Etosha is the largest national park in Namibia. After completing our third project visit in November, Saro, one of my teammates, and I took a 2D-1N safari trip to Etosha. Unfortunately our office driver had never been to Etosha before, so what should have been a 4 hour trip more than doubled because he took the longer way. We left Windhoek at 8.30 a.m. and arrived at our lodging at Okaukejo only at 6 p.m. Fortunately, we were able to spot many animals, especially zebras, along the way.

We chose the Okaukejo camp because it has a watering hole and animals are supposed to come throughout the day to drink and we could then photograph them less than 100 meters away. From our rooms we could also see if any animals are coming. At night I saw a giant elephant come in and quickly told Saro to come out. I took some time to finish my coffee but by the time I went close to the watering hole, the elephant was gone. I waited for another 90 minutes but no other animal came so I went back to my room to sleep as we had to wake up by 4.30 a.m. for a morning game drive.

In the morning, Saro told me that she had gone to the watering hole and around midnight a group of zebras and a lone rhino came. We were the only two passengers during the morning game drive. We spotted another rhino, a few giraffes, some antelopes, many guinea hens. At one point, our driver spotted some animals more than a kilometer away. They turned out to be two brother lions. We spent almost an hour just watching them. Evidently they were not hungry because they ignored a few antelopes eating grass near their territory. Shooting the lions was the highlight of our short safari.

At around 11 a.m. we left the camp to return to Windhoek, staying at Hotel Thule on top of a hill overlooking the city. This time our driver took the shorter route and we reached our destination by 2.30 p.m. even stopping for a half-hour for lunch along the way.