Etosha National Park - Day 1

About 6 hours from Waterburg up to Etosha. Great drive with incredibly varied scenery from flat desert into rolling desert; mix it up with some flat desert and then into mountainous desert. Surprisingly, things got green as we went North.

Context:

• The park is 22,000 square kilometers and was once 80,000 square kilometers. For context, Algonquin (Canada's largest park) is 7,653 square kilometers. This place is massive!
• Etosha has the highest elephant population of any park in the world - over 2,400 elephants.
• Etosha is a self-guided safari park. So, you just drive around on over a 1000 km of gravel roads in your own car.
• 4WD is recommended, but not enforced. We're in a 2WD Volkswagen Golf - about 1/3 the size of next smallest vehicle we saw.
• Raphael drives 2x as fast as anybody else on the road.

Before we're even in the park the giraffe are coming to check us out over the park fences. Once inside, in our first kilometer we saw a family of 20 giraffe cross the road just 15m in front of the car; then one black rhino and then a second just 30m from the car. From then on, we were totally immersed in wildlife for the whole afternoon. Prepare to be regaled.

About 2 hours into our drive we pull up beside a large safari bus. Wow! Look at the enormous female elephant! It possessed some sort of deformity - a mutant with a fifth leg. Strolling along it comes right alongside us. Raphael is snapping away on the camera. Getting pretty close, and then its within only 6 or 7 meters. It pound the ground, flare out its ears, and charges the car. Raphael guns it for the safety of the larger safari bus; all is safe. We're in front of the elephant now. It just walks slowly along the road toward us, we back away when it gets to within 15m or so. Now a second male comes along the road from behind us, and we're sandwiched between the two. Moments of stress ensue. The situation defuses. The two males meet, play show and tell, and then go for a drink together. For our remaining time in Etosha, we would never see another animal at a waterhole again. Raphael's pictures 1 2.

Approaching dusk, we're en route back to camp when I spot elephants in the distance. We quickly zip up a side road but our view is totally obstructed by some crummy trees. At a high-point in the road, I can see over the trees and manage to catch a glimpse of two elephants fighting via my monocular. We return to our point of the initial sighting and sit there. Twenty-four elephants walk right past our car, with us having to steer to evade them once again. A matriarch, new babies, and two young males play fighting. It was really quite cool. For our remaining time in Etosha, we would never see another elephant.

The camping didn't disappoint with a massive honey badger just 2m from us as we chow down.

A warm welcome from Etosha.