Etosha, the Final Chapter of This Year’s African Adventure

Executive Summary

We arrived at our next safari lodge in Etosha National Park, had a nice game drive late that afternoon, returned to the lodge after dusk, and Diana fell down and broke her hip; Africa trip over.

Put Another Way

As this post would be rather brief, for giggles, I asked ChatGPT to create a haiku with roughly that input. It gave me this…

Only we saw elephants, not lions, so I said “change lions to elephants”, which it dutifully did, but GPT didn’t realize it had broken the 5-7-5 haiku form. So I asked if the new result was a haiku, and it said “Yes”. Then I asked how many syllables “elephants” has, and it said 3, and then it checked the result, recognized the new result was not a proper haiku, and it offered a slightly different, conforming version. Ultimately, this is the haiku we (GPT and I) settled on:

Getting There

As had become normal in Namibia, the 4.5-hour drive to the Etosha Mountain Lodge involved mostly dirt roads. This stage of the tour did present some new obstacles, though: gates. Our route took us through a few gated roads. Usually, I try not to enter gated land. I envision hidden pot farms in Northern California, and think it would be better for my continued existence to go around.

But, there didn’t seem to be any good way around these gates, so I opened them, went through, and closed them behind me. Nothing happened as a result, so I’m guessing it’s par for the course. Still, a bit unnerving.

Etosha Mountain Lodge

When we finally arrived at the Etosha Mountain Lodge, the staff were singing a greeting. We were introduced to most of the staff. It was a great way of making us feel welcome in the Etosha National Park. This national park was one of the must-dos for any trip to Namibia.

Our Sole Excursion

After a bite of lunch and a brief rest, we set out on a late-afternoon game drive. We found an elephant parade fairly quickly and had some up close time. The big treat was a stop at a watering hole with a “blind”, i.e., a structure to allow us to safely view the pond up close.

Shortly after arriving, the parade sauntered up to the bar for a drink or two, or more. One elephant drank for 6 minutes, grabbing 22+ snoutfuls and enjoying beer bongs of water. We could hear it across the pond. Can you say dehydrated?

Another female was rather randy. She spent most of the time backing into the bull elephant of the parade. He wasn’t interested, so her overtures went for naught, at least while there was an audience. Maybe he has performance anxiety.

Final Sundowner and Looksie

The parade split, and so did we. Now it was our cocktail time. We enjoyed the customary gin tonic and light snacks as the sun set. Here you can see happy Diana getting off the truck just fine. Her final dismount at the lodge (not pictured) was less successful.

After our brief tipple, we doubled back on the pond and found a sole giraffe taking a sip. Apparently, it takes a long time for a giraffe to drink because to do so, they have to splay their front legs to get down to the water, in so doing, making themselves quite vulnerable. It takes time for them to feel secure enough from predators before attempting this maneuver.

Namibia Wrap Up

You can read about what happened next in Important Breaking News from Namibia…, but as this will be our final Namibia post, I wanted to offer some observations.

Prior to arrival, I expected Namibia to be similar to South Africa, but with more desert. The desert can be quite alluring, and Namibia plays this card well. And, although you can use the South African Rand in Namibia, their history is quite different. German influence is still present from colonial days, especially in towns like Swakopmund. We met a few German tourists who felt quite at home in this country.

Overall, we had a wonderful time in Namibia, although we have seen so much that we probably won’t return, preferring to boldly seek out new life and new civilizations elsewhere in our roving retirement.

Where do you want to boldly go?