Today we will spend the day in Etosha National Park and go on a few game drives. We are up early to try to get to the game before the heat of the day - when they are smart and disappear into the shade and bushes. We head off around 6 AM and are treated to a very nice sunrise. We spend over 3 hours driving around and see many of the usual same game that we have been seeing to-date, including:
a group of black-backed jackal out hunting, zebra, maribu stork, sprinkbok, ...
... gemsbok (one of the more striking animals in southern Africa and one of our favorites), a black-bellied okorhan, dik dik, steenbok, impala, giraffe and red hartebeest. Not the most successful game drive as we did not see any of the cats or big animals, but still good fun.
After breakfast, we worked on our journals - lots of catching up to do. Before lunch we do some shopping at the curio shop, and after lunch we re-pack some of our bags. They had started to get a bit messy. Something we have to do every once in a while.
Around 3 PM we head off on our afternoon game drive. We did not see much on this game drive, but we did get a good look at the pan. Etosha means great white place of dry water - a name taken from the white and greenish-colored Etosha Pan. The pan is an immense, flat, saline desert covering 5,000 km² which originated 12 million years ago. In good rainfall years, the pan will be filled with water for a few days and will teem with pink flamingoes and white pelicans. It was quite a sight to see this flat pan extend out to the horizon as far as we could see.
Other than the pan, we saw zebra, springbok, jackal and gemsbok. It must still have been too hot and all the animals were hiding from the sun - and us. We return to the campsite around 5PM.
After a quick shower, we head down to the waterhole for sunset. Again we are not disappointed by the sun, but we do not see too many animals. We head back to the campsite for dinner - beef stew and rice. After hanging around the fire for a while, we head off to bed.