Etosha is hard to forget. There's something about its vast ochre plains, baked earth, sun-drenched mirages and other-worldly, massive salt pan that stays with you long after you leave. And, that's just the scenery. If you visit Etosha during the dry season (April to September), you're practically guaranteed some of the best game viewing in Africa. In winter, when surface water is depleted, Etosha becomes a giant zoo with thousands of water-seeking animals congregating around its 30 waterholes.
Driving into Etosha and catching your first glimpse of the salt pan in the heat of the midday winter sun makes you feel as if you're exploring a massive wilderness on the edge of the Earth. The pan's size is mind-boggling - it's 4 590km2, or a quarter of Kruger.
Up close, it's baked into thick, craggy, salt-encrusted plates and from a distance it shimmers with horizon-skimming mirages. Occasionally, there'll be a giraffe or wildebeest crossing the horizon line, but otherwise its barrenness is interrupted only by swirling dust-devils.
The salt pan is Etosha's iconic image, but there's much more diversity to the park's landscape than you'd expect, from green and gold mopane forests, waterholes shaded by makalani palms and the Haunted Forest (Sprokieswoud) of contorted African moringa trees to flat, golden plains traversed by herds of zebra and wildebeest on the north-eastern edge of the park.
These striking landscapes provide photogenic backgrounds for the real stars of wintertime Etosha - the thirsty animals: rare and endemic black-faced impala, hundreds of elephants, herds of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, lion, leopard, black rhino, roan antelope and red hartebeest which are among more than 100 mammal species and 340 species of birds. One of the great things about Etosha is that there's little work involved in spotting game - pull up to a waterhole with your camera, binoculars, drinks and snacks and wait for something to arrive (if it isn't already there).
In our five days in Etosha, we stumbled upon a pride of lions languishing in the heat at Kalk-heuwel waterhole while two lionesses lazily stalked a herd of impala, watched a sleepy leopard wandering through the grass to find a shady tree and came face-to-face with a black rhino as he ambled to within a metre of our car on a stroll to the Goas Waterhole for a late afternoon drink.
However, the most memorable moments of the trip were spent at the busy waterholes at Halali and Okaukuejo camps, watching what our guide - Gabriel Nantanga from Onkoshi - called "the best African television show". After an eventful late-afternoon game drive, we returned to Halali as the gates closed. Thinking our game viewing for the day was done, we decided to check out the waterhole on our way back to camp. In the settling dusk we came upon hundreds of enraptured people looking at an elephant herd, complete with clumsy babies, having a bath. As night fell and the waterhole floodlights flicked on, a baby rhino and its mother sidled up to the waterhole, producing a stark silhouette on the water, as if posing for a photograph.
When we arrived at Okaukuejo in the early afternoon the following day, the camp's waterhole was teeming with herds of zebra, springbok, impala and kudu. The smell of animals and the sound of hundreds of zebra were overpowering. The experience of sitting metres away from a sea of snorting, fighting, eating and drinking wildlife was incredible. We sat with beers watching all the action and, as the afternoon light turned golden and the herds departed, 20 elephants kicked up dust on their way to the water. They bathed, drank and sprayed dust, then moved off before being replaced by another group of elephants. In the space of about an hour, 100 elephants came and went, drinking their fill, playing, bathing, even trying to mate. Just as the night before in Halali, we were lucky to be treated to another rhino sighting as darkness fell. A rhino tried to share the waterhole with a group of elephants, only to be shooed away by an annoyed matriarch. After sitting at the waterhole for ages, our stomachs started grumbling and we headed back to camp. As we cooked dinner over the fire, we could hear grunts and snorts of rhino and elephant and the cry of a lone jackal from the waterhole.
It was a magical end to a trip through this menagerie. Even when you can't see the animals in Etosha, you feel like you're right next to them.
Park at a waterhole, preferably in the early morning or late afternoon, and wait for the animals. The problem in winter is the light: it gets really bright in the middle of the day. Use a polariser and under-expose by at least 0.3 stops. If you don't have a huge expensive lens, don't worry. Just place wildlife in the context of a dramatic landscape. Composition is key - think of lines (zebra walking diagonally towards you) and shapes (a triangle formed by three giraffes drinking water).
Useful information
Visitors must fill out the permit form at either Von Lindequist or Andersson gates and proceed to the nearest camp (either Okaukuejo or Namutoni) to pay fees - R60 for SADC residents and R80 for foreigners. It costs R10 a day for your car. The gates to the park and to the rest camps close promptly at sunset and open just after sunrise. Book in advance if you're visiting the park during the Namibian or local school holidays or during August - peak season for tourists.
- For more, see Getaway's November issue.