000334 I - Flora Apartments Namibia

... made our way to Epembe, biting the dust of a truck loaded high with Coca-Cola products. At Epembe we branched off as we headed towards Swatbooisdrift. Fortunately we now had <br>the road to ourselves. Near the junction to Swartbooisdrift I got my first sight of the milky-green Kunene river that snaked its way between Namibia and Angola. It was now late afternoon and we were hot, dusty and tired and we looking forward to arriving at our ...

... about the plateau is that this is the location of a decisive battle between German colonial forces and the local Herero tribe in the late 1800s. The superior weaponry of the Germans aided them in their victory but the Germans also poisoned the local watering holes so that the Herero tribe did not have any fresh water to drink. Stuck on the plateau with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, the Germans dealt the final blow.<br><br>Nine of us hike up one of ...

... early people.  They were painted on the wall with plant dyes and animal blood.  They depicted various animals symbolizing water and food sources.  Their purpose was to give direction to these food sources to the next bushman group.  The Bushmen could tell which way a food/water source was by the direction the animal faced.<br><br>The bushman also gave us some interesting information on the area and its German heritage.  We also learned about the ...

... well. <br><br>Then, dinner over, everyone gathered around the fire and waited for the &#8220;Americas&#8221; performance to begin (Heini said we were to go in alphabetical order and no one thought of Africa so we were on). Then, we told a story about how Walt Disney created the World. From him sprung Pocohantas, at which point I came out dancing American Indian style and tapping my cupped hand over my mouth in a kind of tribal dance, my ...

... 8211; it&#8217;s a shame we are camping! We went to the bar when we arrived and sat on the veranda over the water with a log fire in the middle &#8211; lovely!<br><br>We are not sure what is happening tomorrow &#8211; some are going fishing at 6.30 and there is a boat trip leaving at 8am, which I might do. We need to be back, packed up and leave by midday as we have to be in Ihaha before dark, so let&#8217;s see what happens tomorrow.

... kill the previous day. We weren't 5 mins in that area when we drove within 15 ft of the leopard you see in our pictures, up in a tree with its breakfast (aforementioned male warthog). We watched for nearly an hour as the branch the big guy was laying on snapped and he fell to the ground. He then tried to pull his now very ...

... Aus) and Peter (also a Germ), plus our guides Bennie and Stephen who were brilliant. We jumped in the Etosha National Park salt pan and toasted marshmellows at our campfire (proper retro) before sleeping in our tents through a gale force storm. We got excited about seeing one Giraffe at a waterhole and then 10 others came and joined it (I nearly had a fit). The first animal I saw was a Leapoard (a tame one, this means that they have had to look after it so it ...

... a little tent set up outside with cots to sleep in. It is so cool. We swam in their pool, which is in the middle of the rocks, and I did some more math. (If I do 8 more 30 minute sessions with Dad before we get back to Cape Town, Dad is going to take Alec and me to Ratanga Junction.) Before sunset, we went on a walk with Frederick, the ranger. He grew up only a few kilometers from here, and he has 10 brothers and ...

Elephants - Desert Elephants!!! And lots of them, too! This morning we went out with Lister, our ranger, to look for them. He told us that sometimes he has to drive over 60km to find them and sometimes he can not find them at all. We drove through the Doro !Nawas conservancy in his land rover, looking for footprints, dung, and broken leaves. The Doro !Nawas (that is a click sound at the beginning of Nawas) conservancy is a joint project run with the local people from this ...

... biking. I got to drive my own quad bike, and we went about 40 miles an hour over lots of dunes and sand. It was so much fun! And it was very cool because I found a dead parabuthus on the dunes - a huge one with a huge tail, so...fatal bite! I did not touch its tail, but I did pick it up to keep for my museum. It looks so weird. In the afternoon, we drove north about 5 hours to Doro Nawas camp in Damaraland. It was a long drive up the coast, then across the ...