18.03.14, Ongava, Etosha National Park
The first safari drive in the surrounding private game reserve was quite rewarding, with a sighting of a rhino with a baby, as well as gnus, zebras, giraffe, red hartebeest, steenbok, a hornbill and a roller. I then had dinner with a Dutch couple who had also been in the Damaraland camp. They returned home the next morning.
The next day I set off for the Etosha Park together with 2 German couples, who were from Berlin. The park proved to be quite commercialized with big control gates and a very large visitor centre 17km into the park. We soon encountered a traffic jam caused by lots of people trying to look at a lion on a kill hidden in the bushes. There were coaches, private cars and tourist groups in big lorries as well as the usual Land Rovers like ours. This was all a bit of a shock and not at all like my experience in Botswana last year. We did then loose the other vehicles but there was not as much of interest to see as I had expected: ground squirrel, zebra, springbok, oryx, ostrich, the noisy black korhaan (helicopter bird) and again a roller.
