The Leopard Has No Name

One of the things we absolutely knew we wanted to do on this trip was true bush camping, meaning that there would be no fences and no separation between us and the wild animals, save for the canvas of our tent.

Now, it’s one thing to be sitting safe at home thinking about what a cool adventure that would be, and quite another to be in the middle of the bush, keeping your eyes peeled for any number of wild and potentially dangerous animals trying to make their way into your camp site.

The night the elephants visited us we were nervous at first, and then felt quite safe as we watched the huge creatures surround our vehicle and eat the trees and leaves around it without any intent of harming us. Their movements were so peaceful, in fact, that we both fell asleep to the sounds of ellies breathing and chewing around us.

A few hours after we drifted to sleep, we woke up with the feeling that something else was in the camp. We knew it was big, but we didn’t want to shine our flashlights out the doors and attract the attention of whatever was out there. It sounded big, and as Asa says, quite like a buffalo that could purr. We felt pretty safe in our tent on top of our LandCruiser, but we slept a little more lightly after that.

The next morning, we walked through the campsite and chatted with a few other campers, mostly comparing stories of how close the elephants had come to each tent and how early they had entered the campsite.

One of the campers said, “Did the leopard stop by your camp? You do know there’s a resident leopard, right? It likes to live in the campsites.”

Asa went and found Eric, the camp host who lived at the site, to find out whether it was a leopard that had visited our camp the night before.

Asa: “I understand there’s a leopard in camp.”

Eric: “Mmm.” (this was the Mmm that means yes, you are correct!”)

Asa: “I think I heard him last night.”

Eric: “Those were elephants.”

 

Asa: “No, much later, after the elephants had left.”

Eric: “Mmm, the leopard was in camp last night, but you don’t need to worry, he only likes to go drink at camp 2 and then leave the camp.”

Asa: “We’re in camp 2.”

Eric: “Mmmm.”

Asa: “Well, now that we’ve met Matthew, I have to ask – does the leopard have a name?”

Eric: “No, the leopard has no name.”

We both slept in fits and starts that night, and although the elephants didn’t return to our camp, we did hear hippos wandering around and the leopard returned, mostly silent except for the tell-tale purring of the huge cat.

In the morning, Julia was washing dishes when Eric came up and said, “Did you hear the leopard last night? I heard him walking through the camp!”

Julia: “Yes, we heard him purring and drinking.”

Eric: “Mmmm. You must check the ground by your camp for tracks. Also, there’s a group of lions outside the camp. Just outside. So don’t walk around.”

Don’t Worry – That’s Just Matthew

After spending two nights resting at Ngepi Camp on the banks of the Kavango River, we decided it was time to try a few nights of real bush camping. Real bush camping involves camping in parks and wild areas without having the humans fenced in at night, which means all kinds of predators and wild animals can be in your camp at any time. 

It was a true 4x4 road - 2WDs were not allowed, and we drove through deep sand and parts of the lagoon to reach the camp

We drove northeast into the Caprivi Strip to Nambwa Camp in Bwabwata National Park, which makes up most of the panhandle of Namibia. First we had to pick up a permit to enter the Park, which can only be purchased on the far eastern end of the park. We didn’t have clear instructions to get to the ranger station, only that we should turn left and head 4 km north near a small town about 2 hours from our starting point. Amazingly, we found the right road and drove for awhile until we found a building titled “Office”, which we correctly assumed was the ranger station. After paying our fees and receiving strict instructions to show our permit to anyone who asked so we wouldn’t get arrested, we headed back out the gravel road to find another gravel road and traveled 14 km south to the actual camp. 

(Really – the woman who sold us the permit told us that we should avoid getting arrested by showing our permit to everyone – and when she said ‘arrested’, she crossed her arms in front of her like they were stuck in handcuffs. We think she was being a little overzealous in her job as so far no has cared much about anything we’re doing.)

On our way to the camp, we bumped into a breeding herd of 20+ elephants in the middle of the road, so we sat and watched for about 30 minutes and let everyone move off the road (and made sure all the youngsters were next to their mothers) before continuing. 

One of the ellies blocking our way

The elephants here in the Caprivi are small, and that’s partly due to the fact that until the Angolan war ended in 2002, this area was poached to near extinction. The animals are slowly coming back, and based on what we’ve seen, the elephants are happily repopulating their herds.

When we arrived at Nambwa, we spent a few minutes talking with Eric, the employee who lives on site. We asked him whether we had to worry about any animals getting into our campsite at night, and he said, quite seriously, 

“Yes. You can have elephants, lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, hyena, hippo, buffalo, crocodile…

…but not rhino!!” 

At that, he smiled widely, as if this was some huge consolation compared to all the other creatures we might have visiting us that night. In fact, we knew it was likely that elephants would be in the area, as different herds had been visiting the campsite for the past few weeks, so we were prepared for that, but hadn’t expected to contend with lions, leopard, hyena, or wild dog.

 

Once we set up a few chairs and our table (lesson learned from Halali campsite in Etosha National Park, where someone stole our campsite despite our vehicle being parked in it), we decided to head out on a late afternoon game drive. 

We drove around a bit aimlessly until we happened to come across a professional safari vehicle, and decided to follow them as they were more likely to know what they were doing than we are. We drove to a huge lagoon called Horsehoe, and saw a big family of baboons and a herd of 30+ elephants drinking across the lagoon. We parked near a couple of South African cars for sundowners (drinks at sundown for you non-South Africans) and made friends with the other group.

Sundowner at Horseshoe Bend

Ellies drinking from Horseshoe Lagoon

This young baboon was performing for us for awhile

It turned out that one of the women in the group had just finished a research project studying elephants, and she knew a lot more about animals and the bush than we did. We saw a hippo coming through the water to get on the bank right next to us, but our new friends said that as long as we kept talking, it would back off – and it did!

We watched the baboons playing for about an hour, and also saw guinea fowl marching up a tree to get into bed for the night, which was one of the funniest and most entertaining things we’ve seen on this whole trip. 

Our new friends shared a lot of their knowledge, including that the elephants would definitely be in our camp that night, how to know when elephants are relaxed, and also that a pride of lions had moved into the campsite right next to ours the week before! Most of the people here are using ground tents, which we think is just nuts! We haven’t had big animals in our camp yet, but we know we’d rather be on top of our car than on the ground next to them if it happens. According to our friends, the most important thing to do in a campsite at night is to make sure we have lots of lights on and a fire going, because the animals will stay away as long as there are lights on, but come in as soon as it’s dark.  

All of a sudden, our friends turned to us and said, “It’s time to get in the cars. Now.” It turns out that the baboons had given out the “gather round” call, meaning that they had sensed a leopard or lion on the near vicinity. We happily jumped into our truck and followed our new friends back to camp.

When we returned from our drive, it was around 6:30 and quite dark, so we hurried to set up our propane lantern and start a fire, all the while swinging our flashlights around like lunatics to make sure all the lions, leopards and hyena knew to stay out. 

We made a quick dinner of grilled sausage and steamed broccoli, and as we were just sitting down to eat we started hearing cracking branches and a few roars and rumblings. They sounded far away, so we kept eating, but soon realized they were much closer than we first anticipated. We looked down the road from our camp and could see elephants making their way towards us quickly. We packed up all of our food (to protect it from monkeys and other small creatures), brushed our teeth as fast as possible and climbed up to bed. It was 7:30. 

Julia's foot next to the footprint of our nighttime visitors

Trees torn down after the elephant visit

 For the next five hours, we had elephants surrounding our car. It was truly incredible. We watched them eating, exploring, and interacting until we were too tired to keep our eyes open any longer, and then fell asleep to the sounds of them pulling branches off of trees and hearing them chew their hard-earned meal. 

A few hours later, we woke up to the sounds of a small group of buffalo in our camp, and even later a few bull elephants made their way into our camp, had a small tussle, and left. 

The next morning we woke early and went out for an early game drive to see if we could spot any leopard, lion, hyena or wild dog. We drove for four hours, and saw all kinds of antelope, beautiful birds, and lots of baboons and elephant, but didn’t see any of the big cats or predators.

Buffalo bones

Gorgeous birds on our game drives

Baby elephant drinking

Once back in camp, we decided to take a walk to visit our new friends from the night before and to check out the viewing deck of the camp, where we saw a family of baboons, a big herd of impala and a breeding herd of about 10 elephants, with 2 very young and very cute babies. 

After relaxing for a few minutes, we agreed to go back to camp to do the dishes from the night before and to get ready for the night’s game drive. We had just returned when Asa quietly but firmly said “get in the car.” 

We climbed in, shut the doors, and then watched as a huge male hippo searched for food about 15 feet from our campsite, and us. 

Hippos are considered the most dangerous animal in Africa as they injure and kill more people than any other animal on the continent. The biggest danger is when you are between them and their pathway to the water – which we were – so we knew we had to get out of his way and into our car as fast as possible.

He continued rooting around for food for about five minutes, and then, with no warning, curled up and decided to take a nap.

We looked at each other and realized we were trapped – stuck in the car in our own campsite with a sleeping 1500 kg hippo as our prisoner.

After watching him for a bit, Asa cautiously got out of the car, and then I did as well. The hippo didn’t seem to notice us, and we talked about what we should do. At that moment, Eric, the friendly employee, happened to be walking by, so Asa flagged him down.

We explained that we had a small problem with a sleeping hippo in our camp. He came in, looking serious, took a look at our visitor, and said, “No problem. That’s just Matthew.”

Us: Oh, does that mean you know this hippo?

Eric: Yes. He was in campsite three this morning.

Us: Hmm. Does that mean he’s a friendly hippo?

Eric: Mmmm. (This was said in the “definitely not” tone of Mmmm that we’ve learned to differentiate from the “Yes” tone of Mmmm you often get as well).

Us: So what should we do?

Eric: Just be. It’s okay – no problem – that’s just Matthew.

Matthew napping in our campsite, in all his splendor

Eric was right – Matthew was no problem. After sleeping in our camp for 4 hours, he woke up, wandered around sleepily, and then went back in the water. We went for a quick afternoon game drive, and got back to camp early to make sure we had time to make dinner in case the elephants came back into camp.

As we were brushing our teeth and getting ready for bed, we heard the new campers in campsite 3 start screaming and the sounds of their car doors slamming.

We called over to ask if they were okay, and they replied, “Yes, but there’s a hippo in our camp!”  

We smiled at each other and shouted, “Don’t worry! That’s just Matthew!!”

Welcome to Namibia

We crossed into the Republic of Namibia on Wednesday, June 26th. The border crossing was really simple once we figured out which lines to get into, which paperwork we had to fill out, and whether we had to go to the customs office or not. The funniest experience there was when the (very casual) customs officer asked us whether we had any wine (um, yes) and I said yes while Asa said no. Then we agreed that we had two bottles of wine (not exactly true) and the customs officer let us go through.

First time to Namibia!

Our first camp was at Ai-Ais Hot Springs in Southern Namibia. Driving here has been an adventure for a number of reasons:

1. The roads are crap. Asa has said that whoevever invented the washboards would be a rich person in Namibia.
2. There are very few road markings, and they are all dirt gravel (even some of the highways), so it's impossible to tell if we are on a minor road or a major road.
3. Our Garmin is crap. It often sends us on excessively long routes (driving 20 km in one direction only to do a u-turn and drive 20 km back) and half the time it thinks we are driving off the road.
4. Namibia's tourism is growing quickly, and the government is working to improve roads, which means there are now roads where there used to be none, and old roads are gone, which essentially renders our maps useless.

Nonetheless, we are absolutely and completely charmed with Namibia. It's a huge country - about twice the size of Germany - with just over 2 million residents, which means you can drive a long time without seeing anyone or anything.

Not much in Namibia

We've seen a lot of vervet monkeys, baboons, oryx, springbok, and ostriches so far, along with grazing goats, cattle and donkeys, and more birds than we can count.

These huge weaver bird nests are everywhere in northern South Africa and southern Namibia

This baboon and family came into our campsite in the morning at Ai Ais - and ran right into our neighbor's tent while they were sleeping.

Namibia is almost all desert, and very dry. They are in a period of drought here - it hasn't rained in two years. The year before was considered a banner year with a 10 mm of rain. We've been trying to explain the amount of rain we get in Portland, but it's almost beyond comprehension for the people living here.

Fish River Canyon drought

Fish River Canyon - Namibia's answer to the Grand Canyon

We've been trying to conserve water by not showering every day, but the laundry still hast to get done. .

Ai Ais camp laundry line

After a night at Ai Ais and a few soaks in the hot springs, we headed north toward Sossuvlei, Namibia's red sand dunes.

First oryx we spotted in Namibia

Oryx close up

This train was a welcome sight on our long drive from Ai Ais north toward the sand dunes - a wave and a honk were pretty much the only human interaction we had during the day. 

We'll post and update more later - the internet connections are really rough here, and take a long time loading pictures and blogs. We're having a great time - it's really an unforgettable trip!

Love to all!

Julia and Asa

Video Tour of Our Tricked Out LandCruiser

We made a video for you!

Many of you have asked about the vehicle we'll be traveling in, so we made a quick video of how it's set up and all the cool gadgets that are included.

Hope you like it!

Joburg to Namibia

We left Johannesburg (and our amazing friend Gavin) on Sunday, with the goal of reaching the town of Kuruman in the early afternoon.

On the road to Kuruman through the Southern Kalahari

One of the biggest challenges we had before we left was not really having a clear understanding of how long it will take to drive from camping spot to camping spot. Yes, we researched the distances but this is Africa - road maps mean nothing! Sometimes you come to a road and it doesn't exist anymore, or you find a brand new road that's much faster. We've been running into a LOT of construction - Asa has been doing an incredible job of maneuvering considering that this is a huge, heavy vehicle, the cars drive on the left, and the driver's seat is on the white. There's been a little bit of white knuckle driving in the dark (because there are people, bicycles and animals walking along the road) but for the most part we've been doing great.

Asa's been doing most of the driving but I took a turn learning how to drive stick with my left hand.

Me trying to figure out how to drive (it's harder than it looks - I kept drifting to the right side of the road since that's where we drive at home.

After an overnight stop in Kuruman, we drove to Augrabies Falls National Park - the sixth tallest waterfall in the world.

We found a campsite and settled in, then went for a walk along the falls.

The bed was pretty comfy, even if it was a little small. The nights are really cold here - you can see your breath, so we're heading out to get more blankets and fleece jackets today.

There were at least 6 viewing platforms for Augrabies Falls - it's a pretty fancy campsite with a reservations only restaurant, laundry facilities, and even a bathtub in the bathrooms.

Augrabies Falls with Kalahari in background

It was a full moon night, so we headed back to the falls and the viewing platforms after cooking dinner so Asa could play with his new camera.

Moonlit waterfall

In the morning, we wanted to get up early and hit the road, but ended up sleeping in until 9! It was the first morning we were able to relax a little, and we both really needed the sleep. We got up and made camp quickly because baboons were starting to head into camp (a common problem in this part of South Africa) and we didn't want them messing with our food or stealing our sunglasses.

Our goal was to reach Namibia by the end of the day, but that plan was derailed when the turn signals in our car stopped working. We called the rental company who told us to stop at the Toyota in Springbok. When they couldn't figure out what was wrong, they escorted us to an electrical specialist. The mechanic looked at the car for about 2 hours, and then said that he couldn't figure out what was wrong. Believe it or not, when we tried the signals again, they all worked! He must have knocked something into place.

Our LandCruiser at the mechanic

We're heading to Namibia today to check out the Fish River Canyon and to spend an evening at the Ai-Ais Hot Springs - we're ready for a nice, hot soak in the 60 degree celsius springs.

Internet has been spotty and not very strong signals, so we'll do our best to post when we can. We're having a GREAT time and can't believe we are so lucky to get to do this. Love and miss you!

Julia and Asa

Johannesburg, Part One

We arrived in Joburg last night, and were picked up at the airport by our friend Gavin. We met Gavin and Dia when we were on our honeymoon in SE Asia - we happened to be seated at the same table during our resort's Christmas pageant on Koh Samui, and we've been friends ever since. We visited them in June 2010 when we were in South Africa to go on safari, explore Cape Town and the Wine Lands, and see a few World Cup games.

Gavin took us home and made a great chicken soup for us. It's winter in South Africa, which means it's warm in the daytime (around 70 degrees) and freezing in the evening (seriously freezing - it's going to be below 30 tonight). After a few glasses of wine, whiskey, and a shot of Jaeger, we fell into bed.

Got up late this morning and did a quick workout in Gavin and Dia's gorgeous backyard. Asa had a quick driving lesson in Gavin and Dia's Porsche. Please note that we are in a convertible in winter. Effing awesome.

Big pimpin'

Still big pimpin' in Gavin and Dia's driveway

We pick up our LandRover tomorrow, which includes a 2-hour orientation on how to work everything. We'll post more later. Love to you all!

Julia & Asa

P.S. If you want to see our blog from our honeymoon, go here: http://asaandjulia.wordpress.com/. 

Baboon Cannonball

I seriously hope we get to swim with baboons like these lucky people in Namibia:

Namibia Carnivore Conservation