Lions drinking at a pond

One of the many things that I have learned while being here in Namibia is realizing how skewed my perceptions of Africa were and how people at home still have a skewed view. Growing up my two ideas of Africa came from The Lion King and those infomercials with starving African babies. However, that is not the case at all. While there are children who are hungry here, there also children that go hungry in the United States. There are lions here, but they don’t roam the continent as I once assumed they did. I can’t even begin to count the times that friends and family back home have asked me if I’ve seen a lion yet. I am staying in the capital city, Windhoek, so the only way that I can see a lion is if I go to the zoo just like at home.

Very close to an elephant!

However all of that aside I finally got a chance to see the side of Africa that so many think of. I went and camped out at Etosha a Namibian National Game park. It was one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had. As a kid, I used to love to go to the zoo, yet it always made me a little sad to see all of the animals in cages, when I felt that they should be able to roam free. Well in Etosha, the animals get to.

The moment we drove into the park, we saw a herd of wildebeests (that’s the animal that killed Mufasa for any of you Lion Kind gurus). That day I got to see Lions, Elephants, Zebra, Giraffes, Cheetah, and some rhinos. We camped on the grounds of the park and as I drifted off to sleep at night I could hear the elephants blowing their trunks in the distance. The next morning we went on an early game drive and got see a group of lions feeding on the remains of an elephant. While the whole dead elephant thing was a little gross, it was still so cool to see the lions. There is so much more to Africa than lions and the like, but I think is something that everyone should be able to see in their lifetime.

All the animals lined up

These past two weeks have been such a blur for me, I have done so much and seen so much that I feel like I can’t get my mind to sit still for a minute! But I can’t wait because tomorrow I am heading to raft down the Orange River and I know it will be so relaxing and just the break that I need. Until next time!!

Watching zebras at the watering hole at sunset