Damaraland to Etosha National Park

Petrified forest operator

We are still in very arid country.  Once again, the drive was unforgettable.  Shortly after leaving the campsite in Damaraland, we stopped at a small petrified forest for a tour.  Very interesting.  They also had the oldest known plant growing there - a funny crinkled up thing.  It almost looked like it was dead.

Mom, pop and kids

Just before Etosha National Park, we stopped at a small town for supplies and to give everyone a chance to send emails and visit an ATM.  We arrived at Etosha around 2:00 p.m., had lunch and then headed deeper into the park to view the wildlife.  Unbelievable, there are animals at every turn.  In a basic 2-hour drive, we saw wildebeasts, lions, springbok, ostrich, giraffe and oryx.

Rhino in water

We arrived back at camp around 6:30 p.m., had supper and then walked to a nearby lighted watering hole where we saw even more giraffe, 20 in all.  Later in the evening when all things were dark, we headed back to the watering hole.  To our surprise there were even more animals.  This time we saw a couple of elephants and three rhinos.  It is really great to see all these animals running free in their natural habitat.

The lions we saw this afternoon were obviously stocking a prey.  They would stand up and peer at some prey (we couldn’t see what they were stocking), would then slowly walk closer to the prey and then lay down again.  A few minutes would go by and the process would be repeated again and again.  It was much like a cat stocking a bird.  The process was so slow that we had to leave before seeing the final episode.  We will be travelling even further into Etosha tomorrow to set up at another campsite.
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I don’t know for how long I will be able to keep up the blogs as I am having serious computer problems.  If I can’t get them rectified when we arrive in Windhoek, I fear that the computer will die an ugly death.  As for my eye problem, things seem to be getting better.  Rest assured that I will be monitoring the situation. 

Bye for now.