FLYING TO NAMIBIA AND DRIVING TO ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would travel to Namibia. Of course, there wasn't even a Namibia until 1990. From 1915 to 1990, this area was known as South West Africa and was under South Africa's jurisdiction, and before that it was a German colony.

Today there are about 2.6 million people living in Namibia, giving it the second lowest population density of any sovereign country in the world (behind Mongolia). The GDP/person in Namibia is about 1/5 of what it is in the United States. The key contributor to the economy is the mining industry. Namibia is one of the chief exporters of uranium in the world and is also known for its deposits of gem diamonds. Ecotourism is a growing segment of the economy.

The country's name comes from its largest desert: the Namib Desert. Namib means "vast place." The Namib Desert is about the size of South Carolina, and the country of Namibia is about 1/12 the size of the U.S. or twice the size of California.

The capital and largest city in Namibia, Windhoek (population 325,000), lies pretty close to the Tropic of Capricorn:

We flew from Cape Town to Namibia's largest international airport, the Hosea Kutako Airport, located about 30 miles outside Windhoek:

The geography below us as we approached the airport illustrates the fact that Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa. It looked desolate and unoccupied:

The airport was relatively small--small enough that we walked across the tarmac from the plane to the building:

. . . but it had its charms:

We were met at the airport by a rep from our travel company, Ker & Downey, whose name was Sam-you-ell (three definite syllables). We had a hard time understanding his heavily accented English, but he was very friendly. We stopped at an ATM and pulled out some of what we thought would be new currency, only to discover that the machine had given us South African rand. Apparently Namibia takes rand as well as Namibian dollars.

From the airport, which is in the middle of absolute desolation, we drove 40 minutes or so to Windhoek (pronounced Vind-hook), where the Namibian office of Ker & Downey is located. That's where we were picking up our car. The guy who helped us took forever to go over every feature of the vehicle, a very nice Toyota 4-Runner, including how to release the spare tire and change a flat.

We finally got on the road and headed north (see red line) to the western entrance of Etosha National Park, a distance of about 260 miles or about a four-hour drive:

We hadn't eaten for a while, so we stopped along the way at a large, modern grocery store where we were absolutely the ONLY white people in the store.

We got a kick out of these packages of "Texan Steaks" and wondered what made them Texan. Maybe the size?

We purchased some curried mutton shanks and "pizza meat":

We are big lamb/mutton lovers, and the curried meat was quite good.

The pizza wasn't great, but it also wasn't bad.

Back on the road, we started seeing frequent warning signs for animal crossings, so we watched very carefully . . .

. . . and were excited to see a "sounder" of warthogs running alongside the road. By the time I got my camera out, they were disappearing into the trees:

But if I zoom in on the photo above, I can see the ugly mug of one of them:

The landscape was dotted with numerous large termite mounds. We couldn't go more than about 50 feet without coming upon another one:

Our second stop was at a gas station so that I could use the restroom, which cost me two rand, or about 17¢. They had a little "Take Away" place inside the gas station where Bob, who never worries about eating street food, bought a tasty Cornish Pie (vegetables in a very flaky pastry) . . .

. . . and steak and kidney pie (too much kidney for me):

Beautiful landscapes:

I had never heard of Etosha National Park before this trip. It covers 8,600 square miles. Yellowstone, in comparison, encompasses 3,471 square miles:

Near the gate was a group of men that included a couple of police officers and several others who looked like they could be military.  I wonder if they might be a "Poacher Patrol":

There is also a primary school near the gate, and I assume this little barefoot girl might be associated with it:

We paid our fee of about $5/person/day and entered the park. In less than a minute, we rounded a corner and couldn't believe our eyes. We had never seen such a large group of wild . . . 

. . . To Be Continued