Introduction and Trip Report Namibia – April/May 2024
Greetings All,
My name is Luke and I am from the United States. I’ve been on the road for a while and will be moving to Virginia for school here in the northern hemisphere fall.
I traveled to Namibia at the end of April and beginning of May for a road trip with a friend. Mammal watching wasn’t my main priority but I saw some pretty incredible landscapes across the country and my first African safari game drive type experience left a lasting impression on me and started me down this road.
We started in the southern part of the country in Sossusvlei, where I was woken up by a gemsbok in the campsite before seeing the stunning scenery of Sossusvlei dunes and Deadvlei.
Gemsbok, Sossusvlei campsite
Deadvlei, Sossusvlei National Park
After hiking around, and seeing only gemsbok in the park, we traveled north past Walvis Bay and stopped in Swakopmund for a couple days, then proceeded up to Twyfelfontein. We kept on the lookout for desert elephant and rhino, but only saw the occasional kudu.
From there we headed to Etosha National Park, where I self drove the Hilux on game drives in and around Okakeujo camp for a few days. The camp has a watering hole right by which is a haven for African Bush Elephant, Black Rhino, impala, Southern Giraffe, Blue wildebeest, springbok, and plains zebra. Inside the camp were Cape ground squirrel colony, banded mongoose clans, black backed jackals, and a small spotted genet. On the game drives I saw plenty of the same animals that frequented the watering hole (but no rhino) and was unable to locate the lions I had heard so much about.
Blue Wildebeest, Etosha National Park
African Bush Elephant, Etosha National Park (Okakuejo Watering Hole)
Black Rhino, Etosha National Park (Okakuejo Watering Hole)
Springbok, Etosha National Park
Southern Giraffe, Etosha National Park
Overall it was a stunning trip that really piqued my curiosity about mammal watching as a discipline and I am excited to do it more often! I have some other trips I’ve taken that I can go into later 🙂
*edit – corrected wildebeest species from black to blue. Shout out community for catching it
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PandaSmith
Lovely. Thanks for sharing. Those are Blue wildebeest though – Black are not found there.