Lions and rhinos and elephants...oh my!

Before I get to all the animals I saw, I'll back track a few days...but I'll get to them!  (I know Cassie, my niece, will want to hear all about them and I hope she can make all the sounds when I get home).


After we left Swakopmund, we spent the night in a "bush camp", which meant that we were in the middle of the desert with no plumbing (aka long drop toilet).  I decided to take a lazy morning, when most of the others went on a 5 hour hike (5 of us stayed behind).  I think that was one of the best decisions I've made this trip!  It was apparently much harder than then our guide had warned us about and with the blister on my foot from sandboarding, it would have been too painful.  Instead, I went (with Julie, Esme and Lana) to the local village.  We walked around and met some of the locals.  Even though it was a Saturday (and everyone was doing their washing- it was partly a boarding school), we were able to get a tour of the grounds.  Two students brought us to the principal's house and he showed us around and answered all our questions.  We also met his daughters, who were watching Scooby-doo when we arrived.  After the tour we had to peel children off of us for the next hour.  All we heard was "take my picture!" "Just me!" "Let me see!"  As cute as they were it shocked us that most of the girls would default into sexy poses and the boys would try to be gangsta.  Even in small villages, the western hiphop culture has had an influence.

In the afternoon, we just hung out at the campsite.  There was a cave there, so we took shelter from the heat.  That was also where I slept the night before (and tried to teach everyone how to make s'mores using tea biscuits cause I couldn't find graham crackers).  There was a large opening to the cave where the sun would peek in/we could see the stars at night.

Day 11 on the trip involved driving to Etosha National Park.  Time for game driving...Cassie get ready for your animal sounds!  As we drove to our campsite we saw:

• Elephants in the distance
• Impalas
• Oryx (aka hemsbok)
• Lots of zebras
• Lots of springbok
• 2 lazy lions, but that is to be expected from the males
• Giraffes
• Wilder beasts
• Jackles (but we see them at all our campsites, which is why you never leave your shoes outside your tent!)

Just as we arrived at the campsite, we went to the waterhole.  It was sunset and there was a beautiful rhino drinking.  It was amazing!  I can only hope that my mediocre camera could capture it.


Day 12 included a 3 hours and a 2 hours game drives.  For 3 hours in between, the animals don't come out cause it's too hot, so we hung out by the pool. This park is so big that you can drive for days and not see the entire place.  For those who have spent any prolonged amount of time with me in the car, you can imagine how hard this was for me!  Staying awake in a moving vehicle is a very difficult challenge for me.  After the first 1.5 hours, I kept nodding off and only jumping up when I would hear "GIRAFFE!" or  "LION!".  We saw many of the same animals on the second day, but for the most part we saw them from much closer.

•  Elephants- 7 of them were at a waterhole.  It was a family with 2 adults and 5 children. 1 being super small (for an elephant).  Did you know elephants are pregnant for 22 months!  Yeesh!
• wilder beasts were  much closer and ran in front of our truck!
• Giraffes- there were SO MANY!  We also saw them at the waterhole.  They become a tripod when they want to drink.  We also saw them congregate at the end of the day.  There were about 30 giraffes on one field.  They are only pregnant for 14 months and grow up to 8 meters tall!
• Lots of zebras again
• And lots of springboks again
• Right before we got to the campsite, just at sunset, we had 3 lionesses to the right of our truck.  The lighting was so bad that it was hard to get a good picture.  On the left of the truck you could see the sunset and there were giraffes.  It was the typical African photo that I was dreaming about getting.  I hope it comes out!

Not bad for a season where we weren't expecting to see much!  

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon in a real bush camp.  This time, we were really in the bush and with real bushmen.  I don't have time to get into everything about their culture (sorry! I spent too much time on the animals, but I thought it was worth it), but think about the movie "The God's Must Be Crazy" and it was the same thing!  When we arrived we played with the children.  We thought we would play soccer with them, but somehow they ended up on all of our backs/shoulders and  smacking our bums like we were donkeys as we ran around the field!  They were super cute anyway and they had helped us put up our tents...so we didn't mind.  Then we got a tour around a traditional bushman village and through the bush where they showed us how they found water and used other plants for different remedies.  We had a guide that spoke english and translated the clicking language of another guide (although the native speaking guide was a great mime).  They also showed us some of their dances, how they make fire and the games that they play.  They showed us the traditional stuff, even though they don't live complelty like that anymore.  Just watch the movie!

Today we are having a chill day in Rundeu, Namibia.  It's in the north of Namibia where the majority of Namibians live.  Keep in mind there are only 2 million people in the entire country, so wouldn't call this a city.  We leave to Botswana tomorrow and then back to Namibia for one more day.  I'll update when I can.