15 November 2007
Hello Everyone!
We continue to roam. Since Etosha, we spent some time in the Caprivi strip, that wierd little extension of Namibia that seems like it should belong to either Botswana or Angola. After quite some time in the desert, it was nice to be around water again. The mighty Okavango river runs through the area before dumping into the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We took a canoe out one night and touched ground across the river in Angola, and went on a short mokoro (dugout canoe) trip to see some hippos and lots of birds. There is a major highway that runs through the caprivi strip, which also happens to be a national park, which is quite interesting. There are giant signs warning of lurking elephants - try explaining that to the rental car company! We only saw a few, but it's a wierd experience.
From there, we jumped the border into Botswana for four days to visit the above mentioned Okavango delta. What a water-filled paradise! We took another mokoro trip - three days this time - into the delta. Just me and Adam and our guide, Sam. In the mokoro, you sit almost level with the water. The delta is hundreds of waterways that create islands of solid land. We camped for two nights out there and did some walking on some of the islands. On one of our walks, we stumbled across another group of people out walking who had just spotted some lions in the distance! After a moment's hesitation (unarmed group of people vs. 4 lions didn't seem like good odds!) we set off after them. We were rewarded with a few glimpses through the brush as we walked really fast and sometimes ran after them. It was pretty exciting! They ran from us, but you couldn't help thinking about what would happen if they didn't! Our guide who has been guiding there for more than three years said that it was his first time seeing lions out there as well as his first time not seeing elephants! We did see lots of other stuff though - giraffe, zebra, honey badger, red lechwe (an antelope endemic to that region), and thousands of birds. it's definately a beautiful area!
Now we are in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, and are preparing for a special side trip. While out at one of the campsites, we saw a flyer for an organization that needs some help. It's called EHRA which stands for Elephant Human Relations Aid, and is based in northern Namibia in a place called Damaraland. They do research on the desert-adapted elephants that live up there, in a very sparsely populated area. The people that do live there, however, struggle sometimes to live alongside the elephants, as the elephants tend to destroy any fences in their way and can do dammage to water points and windmils that people set up for their cattle and sheep. The project aims to not only do research on the elephants, but smooth the relations between farmers and elephants and help farmers protect their water points and farms from elephant dammage. So they need volunteers and we're going to jump at the chance. We'll spend two weeks out there - one helping repair water points and doing educational outreach stuff, and the other actually tracking and monitoring the elephant herds. So that should be exciting, some actual work, and maybe we'll learn something too and make some good connections. If you're interested, you can check out their website at www.desertelephant.org
until next time...
:o)
Andrea
We continue to roam. Since Etosha, we spent some time in the Caprivi strip, that wierd little extension of Namibia that seems like it should belong to either Botswana or Angola. After quite some time in the desert, it was nice to be around water again. The mighty Okavango river runs through the area before dumping into the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We took a canoe out one night and touched ground across the river in Angola, and went on a short mokoro (dugout canoe) trip to see some hippos and lots of birds. There is a major highway that runs through the caprivi strip, which also happens to be a national park, which is quite interesting. There are giant signs warning of lurking elephants - try explaining that to the rental car company! We only saw a few, but it's a wierd experience.
From there, we jumped the border into Botswana for four days to visit the above mentioned Okavango delta. What a water-filled paradise! We took another mokoro trip - three days this time - into the delta. Just me and Adam and our guide, Sam. In the mokoro, you sit almost level with the water. The delta is hundreds of waterways that create islands of solid land. We camped for two nights out there and did some walking on some of the islands. On one of our walks, we stumbled across another group of people out walking who had just spotted some lions in the distance! After a moment's hesitation (unarmed group of people vs. 4 lions didn't seem like good odds!) we set off after them. We were rewarded with a few glimpses through the brush as we walked really fast and sometimes ran after them. It was pretty exciting! They ran from us, but you couldn't help thinking about what would happen if they didn't! Our guide who has been guiding there for more than three years said that it was his first time seeing lions out there as well as his first time not seeing elephants! We did see lots of other stuff though - giraffe, zebra, honey badger, red lechwe (an antelope endemic to that region), and thousands of birds. it's definately a beautiful area!
Now we are in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, and are preparing for a special side trip. While out at one of the campsites, we saw a flyer for an organization that needs some help. It's called EHRA which stands for Elephant Human Relations Aid, and is based in northern Namibia in a place called Damaraland. They do research on the desert-adapted elephants that live up there, in a very sparsely populated area. The people that do live there, however, struggle sometimes to live alongside the elephants, as the elephants tend to destroy any fences in their way and can do dammage to water points and windmils that people set up for their cattle and sheep. The project aims to not only do research on the elephants, but smooth the relations between farmers and elephants and help farmers protect their water points and farms from elephant dammage. So they need volunteers and we're going to jump at the chance. We'll spend two weeks out there - one helping repair water points and doing educational outreach stuff, and the other actually tracking and monitoring the elephant herds. So that should be exciting, some actual work, and maybe we'll learn something too and make some good connections. If you're interested, you can check out their website at www.desertelephant.org
until next time...
:o)
Andrea
posted by aliberatinsa at 6:13 AM
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