Camping Safari Day Nine – Twyfelfontein to Etosha West and a birthday party, too!

Our overnight destination for January 6th was the Gondwana Collection’s Etosha Safari Camp just south of the Anderson Gate entrance to Etosha. I had arranged with Safari Camp to have a birthday cake so we could celebrate the professor’s birthday that night. As a northern hemisphere dweller with a January birthday, the professor had been looking forward to this since we arrived last July --his first summer birthday ever! Even more special was that he got to celebrate it with all his family together in Africa! There couldn’t have been a better gift for him.

We left Aabadi Mountain Camp early, headed to Outjo and then to Safari Camp. Other than our trek through Etosha, this was going to be our last day traveling on gravel. Once we reached Khorixas, the remainder of our trip’s drive was going to be primarily on tar.

Coming out of Aabadi and headed to C-39, we were back in rolling hills and arid expanses of farms.

 

Small homestead with surprising satellite dish!

Our trusty vehicle on the road to Khorixas

Along this route, we did have the opportunity to see a Welwitschia mirabilis on the side of the road. These ancient plants with only two leaves have deep roots allowing them to survive in this hugely arid landscape – indeed thrive – they can get to be 2000 years old.

We made great time to Outjo, topped up the truck’s double diesel tanks just across the stations’ driveway from the illuminating paraffin (kerosene) pump,

and had a light lunch at the bakery just across the street.

 After a quick trip to the grocery store for supplies, we drove the last 90 kilometers on to Safari Camp for the night.

At Safari Camp we had a soft, grassy site with trees all around.

 
The trees’ occupants were varied and each of them, very busy.

Weaver building an engineering marvel

baby African Red-Eyed Bulbuls

After relaxing showers, we headed over to dinner and the birthday celebration for the professor.

Dinner at the Safari Camp’s outdoor courtyard is always enjoyable with great buffets and dinner entertainment by their guitarist/singers. When it was time for our dessert, the guitarists left the stage and headed inside.

Returning a few minutes later, they led a long line of folks out of the kitchen -- the chefs carrying the professor’s birthday cake followed by a full chorus of cooks, kitchen staff, managers, and wait staff. With apologies for the darkness of this video, what followed was this:

If you are going to have a birthday celebration, this is definitely the way to go! The folks at Safari Camp go way out of their way to make your visit memorable and the musicality and joyfulness of this group is amazing! Even as they headed back to the kitchen, it was a celebration of sound.

Thanks to the folks at Safari Camp and our indulgent adult kiddos’ willingness to come to Africa, the professor’s first ever summer birthday was perfect – he’ll never forget it. Nor will we.


The next day was going to be the kids’ first day at Etosha and what turned out to be an amazingly close view of a very impressive (but somewhat scary) pride of lions.


P.S. If you are having a down day, come back here and replay the birthday celebration video again. It’s guaranteed to cheer you up!

Casper of the Kalahari

In early October, we headed to the Kalahari for the weekend. The professor had heard about the Kalahari all his life, had always wanted to see it, and was anxious to finally see its expanse of red sand and the animals that live there.

We had reservations at the Gondwana Collection’s Kalahari Farmhouse which is an easy drive from Windhoek -- pretty much straight south to just shy of Mariental, then southeast toward Stampriet. We got there at mid-afternoon.

We were greeted at our car by a very friendly staff member who walked us from our car to the shady compound that housed reception. At reception, they had cold wet towels waiting for us to refresh our hands and faces after our hot drive and a tall glass of peach punch to counteract the day’s heat.

Path to Reception

Kalahari Farmhouse Reception

We moved our gear into one of the gorgeous little chalets styled after old Cape Dutch farmhouses.

We were too late to make that afternoon’s sundowner game drive, so we signed up for the next day’s drive and retreated to the poolside patio for a cold drink and some relaxing time planning a 4x4 camping trip with our kids for January.

 

We were absorbed in measuring distances on the map when we were interrupted by a tennis ball accurately bounced just to our feet by one of the animals of the Kalahari.

Casper of the Kalahari

Casper (whose humans pronounce it with British vowel sounds, ‘Cah-spur’) is the Farmhouse guard dog and has this routine down. Every day, new humans check into the Farmhouse and predictably fall captive to his irresistible smile and cheerful demeanor. The professor, who is a push over for all domesticated animals, happily surrendered to Casper’s wily ways. After 30 or 40 times either kicking or pitching the ball and stating firmly, “Okay, but this is the last time”,
 

we had to retreat to a walking tour of the grounds to stop Casper from wearing himself ragged chasing his ball. Besides, new people were arriving at the Farmhouse and he needed to get them indoctrinated by dinner time.

The Kalahari Farmhouse is a working farm with its own cattle, goats, and sheep which provide both meat and milk to produce the homemade cheeses they make on site;

 
chickens who provide both eggs and meat; and a large garden where they grow all the vegetables served at meals.

The property is ringed on one side by grape vines for sultana production.

 
Gondwana actively works at offering top notch training for their staff with language classes, hospitality industry, and skills training -- even sending some of them to Europe to learn cheese and bread-making with knowledgeable European artisan producers. It’s an amazing opportunity for many of these folks who can remain in their communities, have a great job with Gondwana, and learn skills they can capitalize on through their future. Too many rural Namibians don’t have those opportunities and must leave their rural communities to move to Windhoek or Swakopmund to try to find whatever employment they can to support their families.

 Dinner that night was a candlelit braai buffet on the patio. There were game steaks, lamb kabobs, bratwurst, lamb chops, numerous vegetable side dishes, and a gorgeous tiramisu for dessert.

 
By dinner time, Casper had met and indoctrinated all the new guests. People were cheerfully popping up from their chairs during dinner to take turns pitching the ball for Casper (the professor included, of course).

After dinner as we headed back to our chalet for the night, through the darkness we could still hear disembodied voices calling out in accented English, the same phrase over and over again –“Okay, but this is the last time”.

Trip to Etosha

The Polytechnic of Namibia had their mid-semester Spring Break last week. It was the first break we’ve had since we arrived and our first real chance to travel out of Windhoek. In anticipation of traveling throughout Namibia, we bought a car to use while we are here and made plans for a four day escape to Etosha National Park in northern Namibia, about 529 km from Windhoek.

Our car is a Toyota Corolla Altis which is about the same size as a big Camry. Because we drive much smaller cars at home, this one is taking some getting used to, not to mention that having the steering wheel on the right requires an adjustment unto itself. The professor is getting the hang of driving on the left but the last ingrained habit we still need to modify is signaling to turn. Since all the controls are on the opposite sides of where you expect them, the turn signal is on the right, and the windshield wiper control is on the left. Therefore we are still notifying oncoming drivers of our intent to turn with not only the appropriate turn signal but also windshield wipers waving back and forth at them. We’re going to be hopeless when we get home!

Tuesday, we got off to our traditional crack of noon start. We were a little concerned because we didn’t know what the roads would be like. However, roads were great and the baboons, wart hogs, and occasional oryx running across the road didn’t impede us much. We were able to reach our lodge by sundown which is around 5:50 PM these days. Windhoek had developed a pronounced dust/smog? problem the week before our trip

so we were really anxious to get out into the countryside and some fresh air.

Apparently you have to go farther than we did for fresh air. This is pretty much what it looked like all the way to Etosha.

 

There is a pronounced haze in the sky and given that we were frequently in the middle of nowhere traveling from Windhoek to Etosha, we couldn’t figure out where it came from. We took a break in Otjiwarongo and had a quick bite at the deli inside the Spar. Spar is an upscale Dutch grocery chain with sites in Windhoek and other larger cities in Namibia. They had a great hot buffet, salad bar, and sandwich selections – anything you could want. We could have been in a Whole Foods.

We opted for a quick lunch and a couple of bottles of Eish 2 O – ‘eish’ being the African sound of a H.

Then it was back on the road up through Outjo and onto Etosha Safari Camp, 9 km south of the Anderson Gate to Etosha.

Etosha Safari Camp is a one of the Gondwana Collection of Lodges in Namibia. The Gondwana Collection was the brainchild of a collaborative group of individuals, some Namibian, some European. They had seen the reactions of tourists to Grand Canyon and thought they could generate the same interest in Namibia’s Fish River Canyon which was also carved by a large river and which has rock layers back to some several million years old. The lodge they built at Fish River was so successful, they acquired additional lands and built lodges in other interesting Namibian locales.

The Gondwana Collection is a unique lodge operation in Namibia. If you are Namibian or have a work permit in Namibia (as we do!), you qualify for a Gondwana Card (essentially a frequent flier card) for which you pay a one time fee of $100 N (currently about $13.70 USD) and which entitles you for your lifetime, to a 50% discount at all their lodges plus a 25% discount on all dinners and activities. If you are a citizen of another SADC country, you can also get a lifetime Gondwana Card and a little smaller, but still significant, 40% discount. No one else does this in Namibia and lodges are very expensive here so this is one sweet deal.

We checked in at reception, helped ourselves to the always available coffee and tea, and sat by the pool contemplating how there could be such a beautiful set-up smack in the middle of Namibian bush.

After 5 hours driving through dreary colored landscape, it was truly like discovering a desert oasis.


The beautifully carved key fob for our room was only the beginning of surprises.

Guests are housed in free-standing cabins (called chalets here). When we opened the door, here’s what we saw.

What a beautifully restful room, complete with an intricately beaded hartebeest head.

Then we turned to look at the bathroom and saw our shower.

We wanted to take it home with us right then! What a great way to relax after a dusty day in Etosha, or any day for that matter. I could definitely make that thing work in my house.

It was almost time for dinner, so we unpacked our gear and headed to the dining area on the patio. Since this is dry season and there is NO – yes, that’s correct, 100% NO chance of rain; all the tables were arranged outside. An outdoor evening of great food, candlelight,

and entertainment

made for sweet dreams of Etosha the next day.