Etosha

Etosha is a very large wildlife preserve. I can’t remember its dimensions and unfortunately I am writing this blog from mohale’s hoek, where there is no internet, but if I remember when I’m in maseru I’ll look up the size on the interwebbies. Don’t count on it. Inside of etosha are numerous roads leading to watering holes, marshy areas, etc. there are also three campsites protected from wildlife by fencing. I have also forgotten the names of these campsites. But we stayed in the first campsite for two nights, then skipped over the middle campsite and stayed in the third and largest campsite for the last night in the park. I liked our first campsite best, as it was a bit less crowded and more peaceful. We were also much closer to the bathrooms, and therefore showers, in the first site.
While the fencing keeps out most large and harmful beasties, not all wildlife is prevented from entering the campsites. The first things we (or, at least I) saw upon entering the camp, whatever it’s name was, were WARTHOGS!!! So, we got to get out of the bus and check them out while george was checking us in. they are sooooo cute, in a ridiculous, ugly sort of way. They crack me up, anyways. I’m not sure that anyone else understands my love (sigh) but I guess that’s just the way of the world. After george checked us in, we headed out for our campsite and set up tents. Then we bummed around with the soccer ball, then the rugby ball, then both. That night, we met some other fuzzy neighbors of our campsite – jackals. These particular ones had black fur down their backs, while the rest of them were brown. I later discovered you could buy their coats at a store on independence ave. in Windhoek. I wonder how much of a market there is for jackal fur? Anyways, these animals are so acclimated to people that they will come within a couple of feet of you, albeit cautiously, in the hopes of getting food. I think kids see them as similar to dogs and feed them. This is another good reason to make sure your tent is securely zipped at night. No one wants to wake up in the morning to a jackals snuggling and looking for food.
Much more eerie than the jackals were the other night noises. We were right beside the fence separating the camp from the wildlife, and there was a lion right on the other side of the fence. I had never heard a lion call before (except in movies, and well that’s just not the same) and it is awe-inspiring and incredibly powerful. That, combined with the knowledge that this powerful, sharp-toothed and clawed beast is maybe only a couple hundred yards away, is enough to give you the chills. Kyla kept trying to convince herself that it was a zebra. Unfortunately, I’m not that good with words and therefore cannot fully describe the feeling of sitting in the dark around a fire listening to what ended up being a couple lions calling back and forth, and sounding almost as if they are surrounding the camp. Surreal to be sure, amongst other emotions.
And with that, we went to bed.
We woke up early the next morning, skipped breakfast, and headed out to hunt more wildlife. I thought about elmer fudd a couple times both in the delta and in etosha except, instead of “we’re hunting wabbits”, “we’re hunting ewephants,” or zebra, or whatever. Anyways, we had to get up early because most of the game is out and about drinking and eating in the morning and then in the evening. They take siestas during the heat of the day. We wandered around to different watering holes and across a marshy area. Unfortunately, now is about when I started to forget to record everything that I was seeing. I do remember watching a duck with her young in the marsh. The ducklings kept trying to come out of the tall grass and the mother would swim to them and scold them back into hiding. We also returned to the watering hole we had visited the day before, in time to watch a couple giraffes fighting. I had never considered giraffe wars before. They didn’t really strike me as animals that did much fighting. Ya learn something new every day.
Giraffes fight with their necks. Basically, these two were exchanging hits which included one banging its neck against the others, and the other giraffe returning the bow. This went on for a little while, until a mediator showed up to stop it. George said that giraffes can actually kill each other this way. They hit the other animals next hard enough to burst some blood vessels, and that’s that. Wow. I had never thought about how strong a giraffe neck must be before.
We went to another watering hole full of a variety of animals: zebra, giraffe, elephants, springbok, kudu, eland (if I remember correctly – this is questionable), some birds, and a single warthog looking adorably lost amongst the crowd. And just as at bars, which are social scenes as well as scenes of fights, watering holes are crowded enough for some tempers to rise. There was one particularly feisty zebra at this hole that kept picking fights with the other zebra. We stayed for a while and watched as the animals slowly started to drift away. We saw quite a few springbok leap off into the brush. Then we headed back to camp. Oh, somewhere in this time we also saw a female lion hunting for food. I think we scared her game away, so she probably wasn’t too pleased with us.
At camp we saw another semi-domesticated wild beast: mongooses, who will always remind me of riki tiki tavi. They were scrounging in trash cans near an abandoned camp site, looking for food I presume. There were lots of them, too. They were amusing to watch for a while. They move so quickly! But then lunch called, and I have my priorities down, so I ate. We had a few hours to rest after that, until late afternoon when we would head out again. Most of the group wanted to head to the pool. I hadn’t brought a bathing suit with me, and besides that I figured the water would be freezing cold (it was winter after all, and the nights were pretty cold), so I declined going into the water but walked with the group to the pool, intending to quietly read while all the insane people jumped into uber cold h2o.
Plan foiled!
Maybe about 15 minutes or so after arriving at the pool I was dumped in, clothes and all. And clare, being the kind person she is, had even borrowed my camera to photograph this. Pictures on flickr for anyone interested. The last picture of me in the pool is the one right before I started hyperventilating from the cold. I was dragged very ungracefully, but thankfully very quickly, from the water and place in the sunniest part of the pool area available. I’ve had one other experience with cold water, and that was in Arizona when I went to visit my aunt and uncle with my family. I was maybe about 10 at the time. I turned blue. Cold water is NOT my friend. But the sun was warm, and I recuperated quickly enough to pass the rugby ball around the pool for a while. Lesson: do NOT throw ann into cold bodies of water. We left at about 3:30 to get ready for the next game drive, and I decided to take a quick, very HOT shower to warm myself before getting back on the bus. I was still shaking when we set out on the drive. I think it was more that my nerves were on end than that I was still cold, though.
On this drive, we saw many of the same animals that we had already seen. The really memorable part of it was near the end. We were driving down the road and suddenly there was a lion walking right next to the bus. Mind you, this was also right at sunset. Very picturesque. I got an ok picture of him (this was a full-maned male), and if you zoom in you can see how golden his eyes are.
Unfortunately kyla started to feel bad about this time. She gamely kept trying to watch the lion, but ended up with her head in a plastic bag a lot. We followed the lion for a while. At one point he crossed the road and stared right at us. I think he was getting peeved. Eventually, we had to leave, as the sun was setting and we had to get to camp. There was another car right behind us, though, and then a ministry car pulled up as we left. George wasn’t sure, but he said that he thought the first car might have been trying to do some poaching. So I guess these things happen even in massive, touristy game parks like etosha.
We got back to camp to find a massive bus parked by our site, and oodles of tents of annoying, young tourists surrounding ours. This put a damper on our evening and the next morning. Seriously, someone from our group passed by them on the way to the toilet and heard them making fart jokes. Glad I wasn’t part of the group. And also, I can’t imagine being in a group that large to do a safari. Eight was a good number. Large enough so that it’s not awkward (george said he’d been a guide on a safari with just one person – talk about awkward) but not so big as to create friction amongst people and scare off the game.
Kyla headed straight for the bathroom and then bed. I went to the bar and bought her some boiled water and then for the most part left her alone. I figure most people don’t want to be bothered when their ill. She thinks she just had maybe a small stomach flu or something, and after spending the night throwing up and spending a lot of the next day sleeping, she was ok again.
Other than annoying tourists and illnesses, the night passed pretty uneventfully. I couldn’t get to sleep and so stayed up reading for a while after everyone else had gone to bed. A jackal came within a foot of me before darting away.
I, and I think most of the rest of us, were rudely awakened at 4 in the morning by the very loud sounds of the large group of young tourists packing up to leave. Seriously, they seemed to have no consideration for the fact that others were trying to sleep still. They were laughing and joking as they took down their tents. I felt like punching someone. I rolled out of my tent, figuring I’d be unable to sleep and went to the bathroom, where there was a group of young adult girls. I asked if they were from the large tour group outside. When they answered in the affirmative, I tried to give them the evil eye, but it might have gotten lost within my bleary-eyed expression. It was lost on them, anyways.
Well, eventually my group got going, packed up, and headed for the next campsite we were to visit in etosha. We did some more game driving on the way, and didn’t make it to the other camp until around lunch time. Kyla spent the time sprawled out on the back seat attempting to sleep, and recovering. Meanwhile, Stephen was falling ill. He’d started feeling bad a little after kyla, and had some of the same symptoms, so they might have gotten the same thing. He was much sicker, though. He turned white and looked catatonic. We started thinking that maybe he’d contracted malaria, so after we got to camp and got lunch, george and Alfred took him and mike (his brother) and hour drive to see the doctor. I took a nap.
This camp was much larger than the first, and there were many more people. I didn’t like it as much. But we were even closer to the fence than we had been at the last camp and could watch elephants and zebra heading for the watering hole that was right beside the camp. There was also a large weaver bird nest near the camp, and more squirrels.
After I woke up, I went to visit the watering hole that was located next to the camp. The watering hole is apparently very popular and often visited. When I went, there were a bunch of elephants hanging out, drinking, tossing dirt on their heads (to cool off?), etc. I tried to photograph a baby elephant at exactly the wrong time, when he was turning and starting to use the bathroom. Dang it! I got some good photos too, though, and got a couple photos of giraffes’ reflections in the water.
So, dusk was approaching, and then night, and george still hadn’t returned with the others. And he’d taken the wood and food with him. So, enterprising individuals that we are, we decided to take care of things ourselves. Some people walked to the store to buy wood and biscuits. I walked to the campsite next to us and asked for a match. I got a bic lighter, but figured that would do. Then I walked back and gave the lighter to kyla, who is aces at starting a fire. Her father insisted she learn this as a child. Thankfully, some of our fire-starters had been left, and she soon had a nice fire going. I returned the lighter to its owner.
We also had snacks. Yum. Maybe about 15 minutes or so late, george returned, and we found out that Stephen didn’t have malaria, but some nasty form of the flu. He went to bed and we made dinner. After dinner, we headed back down to the watering hole, now lit by floodlights (ain’t technology grand). Clare and Andrew had been there in time to see a rhino come to the watering hole, walk up to the fence, do a couple circles in place, and plot down for a nap. When we got there it was snoring. Clare likened it to a big dog. Several more rhinos came and went while we sat out, both black and white rhinos. We then left for a little while to go to the bar and get bottled water, returned to watch the rhinos, and then went to bed.
Oh, somewhere around this time I found an 80’s buddy! So I got to share my ipod and dance in my car seat to 80’s music with mike. And when Stephen was feeling better, he wanted to listen to the top gun songs and to new kids on the block. Life was good.
So, the next morning we got up, said goodbye to etosha, and moved on to…