Cape Town, South Africa and Namibia October, 2008

October is Spring in Cape Town and Namibia. Once again, as with our Tanzanian trip, timing is everything. In Tanzania our guides timed our February ‘07 trip to coincide with the great Wildebeest and Zebra migration as it passed through Northern Tanzania. This time the same guides, Frank Oatman from Taos, NM and Rhett Butler from Zimbabwe, timed the trip to coincide with spring flowers in Cape Town and the end of the dry season in the Namibian desert. At the end of the dry season there are few waterholes where the animals can drink. There is a great concentration of animals, including predators, clustered around the few active waterholes. Basically, you go to the waterhole, wait and watch, and the animals come to you. Click on the thumbnails to bring up larger images. The long, narrow panoramas are best viewed in IE by clicking on the larger image once or twice to expand the image and fill the screen vertically, then scroll horizontally through the image. Underlined texts are links to websites with more information.

Cape Town, South Africa – Cape Town is bordered on all sides by either oceans (Atlantic and Indian) or deserts (Namibian and Kalahari). Because of its geographic isolation it is a unique floral environment, designated a “Floristic Kingdom” by the UN. Many of the plants seen in the botanical gardens are recognizable as house plants here at home.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens and Harold Porter National Botanic Garden;

Clivia

Calla (Arum) Lilies can be seen growing wild on the hillsides.

Protea; The Gardens had many spectacular varieties of Protea, but they could also be seen growing on the hillsides.

King Protea; At 6”- 8” across, the King Protea is the National Flower of South Africa.

A Cape Canary nicely color-coordinated with its environment.

Cape Town Area –

Cape Town as seen from Table Mountain, the view is toward the Atlantic Ocean.

African Penguins at Boulders Beach.

Southern Right Whales could often be seen very close to shore. In Hermanus, on the Indian Ocean side of the Cape, this whale kept rising out of the water tail-first, then sinking down again and rising tail-first again.

The view from the shoreline was often as good as taking whale watch cruises elsewhere.

Namibia – A German Colony until the end of WWI, Namibia was administered by South Africa until the early 90’s. Most large towns still have a German atmosphere with German restaurants and German tourists everywhere. English is the official language but Afrikaans is spoken by almost everyone.

Namib-Naukluft Park - This park includes much of the Namib Desert, an area of 1000’ high sand dunes and mountains on the west coast of Namibia. The Namib Desert is caused by a cold ocean current flowing north from Antarctica along the west coast of Africa, cooling the sea air above it. This cooling triggers rain over the ocean and acts just like a rain shadow for the land to the east. For months at a time the only moisture comes from a nightly fog that rolls ashore and envelops the desert. Even the large animals are desert-adapted and can survive on little water, often drinking just the morning dew that coats the few plants.

The desert lodges were quite spectacular. This is the Desert Homestead; the main lodge and a series of thatched-roof cabins. Very attractive…. very HOT!!!! …. but with a very cold spring-fed swimming pool.

Sossusvlei is a valley that cuts through the dunes and provides road access deep into the desert. The image on the left shows one of the 1000’ dunes with climbers hiking the dune ridge to the top. Salt flats, “pans”, occasionally appear between dunes. This one is “Dead Pan” and is one of the few with dead trees still standing.

An old colonial tradition in the Namib Desert is a Sundowner; finding a spot to view the sunset, setting up a table for hors d'oeuvres and having a cocktail, Gin and Tonic, of course.

The Coast; Walvis Bay and Swakopmund – At Walvis Bay we took a boat ride to see the shore birds and fur seals that inhabit this cold water coastline. The boat had a bit of a circus atmosphere with the captain encouraging fur seals to jump on board and holding fish over the side as the boat was moving to get the pelicans to fly alongside. On the road to the coast, just at the edge of the desert, we stopped to see welwitschia trees; not the prettiest of plants, but one of the strangest. After the 100+ deg weather in the desert, the coast was cool sweater-weather. Swakopmund is an attractive town that looked like it had been transplanted brick by brick from Germany.

Welwitschia mirabilis “trees,” the trunk is underground and only two leathery sisal-like leaves emerge. The two leaves get shredded by the wind and form a jumble that looks like a bush, but it is still just two leaves. This jumble of shredded leaves stands about 5’ tall.

A pelican’s eye view of an African Pelican in Walvis Bay.

Taking the bait.

Several Fur Seals came on board. This little one posed the prettiest.

Fur Seals congregated in large clusters along the shoreline.

Erongo Wilderness Lodge - Another spectacular desert lodge, this one is a permanent tented camp on platforms and under solid roofs. The easiest bird watching of the trip involved little more than sitting at the windows in the dining room.

The main lodge and dining room on the left. The tented camp was scattered across the hillside across from the main lodge. The tents had a rear flap that opened to a walled-in real toilet and shower.

A pair of Rosy-Faced Lovebirds.

Monteiro's Hornbill

Another sunset in the desert, another Sundowner. These clouds were the first indication that the dry season was coming to an end. By the time we left a few days later it was starting to rain just to our north.

Etosha National Park- The Etosha salt pan becomes a dry lakebed during the dry season. A few spring-fed waterholes around the outside of the pan sustain animal life until the rains return. For the visitor in October, the plan is to pick a waterhole, get there about 10:00 to 11:00 AM and stay there for a few hours and see what shows up. Most of the waterholes are very busy. One was even exciting (see below). Earlier (and later) in the day the plan is to drive the roads slowly and look for nocturnal animals.

A panorama of a typically busy waterhole. From right to left, an Oryx is walking away, giraffes are approaching, behind the giraffes are wildebeest, the smaller antelope in the foreground are impalas, larger kudus with their spiral horns and a warthog are at the water’s edge. The entire scene changes every 15 or 20 minutes.

An Oryx (Gemsbok) and Burchell’s Zebra. Note the lighter “phantom” stripe between the black stripes of the zebra.

Ghostly elephants; These desert elephants are covered in the dust of the salt pan. Their footpads expand as they walk on soft desert sand.

Looking up at a Sociable Weaver’s nest. Each hole accesses a specific nest. These nests are mini-ecosystems. Snakes are attracted to the eggs and chicks in the nests and Goshawks are attracted by the snakes.

The lodges inside the park are near waterholes and have nightlights to allow viewing of nocturnal wildlife. In this shaky hand-held shot a female black rhino and its youngster approaches the waterhole.

The Zebra Kill – We sat at this waterhole for almost an hour watching animals come and go. The animals were always skittish at the waterholes so watching them retreat momentarily in panic and then return was not unusual. We didn’t realize that there were two female lions hiding in the grass the entire time. Seeing a predator kill its prey while on a tourist safari in Africa is a very rare event.

This panorama was taken before we realized the lions were there. One is in the grass in the left foreground. The other is in the small clump of grass in the upper center, close to the water. This wide-angle view expands the apparent distances. The lion in the foreground grass was right under our noses. There is a herd of Springbok at the waterhole. They are probably too fast and too small for lions. Springbok would more likely be prey for cheetah and leopard.

This shot was taken about 1 minute before the shot on the right. One of these zebras was targeted by the lion hiding near the water. They are drinking from the middle pool of the three pools of the waterhole seen at the left of the prior image.

Unfortunately I had binoculars in my hand when the attack started. By the time I got the camera up, on, and zoomed-in the zebra had been caught by both lions only a few feet from where the attack started.

One lion clamps down on the zebra’s throat and holds on until the zebra is dead.

Neither lion was very hungry. Once the zebra was dead, one lion walked away to some nearby shade trees while the other made few half-hearted attempts to eat and then lay down by the kill. Life is easy for lions when their prey is forced to use a few small waterholes.

Waterhole Dynamics; There were 5 lions lounging around on the far side of this waterhole. Animals that approached from the far side of the waterhole were blocked from drinking. But others that approached from the near side got access. Even though the blocked animals could see the others drinking, only the giraffe seemed to be trying to work around the outside of the waterhole, but eventually strolled off into the woods instead. Very few got water.

Beautifully colored Red Hartebeest approaching a waterhole.

Getting a drink can be a difficult when you’re tall.

Blue Crane

Injured Lion; I’ve never looked a lion directly in the eye as in this image but this one did not look well. In the left image, the right rear leg is discolored and appears injured. A jackal came by and tried to take a nip at the lion’s tail, another sign that something was wrong. When it got up to walk into the woods, it hobbled favoring the right rear leg. In the image on the right, the right rear hip appears to be atrophied.

Kirk’s Dik-dik

Front to back; Impala, Oryx and Eland with their beautiful twisted horns.

A Kudu with its stunning spiral horns.

Synchronized drinking; Oryx and Giraffes.

Springbok

A rare daylight sighting of a Black Rhino

A Leopard beginning the evening hunt.