Journey to Tsumeb
Good day, February 14th. It was time to head out to Tsumebe, T-S-U-M-E-B, which is close to the bottom of Etosha National Park, which was one of Gertjan’s primary destinations that he wanted to go to. So apparently, Jenneke had a friend Victoria that has a guest house there, so that became our first go-to on this first day.
So this is the route I already had traveled on the day after my things were taken, but I had not spent too much time looking around because I was just trying to get to Okahandja. So now I got to see it from the other side. Just a two-lane highway, go about 80-90 kilometers per hour. And smooth sailing.
So we made it to Tsumeb and then finally figured out how to get into the guest house. Was very reasonable. And then ended up driving to another place to get some food and kind of get the local vibes. Just a little town in the middle of Namibia. It was, uh, good, good, good.
Etosha National Park Adventure
So then, uh, the next day, um, would be Etosha National Park. So we should have been, uh, going out, uh, really, really early, but we needed to straighten out, uh, the car a little bit, uh, so that, uh, yeah, we just needed to reorganize things. So we left a little later than intended.
And when we got to the park, which is about 350 Namibian dollars for entry for 2 people and a car— that seems to be the going rate for all the parks, as it turns out later— and there is about 16 Namibian dollars in one American dollar, or 18, uh, Namibian dollars for a euro. So that at least gives you an idea if you’re thinking about that.
Wildlife Spotting
So we ended up, um, making our way to the gate, getting our permit, and then getting out of the gate, doing a loop. Um, so some animals we did the whole day we did see one elephant. Um, then we, uh, basically saw a bunch of zebras, giraffes, oryx. It was very worthwhile. We just didn’t see any lions, but you can’t ask for everything.
Finding Accommodation
So we made it out of the park before dark, which was the goal, and had not made any reservations. The place where we really wanted to stay, supposedly they were filled up. I wasn’t too convinced of that, but they were. Huh, it didn’t look like they were filled up. This was a place in— a lot of them are in the middle of nowhere, no town, just you have a hotel and a restaurant all together. And some of them are pretty nice. They also charge pretty nice prices.
So we ended up going to town and ended up in Ao Chau, ended up at a hotel there on the outside of town which was reasonable and also had a swimming pool which I didn’t swim in and was very nice, very nice place. We most of the time stay in good enough places without having to pay a lot of money.
So I guess this all ran into an extra day, so we’re talking about February 15th now. But thank you for coming along. Etosha National Park, a very worthwhile visit.
