Etosha game reserve
he Etosha Park is a large area around a salt pan. It covers 22.270 sq. Km (> half the size of the Netherlands) and stretches 300 km from west to east and 110 km from north to south. The great Etosha pan covers about 500 sq. km and lies towards the east of the park. It’s a dried up lake that fills with water sometimes during the wet season.
You can visit about half of the park. The rest is open only for guided groups. There is a lot of game that is relatively easy to spot in the dry season, this in contrast to the famous Kruger Park in South Africa. In the winter the animals concrete around the waterholes. We spoke with South African people and the told us that it’s easier to see game in Etosha than in the Kruger Park.
Some of the waterholes are natural, while others are fed artificially from boreholes. Because they impaired the size of the park dramatically they had to make more drinking places. You can’t see the different between artificially and natural waterholes.
When we entered Etosha we saw a couple of giraffes. They were a lot larger than we expected, in a normal car you are sitting near to the ground. At first we were frightened a little bit because what will they do: run away or attack. They did nothing and kept on eating from the trees. We were told that the animals don’t see the cars as a natural enemy and that they are used to it.
We stayed in two of the three resting camps, which are in the game reserve. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism manages the camps. At each campsite there is a restaurant, a filling station and a shop. There are no guided gamedrives in Etosha. You can take your own car: drive to a waterhole, turn off the engine and simply wait, the game will appear in a few minutes. You must strictly follow the rules for gamedrives: e.g. only between sunrise and sunset and you are allowed to open your windows but you may never step out of your car. There are penalties on a violation of the rules.
Near every campsite they made a waterhole. So you can sit there behind the fence and easily observe the drinking game. These waterholes are floodlit so you can also view the game at night. Strangely enough the animals don’t seem to bother the light. The zebra’s on the picture we saw near campsite Namutoni.
To find game it is relatively easy. On the large grasslands there are herds of zebra and springboks. You can also see other animals like this ostrich
There are about 1500 elephants in the park. Their tusks are comparatively small because of mineral deficiencies in their diet and genetical defects. We saw 2 herds of about 20 elephants each. One herd we saw near then campsite so we were able to take a close look. They smell awful and the are flatulent. When they are drinking it sounds like a drain. They drink in order, first the young animals, followed by their mothers and at last the old ones.
