Saturday 19th September
Today we have left Maun and have crossed the border into Namibia, and will arrive at Etosha tomorrow afternoon. It's around 40 degrees, even the breeze coming into the truck with both sets of tarp windows rolled up and the beach being open is baking hot. Both Tony and I are itching like mad from the several mozzie bites we acquired in the delta.
We're staying at Rainbow camp at the side of the Okavango River. We were anticipating a downmarket campsite but it's actually got a really nice bar with a decking area overhanging the water so perfect for sunset viewing-another perfect sphere of blazing red, and it's showing the rugby. Japan beat South Africa so everyone is glad they got to see the game. The showers are hot and our tent is pitched on grass-yay! I am so fed up of dust and sand and permanently having dirty, dusty feet.

Monday 21st September
We've just left Etosha. Loved the place. Think it is my favourite national park in Africa. It reminded me of the salt flats of Uyuni in Bolivia. Desolate, expansive plains of nothingness and salty, dusty roads. Doesn't sound great but the scenery was fab, as were the animals.
Yesterday when we arrived we saw lots of mongoose, zebra, dozens of giraffe, various antelopes, elephants and three female lions and their cubs. In the evening after cooking dinner we headed up to the waterhole just outside of our camp and saw black rhino! Amazing watching them in the dark. At first there was just a mother and her baby and we sat perfectly still and watched them return time and time again to drink from the water. Hyenas kept daring to walk close to them but would then run away scared. Little antelope and a rabbit could also be spotted. After we'd been there about forty five minutes another rhino came along, a male. He nuzzled horns with the female rhino for about ten minutes and then we saw a 'fifth leg' appear, if you get my drift! I thought we were going to witness the making of another black rhino, which can only be a good thing given their depleting numbers!
The difference between black and white rhino is not their colour; both are dark grey, but is in fact related to their mouths. The White rhino has a wider mouth and grazes, eating grass, and the black rhino browses, using its hooked mouth to eat leaves from the trees.

This morning we set off on a four hour game drive at 7am and saw quite a few more lions, lots of giraffe, oryx, impalas, ostrich and about fifty elephants. Thirty were at one waterhole and it was amazing to watch them all. Shortly after we saw another group of ten elephants, including quite a few baby ones who, with the way they walk, legs and truck jellylike, remind me of Mr Soft from the softmint advert of the 1990s. Cute.
I know I've said in latest blog entries that seeing elephants is no longer as special as when I fist arrived in Africa, but actually today, I loved every minute with them, especially watching the baby ones.
Around another waterhole, close to the salt pan, we saw huge concentrations of Impala, two oryx, several ostrich and a male lion. It was quite a sight to behold.

We are now enroute to Kamanjab with its cheetah park. Hopefully there will be cubs that I can play with.

No cubs :-(
We got to play with cheetahs that were 4, 6 and 13 years old so are pretty big. I think walking with lions meant I wasn't so scared of these. These were born to wild cheetahs but reared as domestic cats. They were in the garden playing with three little jack russell's. I say playing, I think the dogs were a little hounded.
In addition to the the domestic cats they also have around 12 others which are fed but live within a large enclosure so they can roam around as though they were in the wild. The farm would like to release them but Etosha can't take them at the minute and they can't get permits to export them to other national parks outside Namibia and live as wild cats. The Namibian government however will give permits to hunt the animals!
When farmers catch cheetahs they phone the conservation authority's and ask what they should do with the animals. They are told to either release them; in which case they are most likely to return and kill the farmers livestock, or kill them. It's obvious which the farmer will choose as he has to make a living from his farming. It's a shame.
We camped at the cheetah farm, on a tiny patch of grass. It also had a swimming pool, hot powerful showers and a vending machine that issued beer! Happy Leanne.

Tuesday 22nd September

This morning we visited a Himba tribe in their village. The Himba are indigenous people to Namibia, nomadic by nature, moving to wherever there is water.
They are easily identified by their semi nakedness, hair and headdresses and ochre coloured skin, made by pounding the ochre coloured stone. When a girl becomes a woman she starts to wear her hair in the traditional style, but covering her face with it. When she marries she wears the hair away from the face and also wears a little headdress, almost like a crown, made from goat skin.
Women cover their body in ochre mud mixed with butter. They wear bracelets around their ankles with lines down the centre to indicate if she has children, and how many. Some of the women's children can attend school, usually the boys. Not all of the children go as some need to stay home to help. Additionally if children are schooled and go on to further education, they are more likely to leave the tribe in pursuit of a more modern life. The Himba want to preserve their culture and therefore this isn't ideal.
The women wear little skirts made from material and animal hide and a belt given to them by their mothers but wear no clothing on their upper body, instead wearing a sort of beaded bra but one which doesn't actually cover their breasts.
The men can have up to four wives, each wife having her own house. The first wife also gets a say in who else he marries, similar to the Masai. The houses are round huts made from the Mopani tree and then surrounded by earth with a thatched roof and earth floor.
The Himba women do not shower and instead use smoke to cleanse their skin, in a similar style to a sauna. They also use smoke infused with flowers to perfume their neck.
The men sleep on a wooden pillow similar to the style used by geisha in ancient Japan so as not to ruin their hair. The women get the pleasure of resting their head on their husbands arm when he is with them, or on their own when he is with another wife.
Another tradition which really made me squirm is knocking the four front bottom teeth out of all children between the ages of 15 and 17 once the adult teeth are fully formed. This is done without pain relief using a stick heated on the fire and a stone. The purpose: it helps the pronunciation of Himba words. The guide explaining this showed us his teeth and recounted the day his father told him he had to have it done. He didn't want it, knowing the pain that would come but his father told him he could not disobey his order. He said for a week he could eat/drink nothing but water and milk and had pounding headaches. I'm not surprised.
I'm generally quite dubious about visiting tribes in this manner, cynically thinking it's a tourist set up and not the real deal. This is an actual village though and whilst I felt for the woman allowing their photos to be taken, the guide who lives there, said they do it to teach about, and protect, their culture. The sale of handicrafts and the entry fee you pay - £10, goes towards the school and maintaining the village.
When we left and went to Kamanjab town, a fifteen minute drive away to buy fresh kudu and Oryx biltong, ( very nice by the way) , a bottle of wine and a bottle of mint punch for £1, a very nutritiously balanced purchase; three Himba young girls came in in traditional dress and with the hair over their faces, so at least we know the tribes in this area do live like this and it isn't a set up for tourists.

Wednesday 23rd September
We've just left an amazing bush camp in the damaraland desert, camping amidst a lunar like landscape. Ochre red mountains, sand and rocks littering the floor and clear blue skies until the sun set and cast a purple and red glow across the sky. Only 2million people live in Namibia and as such there are vast swathes of beautiful nothingness. Up here on the edge of the skeleton coast is one of them.
The deserted road is covered in thick sand, sand dunes piled high at the edge of the road, fierce desert sun burning away in the heat of the day.
Yesterday afternoon we visited Twyfelfontain rocks, the greatest concentration of rock engravings in Africa. 2500 of these have been recorded to date and more are being discovered as the rocks erode and shift places. These were created by the San People and using carbon dating technology, it is believed they are between 2000 and 6000 years old. In Namibia and South Africa it is mainly rock engravings as the rocks are sandstone and easier to carve. In Zimbabwe, where the rocks are predominantly granite and harder, rock paintings were used to communicate with each other.
The engravings, like those we visited in Matopos National Park, mainly depict animals; rhinos, hippos, lions, giraffes, lots of giraffes! These animals were revered as the giraffes with their long necks, were believed to be able to reach into the sky and bring rain. They also indicate water sources and for that reason, were never hunted. Some of the engravings were very similar to the aboriginal drawings found in Australia, a universal sign being used for permanent and temporary water holes.
We're now freezing cold, Brad, Michal, Tony and I huddled on the beach under Michal's sleeping bag, eating the biscuits we bought weeks ago as we head towards the Skeleton Coast and the Cape Cross Seal Reserve.