Game Driving: Etosha National Park Day 11

Our safari truck in Etosha

 On our third day in Etosha, we decided to drive ourselves around in the morning looking for game.  By this point we had a decent idea of where we were located (okay, Matt and Ron did, I was pretty clueless.  It’s a BIG park) so we decided to drive around on our own to see what we could find.  The tour guides have pretty strict rules about sticking to the roads, so since our guided tours weren’t exactly off-roading we figured we could see a lot on our own.  We were NOT disappointed.

4 lions, black rhinos, giraffes, jackals and steenbok, to name a few.  One lion we saw off the side of the road, literally 10 feet from us.  Just chilling, panting like a dog he was so hot.  He was tucked behind a bush so we could only really see his head, but he was patient and didn’t seem to care that we were gaping at him.  As we slowly drove away, we saw why he was so chill: half of a zebra carcass was tucked next to him!  Apparently he had his fill and was sitting in post-gluttonous bliss.

Heading back to the campsite, we enjoyed a few hours relaxing in wherever shade we could find-it gets HOT during the day in this place!  Matt and I had signed on for one more game drive-a late afternoon game drive-so we headed back to the main parking lot for one more tour.

This tour was a bit slow for the first hour and a half-I mean literally we didn’t see an animal for an hour and a half.  Our first sighting was a kudu (a large antelope).  And after that we didn’t see much for another half hour.  Then our guide took us to a popular watering hole, where we saw a group of elephants bathing and splashing in the mid-afternoon heat. 

 

Okay, that’s cool.  I even heard them trumpet to each other.  By now we’ve seen a lot of elephants, but it’s still awesome.  Okay, not too bad.  Only 1 hour left before we can go back to the campsite and chill (sightseeing for animals is very tiresome on the eyes!).

As we made our way through a winding road, we came upon yet another herd of elephants, chomping on brush and walking to and fro.  There were a couple of youngsters among the herd, and one took us on and let us know he wasn’t afraid of us by lifting his trunk to us.  So cute.

As we’re watching the elephants, our tour guide is looking out into the Etosha Salt Pan, and somehow, somehow, he managed to make out a shape in the middle of the plains: a cheetah.  With 5 cubs.  And as evidenced by the collection of cars up ahead of us, we figured that there were others who had spotted her as well.  So we drove up to get a “closer” look (she was pretty far away) through our binoculars.  As we watched the cheetah, the elephants made their way to the saltpan to “mud” themselves to keep bugs off of them.  Just another day of animals doing their thing!

Back off, it's MINE!!!

But the best part of the tour was yet to come: we drove up toward the tree where the lion had been sitting earlier in the day.  And wouldn’t you know it, he was still there.  Sleeping in the shade.  At the sound of our truck he jumped up, startled, and watched as we slowed down.  He immediately walked over to his prized carcass (he hadn’t eaten much more since we last saw him, but he did drag it closer to the tree so he could keep an eye out on it while he sat in the shade) and while watching us the whole time, stood over his possession. We didn’t care; even better photos!  Evidently though, we (I) started to agitate him (I was closest to him) and he even started growling toward me.  I have to admit, I jumped back a bit, to everyone in the truck’s entertainment.  He was clearly worked up; his tail was twitching like tic as he literally climbed on top of his carcass and proceeded to cuddle the thing to let us know it was his.  Don’t worry, King Lion, we don’t want it!!

After about 10 minutes of photo snapping and watching him watch us, we finally left him in peace and headed back to the campsite, only to stumble upon yet another lion at the first watering hole we stopped at earlier.  According to our tour guide, this lion was evidently the son of the lion we just watched.  

  I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen a lot of game in the wild.  I’m no expert, and while I would LOVE to witness a lioness chasing prey or a leopard hanging in a tree, I’d say we did pretty well.  Ron and Anya, living in South Africa and having a wee bit more experience in the game-sighting area have never seen leopards or cheetah, and they saw both in one place.  So I think we’re going to take our winnings and head on to another adventure.