More games drives – more animal sightings

Early morning rendevous with cheetah

It was pitch dark when we boarded our vehicle for the early morning game drive at the Namutoni Camp. Our lady driver cum guide told us that a cheetah had been seen the night before near the gate of the camp. So she headed straight for the spot where the sightings had been. She switched off the car engine on reaching the spot and asked us to be silent. We had the same companions in this game drive as we had on our game at Okaukeujo, what a coincidence it was!

The sky started turning light as we waited, all wrapped up in our warm clothes. And then, in blur of motion from our right the cheetah sprang out from the bushes. She crossed the road and continued to the scrubland to the left. She climbed up a barren tree trunk and looked around, searching for prey. This was a mother cheetah, our guide explained, she was looking for prey to hunt to feed her babies. The babies were hidden in a bush by the side of the road. We tried to look into the bushes with our binoculars but could not see them.

The sun was rising in front of us and cheetah was making rounds all around us. And then, she made a sudden dash for the bushes to our far right and vanished. We waited for few more minutes, then moved away from the spot when we did not see or hear anything.

The hyenah encounter

Herds of zebras, giraffes, impalas did not excite us anymore as we moved around in the morning sun. Suddenly there was a commotion in the bushes and a herd of zebras came galloping out with two hyenas in pursuit. As the whole group came out in the open the zebras turned around on the hyenas as one. The much-outnumbered hyenas did not try any smart tricks, they went back into the bushes to wait for the next possible kill.

We continued driving along the bumpy gravel roads following the edges of the vast open Etosha pan as the day started warming up. Deer, antelopes and zebras at their morning meal dotted the flat expanse of the pan.

The king of the jungle arrives

All of a sudden our guide braked hard and excitedly pointed to our left. There, striding along the gravel path towards our car, its golden mane glowing in the morning sun, was a big tawny lion! He completely ignored the car and continued on his morning walk into the shrubs. Then, to our utter surprise, he sat down right in the middle of a mound of elephant dung and started rolling around. Our guide explained that lions did that to camouflage their scent when going for a hunt so that their prey are taken unawares.

Battlezone in the camp

We managed to return to the camp in time for breakfast and sat talking to our new found friends of game drives for some time. IB sat watching a group of mongooses who were foraging for food nearby while I walked over to our cottage. A short while later he burst into the cottage, all excited that he had captured two groups of fighting shrieking mongooses on camera.

The last game drive

After a light lunch we started off on our own for an afternoon game drive, planning to go around the waterholes near to our camp. Scenes of peaceful coexistence met us as we saw zebras, antelopes and herds of elephants drinking from one waterhole and birds and warthogs mucking about in another.

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We caught birds catching fish and giraffes guarding each other while having a drink; and at the last waterhole of the day, we saw a black rhino – the only one we saw in daylight.

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These were our last animal sightings in Etosha, as we would be on our way to the Caprivi strip the next morning.