Ongava—Day Four
Today we leave Rhino Desert Camp and head out to Ongava. We are taking the long way to the airstrip and getting in one last safari with the hope of seeing lion. There are fresh tracks all over camp so we are hopeful. As we leave you can see what a nice job was done to make the camp blend into the environment. You don’t have to get too far away before the camp starts to disappear.
Dave thinks that he spots a black backed jackal running across the field. There is some debate as to the size and movement of the animal before Chris identifies it as a young oryx. Biologist believe that the silhouette of the young looks like a small predator. This is thought to protect the young when they are left alone. The young can’t keep up with the herd, so the mother often leaves them alone while she goes off to forage for food. The mother returns later to get her baby and feed it.
We searched several canyons with watering holes hoping to see lion or rhino. We didn’t see either one, but did get very close to a bull elephant. It was fascinating to watch him use his trunk to feed himself. He wraps it around tree branches and strips off the leaves.
The flight to Ongava was extra nice for me because I got to sit in the co-pilots seat. You get a great view of everything from up there.
When we landed in Ongava we were told we were in for a real treat. We were going to take a detour before we went to camp to visit some lions (yeah, yeah – we already know they don’t make command performances). We drive down a road and there are several very big lions just laying on the side of the road. They are clearly very stuffed from a large meal and are sleeping off the effects of that big meal. We drive down a little big further and there are a few more lions and a giraffe carcass. This is probably the best lion viewing you will ever get. But rare as well. It isn’t easy for a lion to take down a giraffe. The giraffe can kill a lion with a well placed kick. No one saw this kill so we don’t know if the giraffe was sick or the lions were very skilled and lucky.
On the way from the lions to camp we passed through an area that was full of a variety of animals. We saw zebra, impala, kudu, oryx and wildebeest. A couple impala where head butting each other and things got a little out of hand when a third impala got into the act. I can’t believe that we got both a photograph and some video of the fight!
We saw both Hartmann’s mountain zebra and Burchell’s zebra (also called the plains zebra) at this location. The don’t mix or socialize with each other. There are subtle differences between the two. The most obvious is the shadow stripes on the Burchell’s zebra.
The Ongava Tented Camp has a watering hole off the main lounge area. This made for excellent wildlife viewing. OK, maybe it is cheating to have the salt lick and mud hole as well, but we got to see a few things here we would not have seen otherwise, like the brown hyena or the giraffe drinking.
At lunch I realized I had left my passport on the plane! My first thought was I’d have to spend the rest of the trip back at Wyndhoek getting a new passport. But as it turns out Namibia is just one spread out small town. Everybody knows everybody else. The pilots run the same routes like a bus does. The manager called the airline and they assured us that my passport would be on the plane that was coming to take us to the next camp on Friday. If I had never been to Africa before I would have never believed it would be that simple. But we have found that everyone is incredibly helpful and there is an unexpected level of efficiency in getting people and things to and from the middle of nowhere (with cloth napkins and cocktails to boot).
After lunch we went out looking for animals. There’s a lot more trees, scrub and bushes in this area than Rhino camp. The animals are harder to see, but they are also more used to the trucks and are closer to the road. We saw ?????????