Source: Southern Africa’s top 21 parks taken from the April 2010 Issue of Getaway Magazine.
In Namibia – and Etosha especially – rain is the metronome for the ancient dance of life. Evan Haussmann had a ringside seat.
A Heikum tribal legend recounts how their hunter ancestors killed all the men and children in a group of intruders and how a captured woman wept a lake which, when it dried, left this salty, shimmering white wasteland which today forms the heart of the Etosha National Park.
Geologists, however, reckon a massive inland lake ran dry when the course of the Kunene River was changed by plutonic movements.
Either way, the salt deposits created a super-saline 6 000-square-kilometre pan. This desolate, salt-encrusted surface can’t sustain much life and, as the temperatures peak in August, the pan dries to serve as a largely predator-free shortcut between waterholes for Etosha’s thirst-driven wildlife.
But between November and April when the summer rains do fall, the pan can fill with water up to a metre deep from the catchments of Ekuma and Oshigambo Rivers in the north, attracting pelicans and thousands of flamingos. The surface water, which can be twice as salty as the sea, filters through the earth into sweeter, nutrient-rich waterholes along the edges of the great white expanse.
As the seasons cycle, rain furls and unfurls the mottled greens of grasslands, acacias and mopane trees, camouflaging the stark desert landscape. Although any time is good for game viewing, it’s best between August and late October.
Gemsbok, elephant, zebra, springbok, giraffe and blue wildebeest are common, but the species to look out for are the rare and endangered black rhino, Hartmann’s mountain zebra, roan antelope and the endemic black-faced impala. They in turn need to be on the look out for lion, leopard, hyena and cheetah.
The park was once one of the biggest in the world, but politics and agriculture shuffled and shrank the natural wildlife range. Waterholes were constructed to maintain the balance and these provide superb viewing opportunities.
Night around the Okaukuejo Camp watering hole attracts visitors struggling to maintain a respectful silence, suppressing giggles at the antics of the baby elephants or the pig-headedness of a pair of male rhinos in a stand-off. It’s for these intimate moments that visitors from far and wide migrate to wander the plains and flock around the waterholes to become part of the show.
Opening more doors
In 1952, a police outpost for control of rinderpest at Okaukuejo was converted into a tourist rest camp. Namutoni followed in 1958 with the rebuilding of an old fort. A third rest camp, at Halali, opened in 1967, after Etosha gained national park status. In 2008, the environmentally friendly luxury lodge, Onkoshi Camp, opened inside Etosha, the first development in the park in decades. Later this year, a new camp, Dolomite Point, is scheduled to open in the far western part of the park, an area to which few visitors have had access. Keep reading Getaway for developments.
Elephant irony
Etosha adult male elephants can be up to 4,2 metres tall at the shoulder. Although they are among the biggest specimens in Africa, because of deficiencies in desert nutrition and minerals, their tusks are among the smallest.
The world’s healthiest lions?
Etosha’s lions are very sought after by parks that are restocking or introducing prides in regions where there’s been feline immunodeficiency virus (FN). The Etosha prides are virus-free and could be fundamental to the survival of the species.
Travel Advisor
Who to contact
Namibian Wildlife Resorts, Cape Town office tel 021-422-3761, e-mail ct.bookings@nwr.com.na, web www.nwr.com.na
This article was taken from the back issue of Getaway. April 2010 Special Edition.
