SO. This one time, I got to finally go on a safari like I’d been wanting to for years!!! I even had it all booked to go on last year before the ship [2017], but had to cancel it and then my time on the ship because of my back knocking me down. But that’s old news. And I’m SO GLAD to say that!
So I went to the ship this year hoping to find a buddy who wanted to travel with me afterwards. I had recommendations from friends who are from South Africa that I should go on a tour to Etosha Game Park in Namibia with Wild Dog Safaris. I’d checked them out, and they looked amazing. It was also very reassuring that my friends were friends with the owners and had gone with them before. Safe, trustworthy. Thumbs up from Carmel, and my mom I’m sure. So as time went on, it seemed that none of my friends were leaving the ship around the same time as me. And if they were, they already had other plans that did not include my required GIRAFFE sighting. But finally I found Lou, a glitter-loving Aussie! {that little story is in my last post about getting to Namibia}
You may recall that the only time we actually spent together before our almost two-week holiday was a few scheduled {with some difficulty. The scheduling, not the planning.} planning and booking sessions. We both were slightly nervous about how the other would be as a travel buddy, but also very optimistic from what we did know of each other. Turns out we’re EXCELLENT travel buddies!!! We got along super well! Lou was kind enough to leave me alone in the mornings, except to sometimes give me coffee {major awesome points}!! We were the same level of adventurous and brave, but not without brains. We had very similar spending philosophies {let’s enjoy this cuz we worked and saved for it, but not just blow money}, balance of doing and seeing stuff but also relaxing and watching the sunset, and we were able to have a lot of really great easy conversation as well as just chill by ourselves. Seriously great travelling buddies. We both said we’d definitely travel together again. I think she meant it, and I always mean what I say.
{we rode with at least one of our heads out of the truck a lot of the time. I figured they would tell us if they wanted us to sit down… Lou would stand up there in the mornings, and I’d join her once I was awake enough.}
It’s so great to have someone to travel with. I often end up doing stuff by myself cuz my friends don’t have the time, extra cash, or both to just do crazy stuff. For international travel, the extra safety of having a buddy is especially fantastic. Plus as a 98% extrovert, I love having someone to chat and share experiences with! Also, we made sure to take photos of each other so we’d both have some of ourselves on vacation instead of just being the one behind the camera. YAY TRAVELLING BUDDY LOU!!! So much better with a buddy.
OKAY, on to the SAFARI!!! It. Was. AWESOME.
We got picked up in the morning on Saturday after quickly finishing our breakfast and checking out of our room. I was very prepared for my usual bus [or large vehicle]-induced nausea. I wore my pressure point bracelets and had one of these bags of supplies [at least three different anti-emetic medications, ginger candies, ginger chews, alcohol swabs to smell, tinc benz to smell, candies and gum, a sleeping mask to cover my eyes, airplane emesis bags, napkins, and wet wipes] with me in the “truck” {that’s what they called it anyway… Closer to a van, if you ask me, though not quite that either.}, and 
the other of back-ups in my luggage backpack. I didn’t want to take meds that might make me groggy unless I needed to, but I was expecting to survive all of the driving with my eyes closed and in a bit of a drugged fog due to anti-emetics. However. I am beyond thrilled to report, I HAD NO NAUSEA!!! Not even a little! By the end of our trip, I was even brave enough to try riding without my bracelets on {though I kept them very accessible}. And I was still fine!! SO. AWESOME. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a bus that we were on, but I’ve gotten ill in cars and land rovers in Africa so I was pretty excited to not be! Lou kept checking to see if I was okay while we were driving, though she often only did so with her eyes cuz she didn’t want to make it worse by suggesting it and making me think about it. How kind! The first half of our tour was almost entirely on nice paved roads, or driving fairly slowly on the pretty decent gravel roads inside the game reserve. But the second half was almost entirely on very bumpy gravel roads and I was still fine!! YAY!! Praise the Lord!
When we got to the wildlife sanctuary {Etosha National Park; Etosha is from an Oshindonga word meaning Great White Plain, because there’s a massive salt and mineral pan. which is white.}, our tour guide Markus says “I promise you will see giraffes” {he didn’t even know yet that they’re my most favoritest animal and that my sister told me not to come home until I’d seen one in real life}. Then about 32 seconds later he adds “yes, there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll see giraffes.” UM. EXCUSE ME MARKUS!? THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME!!! i. need. to. see. giraffes!!!! {Markus, my sister might not let me out of the airport. she’ll send me back. likely get her hug and take whatever I bought her, and send me right back to Africa.}
{part of the salt pan}
He also told us to be on the lookout, and to tell him if we saw anything cool we wanted him to pull over for to see and take photos. Once in the park, it was very important to stay in the vehicle. Cuz, you know, lions and such. {it felt a little Lion King fairly often.}
So a few meters in and he pulls over [to the left. cuz they’re right hand drive. which I never did get used to. lucky for me, that’s normal for Lou so she kept me safe crossing streets! it’s always a good idea to choose a travel buddy who drives on the opposite side of the road than you. that way someone always has it figured out for driving and pedestrianing.], points into the trees, and shows us an impala. Um, okay, sure. Neat. But who really cares too much about an impala? I’m still rather stuck on the fact that I was promised giraffes, followed by a 50/50 chance, and that’s not how promises are meant to work… and then. Honestly, I’m not certain if it was him or someone in our group [I think the latter] says they see a GIRAFFE!!!!! Kinda farther back through the trees, and then also an elephant!!!
{I think this was pretty much my first glimpse of a giraffe!}
Markus starts the “truck” back up and drives a little forward, then down some gravel. To a watering hole. Surrounded by elephants and zebras!!! like FOR REALS!!! I don’t think there is any possible way to make you understand my surprise and excitement and joy. I was squealing like a three year old. Like when you take the cutest three year old boy to the Calgary Stampede parade and to see a ton of cool animals but since he loves trains all he can talk about is that we rode on the train and that the arm goes down and “ding ding ding GET OFF THE TRACKS!!” for example. But for me, the giraffes. Like jumping up and down in my seat. {That Markus. He knew the watering hole was twenty feet farther, he does this all the time. It’s his job. But first he stopped to show us the impala. I didn’t think about that till now.} As you saw in the photo of our vehicle, the top pops up to allow a better view by standing on the seats. But this was the first time we experienced it, and were pretty thrilled with it. Then I could jump up and down on my seat too. There were three giraffes kinda wandering in the distance. But a ton of elephants coming and going, and zebras patiently waiting their turn to go into the watering hole [but those dang selfish elephants were just milling around, no longer actually using the water, just not letting anyone else in]. There was an adorable itty bitty elephant that Markus figured was only a few days old! {so much of what he told us may have been entirely fictitious [had to have spellcheck fix that word], but since it’s his job, I’ve decided to believe most of it to be true. Except for that time he told us about how ostriches stand on each others’ backs and pass big logs with their beaks to build giant nests 15 feet up…} We all just stared at them in awe for a while, and took a few photos…
Lou snapped a pretty nice reflection of one in my sunnies.
{Boom. Photo drop. Click to see them bigger.}
After a while of watching elephants come and go, and one smaller one scare off a springbok or something, we headed on down the road. The main roads through are nicely paved, but the ones through the bushes and to watering holes are fairly decent gravel. So we zoomed along down the paved road toward where we’d camp that night, with Lou and I standing on our seats enjoying the view and breeze out the top. We were trying to see if we could spot any cool animals, but our view right then was mostly an open plain with a few trees and impalas, and all I could think of was the “I spy” game that moose play. {“Uh, I spy something green…” “TREE! my turn. I spy something… green.” “TREE!!” “oh, wow, you got it” “okay, my turn. I spy-” “TREE!” “hey, how’d you know?!”}[Bob, you’d better read this one. That’s for you. Except for me it was more like “hey, what’s that over there? a cool animal?! oh, it’s a tree.”]
{riding to camp standing on our seats with our heads out the top. oh look, a tree!}
We got to the first place we would camp, which looked a lot like a castle. But with zebras outside the fence. We had to set up camp {two-person tents, with small sleeping mats and sleeping bags. But we invited our new friend Brianna. I’ll tell you more about her later. She’s cool. Except for her hockey alliances.} quickly so that we could go to a nearby watering hole and be back before the campground gates closed at sunset [remember, lions and such.]. [My Aussie travel buddy says zebra like it rhymes with Debra {which is not my mother’s name}, so I’ve decided to call them that too.]
{pulling up to the campground. some of the hotel and store part looked like a castle, fyi.}
We expertly set up our tent and soon everyone got back into the truck for some more touring {Except Mathew, our second tour guide. He stayed and started making supper}. In the distance, we {probably Lou, she was the best spotter} spotted something and we had a discussion I didn’t ever think I’d have: “Is that an elephant? … Or a really big rock?” we went back and forth on it a little bit, both unconvinced of either. It was an elephant. An old man elephant. {how do you know if an elephant is male or female? Aside from the obvious, which was my first answer, if an elephant is all by its lonesome it is an old man. The younger boys drive the older ones out of the herd.}
So we’re on our way to this watering hole and Markus pulls over on the large plain we’re driving on and turns the ignition off. We all expectantly look out our windows to find whatever he saw that made him pull over. He gets out. Honestly, I didn’t think about it too much at the time, but rule #1 when we entered the wildlife park was to not get out of the vehicle. Cuz lions. So he gets out and goes kind of under the vehicle right where I’m sitting. At first I assumed he was getting something from one of the storage compartments. Then he comes back into the driver’s door and asks for someone to pass him a small water bottle. To put out a small fire. Um, okay… He gets one and goes back under, then asks for another. At this point a few of my fellow tourers [including Lou] decide to get out and see if he needs help. I decided my seat was a good spot for me. Standing beside the vehicle, Lou told me she thought to herself “I’m sure we could see a lion coming from here.” Markus puts the fire out and everyone gets back in. The he says he is going to try starting the truck again. This is where Carmel goes “uh, maybe now we should all get out?!” But it started just fine. And instead of driving on to the watering hole, Markus decides to head back for camp.
{taken while Markus was “fixing” the truck}
We get maybe 300 metres [max] back down the road and he pulls over. We’re all like “more fire?” but no. There’s a lion. No joke. Just a pregnant lioness chilling in the tall grass and assessing its zebra prey across the plain. Very close to where people were outside of the vehicle… It wandered around the back of the truck and down the road where we had come from. So Markus put the truck in reverse and followed it for a bit. It continued its calm saunter with a few glances back to say “what in the world are you people doing? Stop following me. You’re giving me away to the zebras.” So after a while we left it alone and watched it prowl closer to them. It ended up being the only lion we saw close-up, and the only one we saw in the daylight.
{literally a few feet behind us on the road. it went right behind our truck to cross.}
Continuing on our way back to the campsite, we stopped for a quick minute to check out a jackal beside the road. I immediately sneezed, so brilliantly deduced that I’m clearly allergic to them. Lou thought it was hilarious, at least.
Back at the campsite, we had a little time before supper was ready to check out the campground’s watering hole. It was at the edge of the luxury hut part of the campground and fenced off from the actual grounds, but with floodlights, bleachers, and benches for tourists’ viewing pleasure. There may have been a “silence please” sign that I possibly didn’t see until after I was maybe slightly indignant over being “shush”d… Oh well. Anyway, it was super cool watching elephants hang out and get water. After a while we went back to our site for supper, and then back to watch animals. I’d brought Qwirkle to play, cuz usually we play games in the evening when camping. But here, we bring a snack and watch a wildlife show. In real life. So cool.
{that’s my foot at the bottom of the first photo, so you can see the rock wall and barbed wire between me and two very close elephants!! on the right you can kinda see how the floodlight and seating are set up. not at all how I imagined it when Dawn and Dr. Willemse told me the tour would take me to a watering hole after dark to see the animals.}
We saw a few rhinos, a bunch of elephants, some very entertaining jackals {who did not make me sneeze} and birds. I realized that I hadn’t really expected to see rhinos. I hadn’t thought about them at all. Then it dawned on me that I’d subconsciously lumped them in with triceratops, which are obviously extinct. But they only have two horns {between a unicorn and triceratops}, so Brianna came up with “doseratops”. Change approved. That’s what they are now. Definitely teaching that to my niece.
There were also a few lionesses and their cubs slinking around the shadows at periphery of where the floodlight reached. Unfortunately they never did come to where we could get a good view before we gave up and went to bed. We were hoping to see more lions, especially a male, and some cheetahs and leopards. But no such luck. They’re good at hiding, and there also aren’t as many of them. But I wanted to see a cheetah or leopard to tell my cousin Chita about {yes you say it like the animal, and she is very fast. I call her Leopard.}.
There was a baby elephant trying to scare off a rhino approximately the same size as it. It chased it a little and tooted at it, then ran to quickly hide behind its mommy. There were elephants farting, and not quietly. And what we could only assume was a young male asserting his dominance and not letting the lonely old man elephant who’d been there first not get to the water or his group. Brianna and Lou and I enjoyed [quietly] narrating animal storylines, like in kids movies. It’s possible I forgot what we were doing for a moment and almost believed what we’d come up with. Like we were actually watching a movie. So crazy.
Eventually it was time to go to our sleeping bags and pray the lion Markus claimed he heard announcing its approach didn’t come eat us. I mean, we were pretty far into the middle of the campground. Animals would be full or at least bored before they got to us.
So this is already incredibly long. Literally twice as many words as most. And only about day ONE! I have more to say, as usual, but that will come in another post. Congrats for getting through this! Hopefully it was painless.
*Most photos were taken by yours truly, but some are courtesy of my lovely travel buddy Lou. ❤ If “Olympus Digital Camera” pops up as the photo description, she’s the photographer.*
soyouwanttoknowaboutcarmelsadventuring 