Froglin81's travel blogs:
|
|
  | |  |
Fluffy Balls
Entry 67 of 75 | show all | print this entry |
"I was reminded of the intense privacy, the intimate whispers, the random glimpses that grant us the epiphanies of travel."
A few people on the truck are taking Larium as their anti-malarial, one I avoided for its possibility of haunting you with pyschotic dreams as a side effect. Ruth in particular has weird dreams once a week on Larium night. This week, however, she claimed that her dreams were nothing out of the ordinary. When I questioned her she revealed:
"It was nothing special. I just dreamt I were a crocodile, but I have dreams like that all the time."
Entering Namibia where shops were taking on a relatively normal appearance, we reminicsed about the shop signs we used to pass in East Africa such as Sweet Baby Jesus Supermarket and House of Lubricants.
The only comical thing I saw here was a car that looked like it was made of papier maché. Stopping in Grootfontein for shopping I realised we'd been starved of Western style shops for so long that we now judged the quality of a place by the number of modern facilities available.
Namibia seemed promising on this front. Until there was a blackout whilst I was trying to change money in the bank. Banks having power cuts doesn't strike me as a good thing.
After staying at an unappealing campsite containing a 80,000 year old meteorite, which, quite frankly, could have been put there yesterday and I wouldn't have known the difference, we moved on to Etosha, our final game park.
It looked a bit uneventful at first, until we spotted a whole herd of elephants, zebra, giraffe and jackal all sharing the same watering hole, queuing for their turn and then just before we reached the campsite we passed 3 lions right by the side of the road.
The boys all did the time honoured tradition of getting naked for a photo in the Etosha Pan (miles of sandy desert as far as you can see) and the girls tried to take their clothes but failed.
A handful of us went on a game drive the next morning whilst the rest had a sleep in. the game seemed a bit sparse again, until we reached a watering hole where a woman was scouring a patch of grass just nearby. I couldn't see what she was looking at and figured maybe it was somehting insignificant like a mouse until we rounded the corner and a small but perfectly formed leopard sprinted across the road into the bushes. I jumped up and screamed "Leopard!!", as you do, but it was so quick that only a couple of others saw it, as its tail disappeared and no one got a photo. I was going to opt out of the afternoon game drive as it was too hot and i was enjoying the snazzy campsite swimming pool but I spontaneously hopped in the truck just as it was leaving. I was in the cab with Robert and suggested we return to the leopard sighting spot on the off chance that it might have returned.
My hunch was right and I spotted him straight away as the noise of the truck disturbed him and he sat up. He crouched in the long grass almost totally camoflagued but as we were about to move round for a better view he dashed across the road into the bushes again, but this time, he paused and turned around to face us before slinking off. Only 5 of us were on the truck but we all got a good look. It restored my love of game drives and spotting a leopard so close made all the hours of driving in the hot sun worthwhile.
Bart, Ruth and I grabbed some alcoholic beverages and legged it up the tower to watch the sunset but just missed it so we went to the watering hole instead and watched as 7 black rhinos came to visit, along with giraffe, impala, zebra, and jackal.
Following Etosha, which was by far my favourite game park, we drove to Kamajab, to a cheetah park, home to over 20 rescued wild cheetahs. Instead of farmers shooting them for killing their livestock, they send them to the park. I was a bit sceptical about the whole thing, thinking it would be another money making tourist trap like Antelope Park, especially since they have 3 'pet' cheetahs which you can stroke and have your photo taken with. I was surprised to discover that it wasn't, and we all piled into a trailer to drive through the vast enclosures where the wild cheetahs ran out to meet the van as hunks of meat were thrown to each of them. You could tell that human interaction had been minimal by how wild they still were.
The next morning we visited a Himba tribe, which, as we suspected, was a huge tourist trap. None of us were too keen on visiting another tribal 'zoo' where people go about their business while you stare at them and take photos. The tribe we visited were living on the grounds of a property where apparently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had wanted to get married.
Most of the tribes we've visited before have had pretty uneventful lives, simply looking after livestock and raising kids. The Himba tribe don't own any livestock though, so just sit around all day making jewellery and swapping wives.
We had a particularly scary drive over a series of hills where I woke up and seriously thought I was on a rollercoaster. A few of the group went to look at some rock paintings in Twfelfontein (aka Trifletown by Ruth) butI stayed back as it wasn't really my thing and the last rock paintings I'd seen in Tsodilo Hills weren't all that. These ones contained some penguin like paintings but frankly from people's photos they just looked like blobs and I wasn't flattered.
We camped at some random spot in the bush and played a very competitive quiz with questions about our Africa trip. My group came 2nd, with 43 out of 60 and we all got bags of goodies - crisps, chocolate (melted but still nice), and we had a bag of marshmallows which we hid from Ribo and rationed them to him when we felt like it.
7 of us decided to sleep on the truck, some because they didn't want to deal with the animals and bugs; me because I was too lazy to put up my tent.
It was the best nights sleep I had so far.
On the way to Swakopmund we passed by Cape Cross Seal Colony, a nasty smelling place covered with cute seals, much as you'd expect, given the name.
As Ruth pointed out: "It don't smell like this at seal world."
Romy shut herself in the cab and everyone gagged as they photographed the blubbery creatures. I kept my distance in case they fancied a penguin lunch.
Latest Comments (0)
No comments This entry is not accepting new comments. |
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by froglin81, from Namibia or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
6 votes 
