Following my initial volunteer work at the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary, I decided to take a short tour that went around Namibia and included Etosha National Park. In fact, the reason I had chosen to visit Namibia in the first place was because I had regularly visited the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition, held by the London Natural History Museum, and noticed that many of the best wild animal shots were taken at Etosha.
My original intention was just to focus on the volunteer work on this trip and return to Namibia another time to visit Etosha. At the last minute, I decided to take a few days to visit Etosha after all, and I’m so glad I did. Travelling to Namibia was no easy task – it’s expensive and a very long two flights. When there are so many other places in the world that I want to visit, I wasn’t sure how soon I’d be back. So squeezing in this tour was really a blessing.
When I look back on this blog post, I see that there is so much detail I left out, and so many other pictures I could have added! The highlights for me included seeing elephants at a waterhole by night, eating freshly cooked oryx steak, and seeing my first (and only) honey badger! They have such an awesome reputation for having a nasty attitude – I love it! I also loved glamping, having my own double bed and air conditioning in a tent was a real treat.
There was another aspect that I hadn’t written about – something that left me feeling a little disappointed. While visiting other towns in Namibia, there was an obvious trend of very poor black Africans and very wealthy white people. I feel so racist just writing this, but I really am stating an observation with no ill intent. I could see that all of the business owners (and most of the customers) were of Caucasian ethnicity, whereas the cleaners and pedestrians looked like poor black people. I felt sad that the native black people were like second class citizens in their own country. I know there’s a lot more to any place than what I see on the surface – no offence meant to any cultures, this was just my own observations.
The rest of what I saw was really beautiful – sand dunes, bays, flamingos, and real safari with my DSLR camera was the best!
Namibia: Etosha wildlife park, Swakopmund and Walvis Bay tour
In addition to the wildlife sanctuary, I decided to go on a four day tour with Chameleon Safaris. This included two days in Etosha wildlife park (safari) as well as visiting Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.
http://www.chameleonsafaris.com/namibia_safari_04_day_etosha_swakopmund.asp
This was actually the highlight of my holiday, and that’s saying a lot given I was already doing something amazing on the sanctuary.
I joined with a couple of volunteers I met at the sanctuary and shared a room with one of the girls. Naankuse dropped us off at the office for Chameleon Safari. We had breakfast and tea/coffee before a little introduction and someone talked us through the tour and showed us the route on the map. We met our tour guides who seemed really nice, and we loaded our stuff onto the vehicle – like a cross between a people carrier and a safari truck. I think there were only 8 of us in total, we all got our own window seat so that worked out really nicely.
We were on the road a lot – it’s a big country and we covered a lot of ground. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with the ‘accommodated’ safari, particularly as I knew a tent was on the cards and I’d never stayed in a tent before. The tour guides were really friendly, chatty and informative. They prepared all of our meals and kept the journey interesting.
We arrived at Etosha on the first day and started straight away with a safari trip. I wouldn’t dare try doing this safari without someone knowledgeable – I would have no idea where to go, where to look for animals or what they were. In fact, I imagine myself ending up lost and stranded in the park while it’s locked up at night… definitely do a tour with guides if you haven’t done it before!!
It was so amazing to see wild animals in their natural habitat. Over two days of safari, I was fortunate enough to see elephants, leopards and rhinos. Apparently leopards are quite hard to spot, so I was lucky to see one right by the roadside after a kill.
The accommodation felt like a god send after the basic accommodation at the sanctuary. HOT water and comfortable beds! Amazing! The first night’s accommodation was in a terraced bungalow, very nice and comfortable with a nice bathroom. The second night was in a tent. I was a bit apprehensive about this as I’d never stayed in a tent before… but this tent was awesome. It had a double bed, separate toilet, shower and kitchen area, even a barbecue area!! I’m pretty sure I was ‘glamping’. I’d like to think camping is always like this, but I’m pretty sure it’s not!
Original link:
https://twoshoestravel.com/2014/06/30/etosha-national-park-and-tour-namibia/
Published June 2014
Related:
https://allthetravelblogs.com/2023/02/27/naankuse-wildlife-sanctuary-volunteering-in-namibia/
