Southern Africa: Namibia — Etosha National Park

“All the zoos in the world turned loose would not compare to the sight I saw that day.” said American trader G McKeiran in 1876 when he first trekked to the land that would become Namibia’s Etosha National Park.

The small herd follows the tall bull elephant into the shallow waters; one the offspring nudging on the inside of a matriarch’s leg before splashing into it. The short broken-tip tusks are evidence of the mineral deficiency in the region, but they serve well enough here in the lush bushes surrounding the pan. A sturdy cow dips her trunk in the water, slurps and then curves it into her mouth, spurting the liquid deep down her throat while fanning away the heat waves from her back with those big floppy ears. Then the bull trumpets across the pans, alarming hundreds of animals that are quenching their thirsts.

Etosha National Park is a combination of saline desert lake (salt pan) in the north and dense brush, grassland and open plains in the south. The park is in the Kunene region of north-western Namibia, sharing boundaries with the regions Oshana, Oshikoto and Otjozondjupa.

The original Etosha (proclaimed as a game reserve in 1907, then the largest on earth by Friedrich Von Lindequist, the German Governor of the then German South West Africa) consisted of the Etosha pan and most of Kaokoland, covering an area of nearly 100 000sqkm. The park was reduced in 1947 when allocating Kaokoland to the Herero. According to recommendations of the Odendaal Commission in 1962, the park’s area was reduced even further to 77% less than before, but still a very impressive 23175sqkm in extent.

Today Etosha National Park is the second largest of Namibia’s game reserves (after Namib-Naukluft National Park, Africa’s largest and the worlds 4th largest nature reserve), located approx 500km north of Namibia’s capital city, Windhoek. It is home to 114 mammal species, 340 bird species, 110 reptile species, 16 amphibian species and, surprisingly, one species of fish.

Like everywhere else in Africa legends remain and the one here tells: many moons ago a San village was raided and everyone but the women slaughtered. One woman couldn’t deal with the death of her family and mourned their brutal deaths until her tears formed a massive lake. When the lake dried up nothing was left apart from a huge depression of salt and dusty clay pan.

The word Etosha means ‘place of dry water’ or according to other sources ‘great white place’ and is dominated by this massive flat saline desert of 5000sqkm, encompassing a vast area 130km long and 50km at its widest in the eastern sector of the park. The pan is part of the Kalahari basin and originated over 12 million years ago, at first a lake fed by the Kunene River. The course of the river changed and subsequent climatic and tectonic changes have lowered the water level so that the pan only holds water for brief periods.

Salt, dust, thorns, and heat may make Etosha seem a forbidding place to human intruders. But mammal and bird species call it home by the hundreds. For the greater part of the year the pan is a bleak expanse of white cracked mud, salt and dusty clay, shimmering with mirages. It is witnessing herds of game with this uncanny ‘great white place of dry water’ as a backdrop set off behind the sizzling heat waves, which makes the Etosha experience so unique.
The saline and mineral residues together with moisture from perennial springs attract an immense number of game and birds from mid-March into November just before the new wet season starts, announcing summer. It is then that the lake is transformed into a lush paradise of thousands of flamingos and pelicans.

Yellow-billed hornbills are common and other species dotting the skies are the European bee-eater, waders, vultures, hawks, eagles and guinea fowl. But what’s more is that Etosha is the only place in the sub-region where Egyptian vultures are seen regularly. Ostriches share the surrounding grasslands with the huge kori bustard, weighing over 12kg, living mostly on the ground, seldom summoning the strength to propel its enormous mass into flight.

Savannah grassland, camel-thorn trees, ancient Ana and Mopani woodland surround the pan. The variety of Acacia here has razor sharp spikes that give them the name umbrella-thorn trees, and together with the weird shapes of the Moringa trees that pierce into the sky, create a paranormal scene known as The Haunted Forest. The landscape here is mainly flat with hilly sections, remnants of the Ugab Terraces which evolved through erosion over time.

In the dry season, winds blow across the salt pan, pick up saline dust and carry it across the country, out over to the southern Atlantic. This salt enrichment provides minerals to the soil downwind of the pan on which some wildlife depends, though the salinity also creates challenges to farming.

Antelope count in the tens of thousands with the dainty springbok being the largest group, at least 20 000 of them roaming the reserve. Then there are gemsboks, red hartebeests, blue wildebeests, kudus and even the endemic elusive black-faced impala.

Etosha is said to have the tallest elephants in Africa, measuring up to 4m at the shoulder. The park is also well recognised as being one of the last wild sanctuaries of the endangered black rhino. Game numbers are increasing with already more than 2000 elephant, over 300 black and white rhinoceros, and lots of lions, leopards, cheetahs, zebra and giraffe.

The pan itself is strictly off-limits, but a network of gravel roads runs along its edge, linking the campsites and subsidiary roads leading to various waterholes where game viewing is best. Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) is located within the Etosha National Park running four camps; Okaukuejo, Halali, Namutoni and the latest edition the Onkoshi Camp. The older three camps underwent major renovations in 2007 and now provide NWR’s clientele with a wider range of comfort and an experience difficult to match.

Despite the massive size of Etosha, only the southern edge of the pan is accessible to casual visitors with the only choice of accommodation being the four camps. All of them offer superb vistas of the Etosha pan with shimmering mirages during the hot days; dramatic sunset and sunrise textures and colours; a sense of isolation and space; clear night skies; and the sights, smells and sounds of unadulterated Africa.