Etosha National Park - Namibia

We're a bit behind in posting as internet is quite sketchy and inconsistent, but we've found a hotspot at our current campsite near Maun, Botswana that has a super strong signal, so we wanted to share a post with a lot of photos for you.

One of the highlights of our time in Namibia was visiting the Etosha Pan and Etosha National Park. It's the most wildlife rich place in Namibia, and we had the chance to see huge herds of zebra, impala, and springbok along with many elephants, lions, hyena, and even a few genets.

Sundowners - enjoying a drink while watching the sunset - are a big tradition in Southern Africa. One of the campsites we stayed at within Etosha National Park was a former German fortress with a great deck for watching a sunset over the camp site water hole.

View from the top of the fortress. Please note the teeny tiny fence that was all that kept the elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards and hyena out of our campsite. It didn't seem to bother this bull one bit as he reached across the fence to munch on the tree.

Enjoying a drink with the elephants (look between our shoulders)

Sunset over Etosha National Park from the Namutoni Fortress

The main activity in Etosha National Park is to go out for game drives to watch wildlife, which you can do on your own or with a hired guide. We booked an evening game drive when we first arrived as that's the best way to see nocturnal hunters in action.

Part of a pride of 8 sleeping lions spotted on our night drive

Our guide quickly found a pride of 8 young lions that were mostly sleeping next to a waterhole. Our neighbors in the campsite watched the same group kill an impala on their early morning game drive the next morning - needless to say, we think they got the better game drive.

We also watched a group of hyena along with very young, wobbly legged hyena babies, which were the most interesting creatures to watch of everything we saw that night. They were so cute and vulnerable, and it's incredible to think that they would grow up to be vicious hunters like their parents, so vicious that they usually just chase their prey until it's completely exhausted and collapses, and then the hyena pack starts eating it before it's dead. There's no way to explain the eery feeling you get when you hear a lion roar behind your car or hear the hyenas howling at each other - makes you realize how vulnerable you are out in the wild.

Our guide drove us to another waterhole where we saw two adult black rhino and one young one. Black rhinos are incredibly threatened in Africa due to poaching, mainly for Chinese demand for aphrodisiacs, and Etosha National Park is considered to have the healthiest population of black rhino in all of Africa.

It was tough to get photos of what we saw on our night drive, but we had plenty of time to snap pictures and watch the game during our self-guided day drives.

Lounging hyena

Stopping to pose for us

Giraffes in the distance

Mudbath

Hartebeest at the edge of Etosha Pan

Huge bull in the distance walking near Etosha Pan

Impala bucks

Young male lion - part of the group we saw the night before

One part of our game drive turned out to be a little more exciting than we had planned. We had been driving among elephants for most of the day, and they had been calm and relaxed. We rounded a corner during one of our drives when we came upon this big bull who was closely inspecting the tour vehicle in front of us:

His tusk ended up being mere inches from the window of this vehicle full of tourists

Making sure we know he's the boss

This silver car stupidly pulled up around the safari vehicle and tried to pass, which succeeded in getting the bull even more focused on letting us know he was bigger and in charge.

The bull wasn't happy with the silver car, and stood over it for a few minutes, looking as though he was considering whether to stomp the hell out of it or let them go. He looked around and remembered that he was also mad at the safari car, then came walking toward it, and us. We ended up being neck and neck with the safari car, chatting with the very experienced guide, as we backed up three times to let the bull know we weren't challenging his authority. He eventually let us pass, but it sure did spike our adrenaline for the day.

We also took a walk out on Etosha Pan, one of the huge, mostly dry salt lakes that make up vast parts of the landscape.

Asa on the Etosha Pan

Julia on the Etosha Pan

We're hoping to drive into Moremi and Chobe National Parks in the next few days. Our vehicle is giving us problems again, and we'd like to get those sorted out before heading into the wild.

Thanks to everyone who's been posting comments - it means so much to see that you're following our adventures back home and makes us feel connected.

We'll post again when we can - life is good here in Africa!