Traveling through Southern Africa (Part 8) –Etosha National Park, Around Okaukuejo

Okaukuejo is at the western end of the Etosha Pan. It is the oldest tourist camp in Etosha and is the administrative hub of the park.  Due to the lack of any other nearby water, the camp’s permanent waterhole is often busy.  There you will see a wide diversity of wildlife all day and late into the night under floodlights.  On any given evening, you can expect to see springbok, wildebeest, zebra, gemsbok, jackal, hyena, and most nights, black rhino, elephant and lion.  Because of the excellent and comfortable game viewing from a platform less than 50 meters away from the well lighted waterhole, it is one of the major attractions in the park and the good spots get taken up quickly.  My advice is to arrive early (before sunset) with plenty of food and drink to last the evening.  Don’t stress over it too much though; Etosha is full of incredible game viewing opportunities everywhere you go.

That night in Okaukuejo, we arrived late, but were able to squeeze onto a bench with a fairly good view of the waterhole.  The evening started slowly, with a few lapwings near the water’s edge.  Then a jackal approached, followed by zebra, and shortly after, gemsbok.  The stars of the evening didn’t arrive until well past 9PM when a mother black rhino and her calf came strolling into the light.  After that, we went to bed, but heard the next morning that lions had come in around eleven. No matter, the morning game drive more than made up for the missed lion.

 

That morning after a good hyena sighting, we came across a waterhole in a very arid area of the park selfishly guarded by a pride of lion.  There were at least eight of them including two males.  We stayed there for quite a long time and watched as a herd of zebra stood at a distance waiting for a chance to approach the water, but before anything happened we had to leave and return to camp.  It was time to head out on the next leg of this Adventure in Traveling.