After a nice morning in Swakopmund visiting their charming little museum and going to a couple of shops, we were ready to head back out into the warmth of the desert again. Wilderness Air had some other thoughts though as our flight was a bit delayed, for no real discernible reason. Our pilot, Robert, who appeared to be about 20 years old max and looked like a surfer dude (if Namibia has surfer dudes) stopped by, oh, every 15-20 minutes to tell us we were a little delayed and then he would disappear. Moira heard him mention something about a part which he must have found as we were ready to go around 2:00-2:15 - about an hour and a half late. It was one of the six seater planes, including one for Robert and there were two other passengers both of whom has different stops than us. Ours, of course, was last. We flew about an hour to the first camp. The next leg of the flight was about 5-10 minutes, or as Moira said, less than a Werthers. This was followed by about a 15 minute ride to our air strip, for Desert Rhino Camp.
Our driver and guide for the day, Ali, was there to meet us. He drove us the 45 minute drive back to the camp. The terrain out here is very rocky which makes the ride in the bouncy jeep kind of like a roller coaster ride. This area isn't known for its game viewing. It is really a protected place for the balck rhino (the more aggressive, rarer one) and the goal is to track and view them. The Rhino Trust works in conjunction with the camp and the Trust's goal is to help grow the black rhino population. The camp itself is small...8 total tents with a max of 16 people. There is an L-shaped common tent which has a seating area, a bar, and communal dining tables all looking out onto a fire pit. The manager, Helen, took us through the camp rules which are basically that, because this is an open area, not to walk anywhere at night without a camp escort. There were recently both lions and elephant in the camp. We only heard hyena but figured it was best to abide by those rules.
There were currently 6 other guests at the lodge and they were out on an all day rhino track. We had the choice of a nature drive or nature walk with Ali. Whenever we can move, we choose that option. Although we walked less than an hour, it felt good to move a bit and it was interesting to learn some things from Ali...mostly about plants, animal tracks and, yes, animal dung. Moira and I can now tell whether an elephant is older or younger based on the composition of its dung. Aren't we clever?
We got back to the camp as the sun was starting to set. We were able to watch it from the fire pit area, while having some drinks and snacks. The assistant manager, Agnes, joined us. She was lovely and quite a hard worker. In addition to her job here, she is working to get a degree in environmental law. She studies in the mornings and works in the afternoons and evenings. She takes correspondence courses and attends some classes in Windhoek when she has her two weeks off (all the workers here do 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off). Agnes was so cute and reminded us of Queen from Little Kulala. It turned out that Agnes also used to work at Kulala and Queen is a good friend of hers. This whole wilderness safari camp world is all connected. All the workers know one another and transfer from one place to another.
After showers, we got to meet our fellow campers, particularly as we all ate together. There were two high maintenance woman from Holland who were leaving the next morning, a couple from Australia (Robin and Rosemary) and a couple from Britain (Nick and Marilyn). It was Nick's 59th birthday so we celebrated that all evening. And Marilyn is actually an American from Bergen County so tri-state area in da' house. They spend part of the year outside of Charleston, SC. Nice life if you can get it, I suppose. They had all had a good day, spotting not only rhino but lion.
We headed out the next day in two jeeps. Our guide was Pasquale and Robin and Rosemary were with us. Nick and Marilyn had their own jeep with Peter as a guide. The two jeeps worked together though so it was really as if we were all part of one tour or tracking experience. The trackers, including Martin who is in charge, Denzel and another guy whose name I don't remember headed up earlier than us. Similar to gorilla tracking, they would radio back to our guides to tell us where to go. We bounced around for a few hours, seeing lots of oryx, Springboek, zebra and giraffe, and then we got the call to meet up with them. They spotted a few rhino but way in the distance. All the rhinos have names. The ones we saw were Ben, Deseree (the mother) and her now 4 year old calf, Dave. We got some pictures but they weren't in any easy place to get closer. However, we did also see elephants in that area.
There is nothing like eating out in the bush and we got to do exactly that. The camp sent out some really good food, the guides set out a table and we all got to kick back with a beer, Windhoek and Tafel, the local favorites.
Typical of most these camps, we had the option of an afternoon drive as well. Our whole group of six chose to take it. And it was a good thing we did as we spotted (or really Nick and Moira did...from two different cars) a black rhino on our own! This one, Teabag, was closer than the ones we saw earlier. You aren't allowed to get out of your jeeps to track rhinos if the rhino trust people aren't with you. So, no, Peter and Pasquale didn't take pity on us because we had bad viewing that day. And no, they didn't drive us downwind and lead us single file to a better viewing spot. And no, we didn't get to take pictures closer. Not us, we follow all the rules. I can confirm that we did celebrate our sighting with another sundowner.
We got back to the camp right at dinner time and it felt much more crowded with the others there. We had gotten a bit spoiled. There were six people from Germany and three people from Abercrombie and Kent, two women from Chicago and one from Johannesburg. Let me digress a minute to tell you about the A & K women. We had the, ahem, pleasure of seeing them earlier in the day as our two jeeps got the call to pick them up at the airport. It turns out they had told the camp they were flying into Palmwag which is two hours away and which is where the Germans were arriving. The camp sent all the available cars there to go pick them up. When they arrived here, without advance notice, no one was close by to get them. When we arrived, we got a "did you forget about us?" They got to the camp and decided not to go on the evening drive...which would be okay except they were on the 2 PM flight out the next day and were there to write up the camp for A & K. Instead they went back to their tent and were drinking Red Bull. No joke. And one kept smoking which isn't usual here. At dinner, we stuck to our little tribe but we couldn't avoid them the next day.
Nick and Marilyn were on a separate drive in the morning as they had ro leave early but the rest of the group headed out in the three jeeps for rhino tracking. But not before the one A & K woman announced to the breakfast table that she saw black rhino all over East Africa. When the guide tried to tell her that wasn't the case, that it was probably white rhino, she told him she used to be a guide and that he was wrong. Alrighty then.
We had rhino spotting success pretty quickly. The guides noticed tracks and called the trackers who doubled back to meet us. And by around 30-45 minutes later we were watching a black rhino walk across a ridge. He was really booking. The black rhino we spotted was Speedy which was quite appropriate given how quickly he moved. With our distance, we were able to watch him about 10 minutes.
After a final meal at the lodge, Pasquale drove us to the airstrip. We got there a little early and all of a sudden, he pointed in the distance. Lions on the top of a ridge nearby! Or as they used to announce over the radio in Kenya, "Simba!" There was no road there so Pasquale hauled it over really bumpy, rocky terrain to get us closer. Very close. At one point, we each separately thought "this guy is nuts" and "is it safe to be this close?" But we had our first Namibian lion sighting, two males and a female, which was great so it was worth it. Luckily the airplane was a little late so our side trip didn't cause any issues.
Things we learned:
- Namibia has a very pretty national anthem and the people here are quite proud of it. The staff sang it for us the first night.
- The people here love McDonalds and there aren't any that we have seen. The unnamed woman who drove us to and fro in Swakopmund said when she goes to South Africa that she would rather go to Mickey D's than to a nice restaurant. Queen told us she went to Europe once and was supposed to be eating at the hotel as her meals were provided there. Instead, she went to McDonalds as it was nearby. And she went multiple times a day. We tried to tell her that the food here is so much better and places like McDonalds are why Americans are so fat. But as she only knows Americans from TV, she couldn't believe we had an obesity problem.
- The Himba people (the native tribe in this area) are cattle farmers but only really eat meat on special occasions. Their diet consists of a lot of milk. They also don't trust banks and prefer to do their trades in goats.
- The Himba men can have more than one wife. Agnes' father has three. Her mother has 5 children by her dad and he has 14 children in total. Agnes told us the wives are best friends but she will never live like that. Denzel, one of the trackers, is Himba and his multiple girlfriends all come to visit him together.
- There is a bush out here that produces milk but it is poisonous to every animal species, including man, except for the rhino. It is one of the reasons that the rhinos live and thrive (relatively speaking) in this area. The bushman used to use this plant to hunt (maybe they still do). They would rub it on their spreads and arrows. It doesn't kill instantly. The bushman would shot their prey and then track it until it collapsed, then slit its throat. I swear I have seen that in movies.
- Best quote of the day, by Pasquale, "See those two big rocks out there? Those are birds."
 |
| Sunset from the deck at Desert Rhino Camp |
 |
| Tracking black rhino. |
No comments:
Post a Comment