Namibia, Africa

Mave

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I’m about to get into a 4 hour cab ride with my family to Frankfurt. From there we’re flying 11 hours (hopefully we’ll be able to charge our devices onboard) to Windhoek, Namibia.
We will be staying there for 14 days, travelling all over the country from lodge to lodge with a rented van.

Nature will be pretty damn epic, and hopefully we’ll get to see some big cats ::3:

Will be back the 6th of January. Obviously I won’t be able to post much the next two weeks, since having internet will sometimss even be a problem.
 
We’re in Namibia at the first lodge and it’s damn great. Already spotted giraffes and smaller animals cruising around the domain at 5-10m from you. Unfortunately only the restaurant has internet, and even then the speeds are terrible. Will post some pictures once the internet is a bit better.
 
About to head off to the next lodge, 3h drive. We should arrive at 14:00 if we don’t end up with a flat tire. (Roads are 90% dirt with rocky surface)
Safari at 16:30 ::3:
 
Had our first safari yesterday on a 7000ha domain in an old Toyota, typical safari vehicle with a really friendly driver. Only planteaters though. Mainly giraffes, antilopes, gnu’s, zebra’s.
Took loads of photos, even some pretty good ones. Now only to find internet descent enough to upload them..

On our way to the next lodge, 5h drive, half of that is on gravel roads. *crosses fingers
 
The lodge we stayed at the past two days did NOT have wifi at all. In Swakopmund now and finally some descent wifi. Will also be able to upload some photos tomorrow or later today.
The 5h drive today ended up being 10 hours. The fucking travel agency booked a minivan/bus instead of jeeps, which means we had to go 25km/h while jeeps passed us at 100km/h...
 
We went on a little sea excursion today. A seal hopped on our boat within the first 10 minutes. The smart sea dog knew we had fish on board and our guide claimed this same seal hops on daily ::laugh::
A nearby empty part of the beach was swamped with seals, literally 10 000+ seals, smell was... fitting.
Will post video later.
 
The desert lodge where we had no internet was this one:
http://www.wilderness-safaris.com/camps/kulala-desert-lodge

Small video to capture the mood:

 
At a small lodge now, not much to see except for a hillside panoramic bar.
Real safaris getting closer as we go further North.
 
Last two days was 0 internet.. glad I’ve got some now.

We visited the Himba tribe today. Was pretty fun and interesting until they went full capitalism and put 10 bracelets on each of my arms and then just shouted “500 dollars!!!” (15 namibian dollars = €1) Was a bit of a bummer to end the visit with.

Right now we’re 180km away from Etosha, the best safari national park of Namibia.
We will be going there tomorrow and have our first proper safari in the afternoon ::3:
 
Lodge we’re at now (Huab lodge) has such a good atmosphere, all the people are extremely friendly and all the meals are served and eaten on one gigantic table, together with all the guests and staff.

There are also three dogs on the property, we did a 2h morning walk and one of them joned us. The clever dog even once fought off a snake. (The guide showed us pictures)

Took full advantage of the wifi. Even though it’s not fast by European standards (500kb/s), it is by African standards. Downloaded the new The Grand Tour episodes so I’ve got something to watch in the long car ride to Epacha Game Lodge.
 
Big safari today ::3: will take from 6am to 4pm.
Driving from Epacha Game Lodge to Etosha National Park.
Hoping for multiple species of big cats.
 
And what a disappointment the safari was...
We had pretty bad luck and ended up only seeing one lion and one elephant nearby thanks to windy weather conditions.
Of course there was some other wildlife like giraffes, zebras, jackhals,... but we came for the big five.
Hopefully more luck tomorrow as we’ll be going on our last safari!
 
Last two safaris were fantastic! Took pretty good photos, can’t wait to sort and upload them ::3:
On our way to the airport now.
 
Mave said:
Started sorting through the 3000+ pics, down to 1666 now :laugh:
you-gotta-pump-those-numbers-up-those-are-rookie-numbers.jpg
 
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