Finally, I make it to Etosha National Park. Etosha meaning the Great White Plains, referring to the huge salt pan at its centre. A lake of salt taking up 23% of the parks total 22,270 km2 ( that’s bigger than Wales again). The last time the pan had a few centimetres of water in it was December 2020. That must have been some sight.

I joined a jeep of three women already travelling together on a tour of Namibia. One Brit’ and two New Yorkers. They were very interesting women, but I was surprised to find them only armed with I – phones for wildlife viewing..

Etosha was not how I imagined it to be : more arid, flatter, treeless, and for me a little uninspiring.

The human supported watering holes were amazing and we saw many species, but wildlife was not abundant. This is the end of the dry season and I had expected millions of hooved animals jockeying for best waterside positions. My pictures may give a different impression, but this is how I saw it.

Only at lunchtime did a massive herd of elephants appear out of the thicket to take water at a huge human assisted watering hole which was at the centre of what I felt was a tacky large Government owned lunch spot, lodge and campsite.

Etosha was a little disappointing for me, but then I remind myself that I was ill, it’s a big place and you need luck, oh, and I had just come from the dreamy Damaraland.

I met a couple of women later in the week who showed me a video taken at Etosha, of a cheetah walking across the road in-front of their jeep. Had I witnessed this during my visit my view could have been different.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that in the 10 hours in the park we saw no cats at all, and yet 7km down the road there is 14 big preditorial cats sitting in cages ( but sadly not transferable for a heap of reasons).

Israel, whilst I was in the park, was at the main gate chatting to old friends and guides. He reported back frustrations that licences to drive/guide in the park had now been extended to the big lodges robbing the local expert guides of their only source of income. Theories of local security at the park, and the poachers, being one of the same person were abound too.

Now this may just be gatehouse gossip, but the fact is that 46 Rhinos were poached from Etosha last year. 46!!

No wildlife, no tourism !