Now another movie to watch – ‘The Gods must be crazy’. Can’t imagine what the locals think of us as tourists coming in and gawking at everything…
Rundu/Angola Border
Leaving our campsite at our regular hour of 7am (at least when I start working I might get a bit of a sleep-in) we headed deeper into Namibia. We changed our itinerary to combine 2 travel days into 1 longer one so we didn’t have to rush our visit to the bushmen. Unfortunately that meant we didn’t spend the night at a camp that was on the river which bordered Angola. Had been hoping to visit (even illegally) and say I’d been to another country.
We did stop at that border town for lunch and a few of us went walking towards the river. Again thought it was a lot closer from the directions we got but after 30 minutes walking (when we only had a 1.5 hour stop) arrived at the river but no luck in finding a boat. There have been some problems around this area with fighting or something so no legitimate place to cross the border. Contemplated swimming across but since I was the only one truly interested and was running out of time I joined the group in heading back. Frustrating to be as close as this photo demonstrates.
(photo of Angola – missed it by that much)
San Bushmen Living Museum
Struggled to write this section about the San Bushmen – there’s only about 20,000 left and supposedly only 2000 that still live off the land. Reminded me a lot of the Aboriginals in Australia and the struggle a nomadic tribe of people who live off the land can face when ‘others’ come to the same land.
It was a packed morning with our young local guide translating what the San Bushmen were doing – we got to see them pretending to hunt, collecting water from roots and then starting fires so they could smoke a leaf and rabbit droppings cigar. Don’t know if I would take a school group here – especially high school boys who would struggle with seeing the lack of clothing. I also felt a bit uncomfortable taking photos – for the clothing reason as well as the feeling I got that we were intruding. It also felt a bit artificial – like actors putting on a show for the tourists. I’m sure there are positives of us visiting and giving money to the community but it just wasn’t a highlight for me.
However, it was cool listening to them talk with the clicks and different sounds involved in communicating. Can’t imagine how tricky it is to learn that language. They also weren’t pushy at all when selling their souvenirs at the end of the trip which was an extremely nice change. People seemed happier to buy from them when there wasn’t a huge amount of pressure.
Etosha National Park Day 1
Our last place to go game driving was Etosha National Park. Namibia is extremely well developed compared to some of the places we’ve visited and the 2 campgrounds we stayed at were fantastic. Looked at upgrades but they were as expensive as hotels back home. You could certainly travel around Namibia by yourself by hiring a car. We drove around the park in our truck – nice and high so we easily saw over the cars and 4WD’s. Didn’t see too many exciting animals on the first day except for an Oryx. Pretty cool animal and particularly rare to see!
(oryx)
Also spent some time at a white salt pan – lots of people taking crazy photos. Tried to get a group jumping shot but was a bit too tricky for the photographers and our timings were a bit out.
Etosha National Park Day 2
After spending the night at a great campsite and having late night drinks in what looked like an old German fort headed off at 7am for another game drive. Let’s just say I added to my elephant photo collection and spent a lot of the time doing Sudoku (best 20 Namibian Dollars spent) and playing cards. Getting very good at ‘annoying’ the neighbour. Our viewing luck had obviously ran out for this day as we even had a bit of rain around which sent the animals scurrying for shelter.
Luckily the rain disappeared and our 2nd campsite was even nicer then the first. There was also a manmade waterhole with a huge number of seats. But again the crazy tourists ruined it by continually talking (think they were German) and ignoring the ‘silence’ signs. And if you’ve got money to burn you could pay for a chalet which was right on the edge of the water hole and look out your balcony at the animals drinking. Not too much exciting until the sun started to set and took lots of photos again. Thought I’d combine my two most photographed things:
(elephant and setting sun)
And just to emphasise how many sunset photos I took – here’s another one…
(sunset over waterhole)
After dinner and doing the washing up headed back to the waterhole. Saw a youngish rhino but in the dark my camera just failed. Ended up playing the features I could find but no luck. Saw more elephants but eventually had to head to bed.
Leaving Etosha
Headed off at [guess what time] and was drifting off to sleep when a very observant person on the truck saw this:
(black rhino photo – best of trip)
Can’t believe how lucky we were to see a rhino and especially a black rhino reasonably close. Supposedly a black rhino had charged one of our tour leader trucks on a previous trip but this rhino liked hiding behind the trees. Certainly made a traffic jam when everyone else started stopping and annoyingly blocking our view.
Spitzkoppe
Our target for the night was a huge rock formation called the Spitzkoppe (must be said with a German accent). This whole area reminded me of Australian outback. I haven’t been to Uluru but I imagine it’s similar to this.
Went on a walk with the aim of getting to the other side. Big mistake. It was a lot bigger the closer you got to it… Eventually gave up trying to cross what we thought was an easy part and tried to get through a bit of a ravine. No luck there either getting trapped in a maze of undergrowth and rock walls. It was good actually getting out and walking around but didn’t feel like a successful explorer.
After being defeated by the rocks we gave up and took some random photos. Supposedly there’s a Michael Jackson photo shoot or something where he did something leaning forward like this. Still looks cool regardless…
(won’t show you the photo 5 seconds later)
Now heading to Swakopmund – the adventure capital of this area. Don’t know what I’ll do – thinking about skydiving but will definitely go sand boarding.
Week Ahead
Mon, 31st of Oct Swakopmund
Tues, 1st of Nov Swakopmund
Wed, 2nd of Nov Swakopmund
Thurs, 3rd of Nov Sesriem
Fri, 4th of Nov Bethanie (Giants Playground)
Sat, 5th of Nov Fish River Canyon
Sun, 6th of Nov Orange River, Noordoewer