Tag Archives: Weavers Rock

1,001 Namibian Nights

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Tomorrow we drive into Kgalagadi, a nature park in Botswana and South Africa. That means we’ll be officially leaving Namibia, but not entering South Africa.

Namibia was our home for 26 nights. We stayed eight places, the longest being in Swakopmund (nine nights). Our shortest stay in one place was at Onguma Bush Camp, right outside of Etosha. We celebrated three major milestones in Namibia: Day 100 (September 28), my thirteenth birthday (October 14), and One-Third of the Way Through (October 20).

We visited two major places of interest: Etosha National Park and Sossusvlei. Cape Cross, where the Cape fur seals are, is also a major landmark. It’s on the Skeleton Coast.

Our first place to stay was Weaver’s Rock. Ethan finally had friends in the form of Dominick and his older brother after being little boy-deprived for three-and-a-quarter months. There were five dogs: Choc, Nala, Lilly, Tasso, and Bonzo. (Those were my favorites, from first to fifth.) The food was good, and our showers, like here at Kalahari Farmstall, were fire-heated.

The next night was spent at on Onguma, a kilometer or so from Etosha, and there I went on my first night game drive. We saw bush babies, kori bustards, a bat-eared fox, springbok, and zebras.

In Etosha we saw the first leopard for any of us. It was promptly a female in the minds of Mom and me. She had killed a kudu and was eating it by the Nuamses waterhole. We also saw 134 elephants, 90 giraffes, 17 lions, 12 rhinos, and five spotted hyenas, along with many, many springbok, black-faced impala, gemsbok, ostriches, kudu, zebras, blue wildebeeste, and red hartebeest. We found one dead snake on the road.

Next we stayed at Dinosaur Tracks Guest Farm (the farm’s official name is Otjihaenamaparero). We visited the tracks multiple times, mainly because of the cell service. The dog, Bella, was sweet but fat.

After stopping at AiAiba and playing with the meerkat, Mitjie, we arrived in chilly Swakopmund. There I had my birthday and we lived in a real house, perfect in every way except for the need of a heater and quieter neighbors.

Two nights ago, we were enjoying the good food and company of Wilheim, Hannetjie, Olf, and the three dogs (Coco, thirteen-year-old Polly, and three-year-old Lucky), and enjoying the not so good company of the cold-shouldered meerkat.

Finally, we stayed at Kalahari Farmstall. This stay was mostly to get near the Kgalagadi border and to rest up for the long, long days ahead. So I need to get some sleep.

Ciao!

Day 100!

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Only 265 days to go!

Today was another hot day and we spent it hiking up, down, and around the Waterberg Plateau. We went on the Kambazembi Walk first, accidentally, thinking it would bring us to the top. After an hour, we decided it wouldn’t. So we made a 360-degree turn and finally got on the Mountain View trail. Mom kept saying, “I don’t do well with rocks” as the trail was covered in chunks of plateau.

There was a little canyon in the side of the plateau, and that was the way up. To go beyond the lookout, you have to have a special permit. Which we (thankfully) didn’t get. The view was great, grand, and gushingly gorgeous. To get down, we followed the white footprints (not the yellow brick road). Mom and I were worried about territorial baboons attacking us, and we almost choked with terror as a herd of gemsbok (more commonly known as oryx) fled through the bushes.

I commented on how I was relieved, but Dad said, “I wish it had been baboons.” Just then, we reached the road and had to walk up a hill to get to our South African car. As we rounded a corner, we saw- you’ll never guess!- baboons! We only saw three, but Dad reassured us that there is always a group. (That wasn’t very reassuring.)

Walking by the little brick buildings used in the hotel, we saw a group of warthogs, or vlakvark. We finally got in the car, went a little ways on the Francolin Walk (francolin is a type of bird), and then got Magnums at the shop.

Once home, Ethan and I swam in the pool, using the little yellow boat to recreate the Titanic.

Ciao!

Hohenfuls Hike

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Today the four of us, with Lilly, climbed to the top of Hohenfuls Mountain. Ethan left a note in the success notebook by the white cross. Not many people have left notes since January 2012, which is when the book started. Ethan said,
28-09-2012
Made it to top with Lille, the dog, and family. Beautiful view. Wish you were here. Oh wait- you are!
Ethan, age 11
Oregon, USA

So he spelled Lilly wrong. But he used his best handwriting.

We weren’t officially at the top at the cross; we were just at the end of the spray-painted orange dots. Even when we stopped we weren’t officially at the top.

With all the rocks, you had to watch your step. I fell once, Mom slipped once, and Ethan fell/slipped the most. Lilly was the most sure-footed of all of us. We didn’t see any snakes, which was kind of disappointing. Dad kept saying, “Watch out for snakes,” as if I wasn’t on hyper-alert for the reptiles. I saw one yesterday. Not the whole thing, just the last five inches. For a second I thought it was a lizard, but then I remembered that it was moving in a squiggly motion.

Ciao!

A Dog Day

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Tasso, Lilly, Nala, Choc, and Bonzo are the dogs’ official names. Susa, Choc’s mother, was killed by a snake. I suppose that Miro is dead, too.

Tasso is the giant hulk. He is the father of Choc but seems loathe to admit it. Tasso loves the rope and was growling at Alex- the owner- when he tried to take it away. Whenever he’s thirsty, he goes for the nearest water, be it planter, pool, or pond.

Lilly is not who I thought it was. Lilly is the medium-sized black dog. She usually stays out of fights but loves the rope almost as much as Tasso. One of her favorite pastimes seems to be being chased by Nala and Bonzo.

Nala looks like a docile little daschound. That’s just a cover for the demon who comes out against Choc and Bonzo. Her teeth are like little razors. Nala is sweet when you get near her… just as long as the rope isn’t around.

Choc is the daughter of Tasso and the late Susa. She was the only puppy of six who looked like Tasso. She is eight weeks old. Susa died three weeks ago. Choc is short for Chocolate, and she was so named because of her milk-brown coat and floppy dark brown ears. She is, in my opinion, the cutest of the dogs. She is a fierce fighter. Well, she wishes she was. She’s too small to challenge Tasso, Lilly, and Bonzo, but Nala is just her size. Actually, Choc is slightly bigger than Nala. And Nala is full-grown.

Bonzo is the most outgoing of the dogs. He was the one who came to greet us last night as we arrived. He seems the most content with his life and spent this afternoon curled up by the side of the pool. Bonzo play-fights often with Nala (and Choc, too, but she is too small to really count).

I love all five, but Choc has to be my favorite, followed, in order, by Nala, Bonzo, Tasso, and Lilly.

Ciao!

Tons of Traveling or Ze Zany Zoo

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In the last week, we have been in four countries, stayed in three, traveled in two continents, and are still on one planet. (The countries are Australia, South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia.)

Just today, we’ve done two: Botswana and Namibia. The border crossing still took a long time, but that was just because it took a long time for Dad to fill out all eight forms.

We got across, took a picture of the sign, and drove for hundreds of kilometers before reaching Weavers Rock Guest Farm. The sun went down and it got dark, and we were very worried about, say, an oryx jumping out in the road and stabbing the people in the front seat as it slid through the windshield. However, we hit nothing. We saw dozens of warthogs, though, plus two rabbits and a little dik-dik, which is a teensy-weensy type of antelope. (A klipspringer is smaller than that, though. It’s about the size of a rabbit and jumps from rock to rock. And yes, it’s an antelope.)

We pulled in to the barking of Bonzo, one of the four dogs. The other dogs are Tasso, Lilly, and Miro. Tasso is the huge black one, I’m assuming that Lilly is the daschound, and Miro is the medium-sized black dog. There’s also a very friendly cat and supposedly two ponies and their foals. It’s like a zoo!

Ciao!