Namibia 5: Etosha Part II- Three government camps and a Cheetah

  Okaukuejo Resort is a massive fort, with a post office, gas station, two stores, a restaurant, pool, campgrounds, chalets near the water, with even more lodging space in the center.  Coffee was free, but it was quite bad.  Our room had an excellent location near the watering hole.  While it had heat, the bathroom was in disrepair.  The sink began to leak after the first night and the toilet required 3-4 flushes to work.  This was particularly egregious since they had posters around the camp referring to how they wanted to conserve water and be more sustainable.

  Breakfast was quite awful, with the exception of the first morning, which served an actual vegetable dish.  The next two mornings it wasn't served.  An oddity was their "reservation" system for dinner.  When we first checked in, we were told that we needed to make a reservation for dinner.  A "reservation" here simply meant that we needed to write down any time we wanted.  When we showed up, we would simply point out our name and they would cross it off.  You could come in at 7:30 for a 6:00 PM reservation and they would take no notice.  It felt sometimes as though Namibia would copy ideas used elsewhere, but never learned the how or why behind it.

  That first night had the most exciting action at the watering hole.  We saw two lions, giraffes and a rhino with its child.  The next day we spent driving to twelve watering holes, using the map as our guide.  The roads leading to each hole were the worst roads I have ever driven upon in my entire life.  Nine of the twelve watering holes were dry, including ones marked on the map as having a pump.  It felt like a mostly wasted day.

 When we returned to camp, I asked the receptionist why so many were dry.  She called what I believe to be a park ranger, but the language barrier proved large.  I think that he was trying to explain that the underground lake was too low, and so the pumps couldn't function.  I wish that the camp had informed us ahead of time.  We found a log book for guests to write down wildlife that they had spotted.  Someone had it marked down that two lions had come to the watering hole at 10 AM.  We decided to spend more time at the watering hole the next morning.  Lions did not show up.

  The second evening, we missed our reservation, to watch a massive herd of elephants, who came to bathe in the watering hole.  

  After our morning, we drove east to visit more watering holes.  We had about a fifty fifty success rate, though the variety and number of animals were smaller that previous spots.  We drove back along the length of Rhino Drive, a road going east and west, along the south.  We did not see any Rhinos.  I renamed it No Rhino Road.  

  We stopped for Brittany to use the restroom, just as we entered the camp on that second full day.  Brittany's door wouldn't open.  The roof rack broke through the vehicle's frame and the rubber piece attached to it was blocking the door. I had to push it up to allow the door to open.  I did an inspection of our tires and discovered that one was completely deflated.  We had no trouble while driving, so we must have damaged the tire nearby.  I drove to the gas station, where the worker found not one, but two holes in the tire.  One was made by a nail, which he pulled out.  He repaired the holes and swapped it with one of the new tires instead.  While he was making repairs, I sent a whatsapp message to the car rental company.  They responded instantly, telling us to stay at the gas station.  They said that someone would meet us at the gas station in ten minutes.  The man brought his child with him, whom he left in the car.  He wore shorts with women in bikinis and high heels.  He took about an hour, but moved the roof rack toward the back of the vehicle.

  That evening, just before dark, we got to see two rhinos with perhaps a mating conflict.  The second video below was of the conflict.

  Most people were respectful and quiet at the camp watering hole, but there were a few exceptions.  One man came out at night with a massive flashlight, which he shined right at the watering hole.  Someone went over to him and told him to stop, and he did.  Another night, a young woman was using a flash repeatedly on her camera, and someone else asked her if she realized that it had the flash on.  The young woman was oblivious and did not seem to understand why someone was asking this.

  After our three nights were up, we drove east to the Halali Resort. This time we only stopped at four watering holes not far from the main road.  Then, we parked at the camp and spent a few hours at the camp watering hole, while we waited for check in time.  Seating was up high, on rocks looking down on the animals.  Where we sat, tiny squirrels were climbing on the sun cover, and were jumping on the rocks all around us.  While I made a phone call, Brittany fed one of them out of her hand.

This was the bathroom setup in Halali.  I've never seen anything like it.

  The last day brought us to Namutoni Camp.  We followed an outer ring, that passed Okerfontein.  For the first two thirds of this drive, we encountered no other cars.  Just past halfway through, I spotted a cheetah standing proudly on a rock.  I hit the brakes, rolled down the window, and took a bunch of pictures.  I then did what I usually did.  I shut off the engine and grabbed my second camera from my lap.  As I did so, the car shutting off must have disturbed the cheetah, despite being quite a ways away.  The cheetah bolted, along with its cub(which I did not spot until it ran away).  

  The Namutoni Camp had the nicest room of the camps.  We sat at the watering hole for a few hour, but nothing showed up.  Brittany returned in the morning, and still, nothing came.

  This is some of what we saw:

  Halali camp pics: