Around The World in 66 Days: 05/22/17

This morning is our last full day of six days in Etosha National Park, Namibia. We are at the Dolomite Rest Camp in the western end of the park. Tomorrow we start the second week of our Namibia segment by journeying south to the giant dunes and desert land. Day #28 of our 66-day trip around the world and it seems like we've been gone for a long time AND are a long way from home.

Life in the park essentially consists of driving around from waterhole to waterhole to view the incredible assortment of animals. All the roads are dirt\gravel. The quality ranges from compacted excellent to corrugated teeth-jarring poor. Since we are now in the dry season the roads generate a lot of dust that invariably makes it way into the car and our lungs. The roads are well marked and the water holes are generally within a few kilometers from the main road. All of the water holes are manmade and wells that are powered by either windmills or solar panel are used to pump the water up and out into the reservoirs. All the animals know where the water is...they are either there, walking to it or walking away from it. The eastern part is flat; the western part is more mountainous. If you took the State of Alabama and turned in sideways, that would be about the size of the park. This is a true fact: Since we arrived in Namibia a week ago, we have not seen ONE cloud. Not one. The sky is brilliant sapphire blue, slight breeze, low eighties during the day but high forties at night. Zero humidity.

We stayed in four different rest camps. Our last one...Dolomite Rest camp is the newest camp in the park (2011) and is perched high up on a mountain with just twenty villas facing towards the sunset. The view is just amazing as the pictures here will attest. We previously posted about our first camp, Ontoshi Rest Camp. The other two where we stayed one night each reminded us more of the Kruger National Park camps in that they were rock roundels, large camps, lots of campers, RV's, etc. All camps are fenced and gates closed at night to keep out the dangerous animals that roam the park freely. The two middle camps had bush braai facilities (BBQ pits to us Americans) that we used both nights for our dinner. The bush braai is the classic Namibian thing to do so we jumped right in with pork chops, tatters and corn the first night and game rump (don't ask), taters and corn the second night.

As a general observation, the facilities are a bit run down. Maintenance seems to be a low priority and while the places were clean and hygienic, they all could use a major spring- cleaning. We just kept reminding ourselves that we ARE in the bush...far from civilization and the beauty, the scenery more than made up for the shortfall in quality standards. Local Namibians staff all the facilities. They are courteous but they move mighty slowly...unless there's money involved which then improves things greatly. We have tried to be extra generous and frequent with the tips...a $10 Namibian note is equal to about $.70 U.S. but it always brings a huge smile and we suspect it greatly supplements their wages and their quality of life

So, that's an overview of Etosha. It's hard to comprehend that vast places like this really exist on the planet...isolated parts of the park that have never been touched by human footprints. But, we are ready to move on. The following pictures are just a few of the hundreds and hundreds we've taken.

The Camps:

Halali: Sunset at the watering hole