The Waterberg Plateau was phenomenal. After eating a quick lunch at camp, and destroying my iphone on accident when it fell out of my pocket and into the dishwash bin, we all set off for a hike up the hills with the goal of topping the cliff before sunset. A couple of the Germans left a little early, but our group was a good 8 people strong. The beginning of the hike was very mild, and we traversed over a very gradual incline through the campgrounds, resort buildings, and up to the property's restaurant. Along the way we saw a little Dik Dik standing about 3 feet off the trail. It's a beautiful creature, and is the smallest of the antelope family. In Namibia they are very rare, and although we had seen some in the Serengeti, it was a real treat to see one so close and while on foot. After the restaurant the terrain began to get a little more rugged and steep, and we had to step up and along the red sandstone. Early in the hike we saw a family of black baboons ahead of us on the path, and decided to be a little weary of their presence. As we progressed through the trail we had the opportunity every once in a while to climb up on top of a large rock to peep beyond the trees to see the view. It didn't feel like we were gaining much height, but every time we caught a glimpse off the trail we could see more and more of the plains laid out before us below. These little look outs served as good photo opportunities, but I was more excited about the physical exertion of the hike and so while everyone else was spending time getting the perfect shot I and another advanced ahead. At one turn I started seeing baboons again. There were about 4 sitting in the trees ahead of where I was going, so I was very careful to keep my eyes on them as I walked ahead. Unfortunately, because I was so focused on tracking the baboons in the trees, I almost had a heart attack when I took another step forward and realized that there was a baboon sitting on the rock RIGHT in front of me. Although I would like to say that I was calm and composed in this time of fright, I would be lying. I saw the baboon, screamed out, and immediately turned around to run, frightening the girl who was walking behind me and causing her to run in retreat as well. The baboon immediately took off to chase us, but as we ran backwards we met back up with our group and they calmed us and told us to stop running and to face the baboon. Being in a big group made it easier to have the confidence to do that, so we stood our ground while the baboon climbed up a tree and sat staring down at us. After about 2 minutes the baboon went its own way, and we continued on our hike with a nice spike of adrenaline.
The cliffs of the Waterberg plateau were just gorgeous. They were made of red sandstone and displayed brilliant colors from different mosses and funghi growing on the surface so that the stone was streaked with greens, yellows, and different reds. They also appeared to be extremely steep, so I was amazed that we were able to summit them without much of a climb. We managed to get up through a gorge, but from afar when looking at the cliffs they are invisible and the cliffs just look like an insurmountable wall. The view from the top was unreal - we could see miles and miles of plains of the Waterberg national park, and besides the buildings associated with the campsite and the resort at the base of the cliffs, there were no buildings in sight. The only manmade infrastructure were 5 long dirt roads that all seemed to converge at the same spot. We all spent some time taking in the beauty of the view and trying to capture it with our cameras (I don't try very hard, compared to others my camera is like a child's toy). After everyone was satisfied with their shots and we began to fear the setting sun, we took off again to head back to camp. Getting home we took all sorts of different paths and ended up on a bird viewing loop (that rightfully earned its name), at a German Cemetery that housed the graves of German soldiers who were defending the post in 1904 against the Herero uprising, and past some old ruined buildings that were nothing more than a couple of stacks of red bricks. By the time we got back we had dinner served and I took an early night for sleep.
The next morning was our 3rd in a row to awake at 5:30, and we spent the entire day on the road with all sorts of things going wrong along the way. The most comical of them was going out of our way to a bakery to find that it was closed, then deciding to buy pizzas for lunch, waiting 30 minutes for them to be made, then finding that they were personal sized instead of large pizzas and utterly unable to feed our group of 20. The day was long and frustrating, but that evening we arrived at Etosha National Park and were able to get a very quick game drive in before the gates closed. We spotted some elephants, zebra and tons of giraffes before heading back for the night. We decided that we wanted to get up early the next morning to catch a morning game drive to see if we could see some leopards (the most elusive of all cats in Africa, yet also the most populous). We didn't see any leopards, but I was SO excited to see a Black Rhino. We did game drives all day long as we made our way to our next campsite about 100 km away in the park. We didn't see any cats, but we saw Jackals, more Rhinos, a lot of elephants, giraffes, Eland, Springbok, Kudu and more. When we made it to our next campsite we set up our tents, did an extremely fast round of laundry, then headed back for another game drive in which we saw some more rhino and a beautiful sunset. Probably the highlight of my time in the Etosha National Park, however, was sitting at the watering hole that was at our campsite. The campsite management had built a fence separating us from the animals, but they lined our side of the fence with benches and set up lights to illuminate the watering hole. I spent hours sitting at the hole last night and saw the giraffe, elephants, rhinos, african cats, jackals, birds, and oryx drinking from the water. All of the animals were SO timid as they approached the watering hole, and they spoked at the smallest sound. Getting water was a 30-40 minute process for each animal because of the amount of time they spent surveying their surroundings to ensure safety. I witnessed some aggression between 2 rhinos, some flirting between 2 elephants, and tons of interaction among different herds of animals. It was just fascinating, and felt like I was watching a very slow motion drama. I didn't get any pictures of the watering hole, but I will cherish the experience.
Today we woke up at 5:30 again (it's been rather consistent). Sara and I broke down our tent in record time and took our breakfast to the watering hole to see if we could glimpse anything else. We saw some birds, jakals and a herd of zebra before having to return to the truck for our 7 a.m. departure. Today we're driving 7 hours into the middle of the desert for a stop over on our way to Swakopmund.
Written on July 23, 2014 and posted when internet is available.
