Yet Another Movie

Chameleon

Squirrel

 14.04.12 Swakopmund, Namibia

Time is flying. Not just has jet another week passed, I have also thought a lot back to those weeks in 2010 when I traveled the same Namibian roads as this week together with Ole, Roger and Trygve. It is all so fresh in my memory. The focus this week has been on seeing the African animals, which in Namibia is synonym with Etosha NP.

I picked up Mparany at the airport at five in the morning on Sunday, and we went straight north to Etosha. Monday and Tuesday were spent cruising around looking for Zebras, Lions, Rhinos, Wildebeests, Giraffes and other fellas. We were fairly lucky getting lions close up, seeing rhinos several times, and in general having a good time. Small surprises like a chameleon, a tortoise and very little shy squirrels colored the days.

Regarding the complete lack of elephants in Etosha in the rainy-season, we decided to head up to Sesfontein and down the Hoanib-River to find the desert-elephants, but then we surprisingly met elephants at the Grootberg-Pass, so we went south instead. There are few countries left I the world where one can camp for free having elephants 200 meters from the tent. In the evening a car came driving down the Pass, and he had to stop and back up and wait for quite some time because the elephants had blocked the road. Besides he had to be careful, he told me, because the back of his car was full of goats and the front of the car (I could see) was full of his wife. Together they made the vehicle rather heavy.

So having earned a day from not heading north we went down the skeleton-coast, and not surprisingly it was cold and grey. The seals at Cape-Cross were noisy and smelly as always but the sight of 250 000 (or more) seals at the same time is impressive.

As it has to be, many of my thoughts go back to 2010. I told Mparany about when Roger saw the moon rise three times in one evening, how Trygve misjudged the fuel left in the car, how Roger and Ole fooled me to try to light a cigarette on hot rocks and how Ole failed to make a headstand. If you have three friends, take them to Namibia, rent a car and cruise around for ten days, and I can guaranty you a lot of fun!

For those of you who don’t know Mparany. Mparany is my brother in law, but he was a good friend of mine before he gained that lucrative title. We’ve had many adventures on our Honda xr400s’ (motorbikes) in Madagascar, and visited Zanzibar, Tanzania and Kenya in early 2009 together. It’s great to travel with Mparany. It’s tea in the morning real proper food in the evening and other great stuff. He is father of the two sweetest boys you find around, Markus and Jakob.

Tomorrow our team will grow to three, when father arrives, so we’re heading towards Windhoek to pick him up. Mparany leaves on the 19^th but before that we’ll see the red dunes of the Namib-Desert.

Elephant

Good team

Hardap-Dam

Loving lion-father

Rhino

Ostrich

Bird

Wildebeest

Wombosi

Reflections