Etosha National Park - Days 2 and 3

We woke up before sunrise both days to catch the prime viewing times. We saw ostrich, geckos, and thousands of instances of the 15 varieties of DLT. But things were not like the first day - we would often go half an hour without any sighting at all. At times it was quite frustrating to drive for so many hours without seeing anything, and when we did see animals, well … you can only marvel at so many DLTs before they just become part of the landscape. It's hottest in the early afternoon and sightings are at their worst, so we returned to camp.

Josh and Autumn broke my tent when they assembled it in Vancouver over Halloween. In retrospect, I'm impressed that they managed to do so much damage to such a simple tent in such a short period of time. In Josh's defense, I don't think he's ever assembled a tent nor will he ever have to do so again. Regardless, due to the resultant structural damage to poles and fabric, additional areas of the tent are now failing under the increased strains. This will take on significant importance as I enter malaria zones in the north, so I spent some time sewing. Shown: me sewing.

I love the radio here. The music is mostly American stuff, but the selections are just … better. Of particular amusement is the Namibian National News. Today's national headline: "30 sheep were stolen from Botswana and smuggled into Namibia". Also, an ad informing us that for only $1500 you can get two television ads and three radio ads both receiving a national audience during the African Cup. This got me thinking about all entertaining things you can do with money.

The zooming on my camera is broken, so I tried to regain the functionality by taping my monocular to the camera. Results were mixed. Excuse the resulting photographs.

Dusk Day 2 - Four lionesses and one king of the jungle just 15m off the side of the road. They were relaxing, licking, and rolling around in the grass. About 200m downwind, the largest herd of springbok we ever saw was trickling past them. We sat to watch for about 20 minutes - and finally, the king gets up, gets feisty with his favorite lioness, mounts, and dismounts two seconds later. A mighty roar echoes throughout the land, and they're back to rolling in the grass together. The whole ordeal got me thinking about the potential virtues of polygamy. Raphael's picture.

Dusk Day 3 - We hadn't seen anything of interest after nearly eight hours of driving. As the sun was setting on the grassveld, we were very excited to see a giraffe posing perfectly. Nice sunset, that was special - let's go home. Surprise! Big rhino in the middle of the road! We turn off the car to observe. It stands perfectly still just looking at us. Takes a couple steps closer. Couple more and it's time to start the car again. But starting the car visibly spooked it. Now only 7m away, it drops its head to charge. Time to go! Raphael's picture.

Back at camp we have real meat over the braai (BBQ). We also eat some stinky fish on bread and this draws quite a bit of attention. We end up defending our campsite against a group of jackals which harass us all night. When Raphael leaves, I'm reading in the dark and one is just 1 m behind me drinking some fishy water. Cool little things.