In five days in Etosha NP I’ve seen more animals than badly dressed tourists in a year on the boardwalk in Venice Beach.

At first it was just baboons and warthogs along the roads to the park (apparently baboons and warthogs are the squirrels and pigeons of central Namibia). But in the park it was lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, jackels, hyenas, wildebeests, several different kinds of antelope (oryx, eland, kudi, springbok, impala, etc.), a distant glimpse of a cheetah (I missed the cheetahs crossing the road when I slept through the morning game drive), and enough different kinds of birds to get a start on my birding life list, if I were so inclined.

Some images and vignettes to give you an idea of what we saw.

• A United Nations of animals at almost every water hole — giraffes, kudu, jackels and ostrich jostling for space, herds of zebras pushing out oryx, elephants pushing out everything else as they drank, sprayed and played in the water.
• a lion stalking a line of springboks a couple of hundred yards away as the sun set.
• rhinos clashing horns around a waterhole as they fought for dominance (or played or tried to mate — I couldn’t quite tell).
• An elephant staring me down in the dark just a few feet away. All I could see was his silhouette framed against the darkening sky and the last glow of light reflected off his tusks.
• thousands of zebras scattered across the plains and savannahs.
• several lions feasting on the corpse of a giraffe over several days

The scenery was as dramatic. My first impression was that Namibia looked like New Mexico. But in Etosha — which means great white plain — the scenery changed into something from a post apocalyptic sci-fi movie. The stark sun-baked expanse of earth and savannah, in places dotted with low shrub and trees, stretches to the horizon. Mirages shimmer in the distance over the salt pan. Sunsets glow over the parched landscape.Most nights we stayed in comfortable lodges owned by NWR (Namibia Wildlife Resorts), the government organization that sponsored our trip to Etosha.  The lodges had restaurants, swimming pools and waterholes a short distance away where we could observe the animals up close. One night we stayed in the remote Onkoshi Camp (also an NWR property), which looked like a feature in an architectural/interior design magazine. The camp was made up of large tents that looked more like cottages. They were raised on stilts and connected by walkways. The camp overlooks the infinite expanse of the Etosha Salt Pan. Everything is decorated tastefully in the colors of the African spectrum, earthtones with occasional splashes of color. Tented camp doesn’t come close to describing what this was like.

We returned to Windhoek, the capital of Nambia, a couple of days ago, and yesterday drove a 4 X 4 by ourselves four hours over modern highway and sandy desert tracks to a private guest house in the middle of nowhere at the edge of the Namib Naukluft NP. Very trippy. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post.