Since Chris’s bike was down for the count until his new shock arrived and motorcycles are not allowed into most, if any, of the wildlife parks through Africa, we thought it was a good time to take ourselves on safari. We made a somewhat shady rental deal and set off for Etosha National Park in our newly acquired Fiat Panda.

Just a mile into the park and we were greeted by giraffe, wildebeest and springbok galore.

Etosha is a large, dry salt pan dotted with watering holes which draw a steady stream of all kinds of wildlife coming in for a drink. We spent the day driving through the pan always amazed at the menagerie we would find around every corner. It was a joy to park the Panda and watch the interactions between all the different species. If you observe long enough, you begin to anticipate how each will respond or react to different situations. We decided that zebra are all trouble.

For the opportunity to catch the action at night, we decided to stay inside the park.  We pulled into our campsite and found ourselves surrounded on all sides by adventure rigs equipped for the apocalypse. We even had a questioning comment from the camp host, “Your vehicle is a little small for camping, isn’t it?” Hey! Who you calling little? I promise, when it comes to camping we got it down.

After setting up our modest camp, we walked to the waterhole to catch the evening show. What a show it was!

The sunset was spectacular. The zebra were causing trouble again, the rhinos went head to head over who got a bath and four bull elephants had a Mexican standoff over water rights that resulted in full on blows. Imagine two 15,000lb masses running into each other at full angry speed…and we had a front row seat for the all of it.

In disbelief of all that we had seen, we fell asleep that evening listening to the roar of distant lions and the constant chatter of hyenas on the prowl. What a treat!