides that no one else should be allowed to drink. The next few minutes are a fascinating scene of this adolescent chasing out zebras, oryx, springbok and even other elephants out of the waterhole. It makes me think of the classic Simpsons ending in the bart gets an elephant episode. “Animals are a lot like people, Mrs. Simpson: some of them act badly because they’ve had a hard life or have been mistreated. But, like people, some of them are just jerks.” This teenager is a jerk.
I check the time on my cellphone and cringe looking at it, it’s lunchtime and I need to be back at the truck. Despite the heat I run most of the way until I find where the truck is and tell Honary I’ll be skipping lunch and asking when I need to be back. This buys me another 40 minutes with the elephants when I get back to them, drenched in sweat, breathing hard but utterly happy. I watch as one of the three families starts to leave the waterhole and snap some more impressive elephant pictures, including lots of babies shots and one very impressive leg of a penis that would make any man feel utterly insignificant beside it. It seriously seems to be almost the size of me.
(VIDEOS COMING SOON)
Again I hate seeing my time run out, and regretfully head back to peter tosh. We pack up the lunch tables and head out of the campsite back into the park for an afternoon safari. We get two full days in this amazing place,and I could not be more excited about that.
The first waterfall we come to just has some zebras drinking and a big male ostrich approaching with his only slightly smaller mate. I start to figure out just how hard it’s going to be to to match the elephant experience. Luckily my brain doesn’t seem to work like that too much and just because I’ve seen something related more impressive doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the zebras drinking in the arid landscape.
As it’s gotten hotter and hotter, we’ve seen less and less animals (campground waterhole excepted). That’s why I’m surprised when the truck comes to a sudden halt and Honary directs us to look into the long grass off to my side of the truck. It takes me a few seconds but eventually we all spot a single spotter hyena crouching in the long grass. Its quite a distance but my canon sx60 makes short work of that and I grab some decent photos of this ferocious yet comical looking creature. I’m shocked at how big it is (the biggest hyena species) and it makes a lasting impression. Especially since it ends up being the only hyena I see this whole trip.
As the hyena wanders off we keep driving and come across more wildabeest, another giraffe, lots more zebras including a baby nursing, and a massive bird called a Cory Bastard. The giraffe is quickly rocketing up my list of favourite animal to watch, the complete silence mixed with the way they walk is awesome.
A short while later we pull into the campsite. In comparison to the morning we didn’t see so much, but with the hot afternoon sun out that’s no surprise. We pitch our tents and then I waste no time taking a walk over to the waterhole at this campsite not daring to get my hopes high.
I was right and I spend an hour and a half sitting there in the sun at the waterhole without seeing all that much,though there are some turtles, a cool squirrel, some wildabeest and a hornbill eating insects in the tree above me. After too much sun I head back to camp and take a swim in the very inviting pool while also checking in on the lead up to the American election, hoping desperately that the reality we now live with Trump in the white house. At this point it still looks good.
We eat dinner and then I head back to the waterhole hanging around long enough to see a rhino visit the waterhole in the darkness. Pictures are hard to pull off with my awesome but limited at night camera, still I’ve included my best attempt. I head back to my tent exhausted but feeling good. We’ve seen a lot today and I’ll never forget my time with 100 elephants at a waterhole, and we have another day and a bit in this wilderness wonderland in northern Namibia. I’m still angry with my country for the visa thing, but all these incredible animals are helping me move forward again.
