It’s a relatively short drive north from Otjiwarongo to our next stop, Etosha National Park, Namibia’s premier wildlife park. After checking in at the gate we made our way to our first “camp”, Okaukuejo. The camp is actually more like a little village or apartment complex.

Then after checking in for our accommodation, we went straight to the Okaukuejo watering hole where you can sit on park benches and watch animals come by to drink. You don’t really even have to leave camp to see wildlife, but of course we did.

We next decided to drop our luggage off at the room and start game driving. We can visit the watering hole anytime, day or night. Our first drive was a short one as it was already late afternoon, but we saw lots of springboks and a few giraffes.

Later, after the drive and after dinner we went back to the watering hole and were treated to a visit by four black rhinos, pretty much the only animal I have yet to see on this trip. Etosha is probably the best place in the world to see black rhinos, they’re thriving here. Awesome!

Etosha is HUGE! 8,600 square miles huge. The best way to see the animals is to make your way around to the many watering holes in the park, some natural, some man made.

Springboks are an interesting species. They are sexually mature at one year old and they are too fast for the lions to catch, which means they are very prolific!

Mom’s number one priority here, is elephants, her favorite. So we have, of course been searching and searching for any and all elephants. I drive us to the watering hole that is supposedly the most popular with them, but we saw this really cool looking marshal eagle instead. Not an elephant in sight.

On the way back to camp, feeling a little disappointed about not seeing a single elephant all day, we came across this magnificent white rhino. A bit later and a bit closer to camp we found one very very old and solitary old hefalump. It’s a start.

Night two at the Okaukuejo watering hole we found another lone male elephant and four more black rhinos. Coming here and relaxing is a great way to end our days of endless driving.

Day three was a good day. We started by spotting some banded mongooses right in camp before we even left. Then we had a pretty slow morning drive.

We had to return to camp so mom could sort out some details for her flight home in a few days. While back at camp we had lunch and checked out the watering hole just for fun. There wasn’t a lot happening, but there was another marshal eagle up in the tree, at least I think it was a marshal eagle.

Our afternoon drive on day three turned out to be pretty epic. At the first watering hole we encountered zillions of zebras, as well as all over the road.

We drove through slowly so as not to startle them too much. This one group, though, did not care one bit. They let us get ridiculously close and just stared as we drove by.

We also had a big herd of wildebeests cross the road in front of us at one point. Next, we went once again to the watering hole that’s supposedly the favorite of the elephants, but once again, there were no elephants. There was a lot of action, though. Tons of Gemsboks, springboks, kudus, and zebras were all in attendance.

We continued on to the next watering hole, further out than we had been yet, and finally… Mom got her heaps of hefalumps!

There was what appeared to be two separate herds. Eventually, both herds moved off in different directions. We watched one herd walk away, then followed them for a bit.

That herd started off into the trees then eventually turned around and made their way back to the water. They spent a lot of time on the road trying to figure us out first. Then we turned around to see if we could track down the other herd and we found them only a few hundred feet down the road.

Back on our way we passed by the water hole one more time. All the elephants had moved off and all that was left was a few zebras and a bateleur eagle.

Etosha National Park is named after the Etosha Pan, a flat and seemingly endless expanse of clay and sand, that covers 1,840 square miles of the park. Driving along the main road looking out over all that emptiness reminds me of driving alongside the ocean. Incredible!

We see giraffes a lot and after another elephant sighting, it appears our luck with the elephants has changed.

Back at the Okaukuejo water hole on our last night there we walked in on a giraffe convention. After the giraffes were done and had moved off, a few more black rhinos showed up. We had black rhinos show up every single night we were there.

Now it was time to move on to our next camp, Dolomite, way on the western edge of the park. It was a long drive with lots of animal sightings along the way.

One of the water holes on the way had so many different kinds of animals there we couldn’t even count them. And for some reason there was a lot of fighting going on. The gemsboks seemed to have the most arguments, but some of the springboks were a bit testy as well.

Most of the water holes in Etosha are man made bore holes, dug in the 1940’s to help keep the animals around. At the next one, a group of park officials were doing some repair work while a zillion zebras and a couple of elephant herds watched and patiently waited for them to finish so they could get a drink.

Basically, our drive to Dolomite was just going from one water hole to the next. Between the water holes we really didn’t see much at all.

We had one of our best elephant encounters yet at the Olifantsrus campsite. The campsite had a water hole with a nice big game blind where you can sit pretty much on the water and get super duper close ups of whatever shows up. In our case what showed up was an elephant.

Suddenly, two more showed up, and then two more. So we got the up close and personal experience with all five of these big males. There was some tension as the first guy that showed up tried to make friends, but the others were definitely not interested.

Just a few kilometers away at the next water hole we found five more male elephants being naughty. They weren’t satisfied with the water in the ground, so they found a way to raid the water storage tank nearby. Haha!

Land animals aren’t the only cool things we saw. There are several kinds of eagles and other birds around and occasionally they’re nice enough to pose for pictures. The two tawny eagles below were hanging out together in the same tree.

Finally, we made it to Dolomite camp, a bunch of luxury tents up on a hilltop overlooking the whole landscape. You have to park at the bottom and then they take you up in the loudest golf cart I’ve ever ridden in.

We had one full day to explore the area. Honestly, we didn’t have a ton of luck at this westernmost part of the park, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have any luck. We had a brief rhino sighting first thing in the morning, a few giraffes, a few kudus, and one really cool elephant herd with two of the cutest baby hefalumps you can imagine. They were extremely playful and gave us a good show.

We also ran across this small group of males hogging the water hole. The couple of giraffes nearby weren’t too sure if it was safe to drink or not.

The next day we had a ridiculously long drive ahead of us, from the westernmost edge of the park to the easternmost edge. We drove pretty quickly through the western part since we hadn’t had much luck there. We saw some wildebeests fighting at the Olifantsrus campsite, though.

Once we got back to the Okaukuejo area, roughly the half way point, our luck got better again. We got some more amazing views of the Etosha Pan including the official viewpoint where you drive out onto it for a disorienting perspective. And mom spotted our first hyena who stopped to rest right next to the road. We ended up with a total of four hyenas by the end of the trip.

We also saw what was probably the biggest group of zebras we’ve seen so far.

Thankfully, elephants have been a daily occurrence, not counting that first two days of course. It was also nice to see the water hole below with a lot of green. It was a beautiful oasis in the very dry Etosha desert.

The giraffes are also in attendance daily. This guy in the pic below is exactly why the speed limit is so slow in Etosha.

It was getting late and no one is supposed to be outside the camps after dark, but we had to check out this one last water hole before reaching our next camp. It started with a herd of elephants drinking and guarding the adorable baby with them.

We left the water hole and figured we had just enough time to make it to camp before sunset. We were unaware that we were about to have the best elephant encounter of the whole trip, though. As we were driving around a bend in the road I turned to tell mom something and suddenly had the holy crap scared out of me. There was an entire hefalump face in the window!

In my fright, I didn’t know whether to brake because it was so amazing, or floor it because we were about to be attacked. I stepped on the gas. We quickly realized that he was cool with us being there, so I backed up and we watched him destroy a tree.

He then walked right in front of the car and blocked the road. We chanced it and drove around right behind him within kicking distance. We were now truly in a hurry to get to camp.

After leaving our elephant friend, I drove like a rally car driver to get us in on time, avoiding the occasional giraffe in the road. But we made it to Namutoni, and had dinner still buzzing from the experience.

We were only at Namutoni one night, then it was just a little ways west to our final camp, Halali.

You may have noticed that one star attraction has been missing from this post, lions. We had a very brief sighting of a lioness from far away back on day two, but the lions have been frustratingly elusive to say the least. We decided to try a guided night game drive at Halali hoping to see some lions on what was our last chance. We were getting desperate. Almost as soon as we started the drive, a lioness with five cubs was right in the middle of the road. Finally!

We also spotted a couple of young male lions at one of the water holes. It was hard to get good pictures at night, but I took note of which water hole we were at and the first thing the next morning we drove quickly straight there. Luckily the lions were still there, except this time it was three lionesses, one big male, and the cubs hiding behind a tree.

This was our last day, but mom finally got to see some lions, hallelujah! Now it was time to slowly make our way out of Etosha National Park. We must have seen a couple of dozen elephants on the way out. They all came out to say goodbye to mom apparently.

After checking out at the gate, it was time to drive all the way back to Windhoek, but first we took a little detour to the Hoba Meteorite, just outside the town of Grootfontein. It’s the largest known meteorite on earth, and it’s here in Namibia. Discovered by a farmer in 1920, it’s thought to have landed around 80,000 years ago and weighs 52 tons! That impact must have been heard, or possibly even felt all around the world.

Whew, this was a long post! We had such an amazing time in Etosha and mom’s lifelong dream of going on a safari in Africa has now been realized. Turns out, she’s a pretty good travel buddy, but now, unfortunately, it’s time for her to fly back home. As for me, I have about two more weeks of exploring Namibia to go, so don’t touch that dial…