Palmwag Game Drive!

On our second night at Palmwag lodge, we went for an evening game drive. It was really nice because: 1. René didn't have to drive! And 2. we were the only two guests on the game drive. Palmwag has its own private concession, which basically means they pay the government for exclusive rights to this huge piece of land. The lodge itself also has some conservation responsibilities to the land and animals. This area has quite a lot of game that roam freely (no fences like in Etosha). So their concession is pretty unique and very neat. René and I headed out to the concession in a nice big safari vehicle driven by the skilled operator, Everest.


Everywhere we looked we saw huge herds of mountain zebra. These zebra are different than the zebra we had already seen at Etosha (the zebra I've previously posted pictures of). They have thinner stripes and their stripes do not go all the way around their bellies, therefore they have white bellies. The plains zebra (zebra from Etosha) have a grayish stripe between their black and white stripes (look closely at one of the older zebra pics on the blog, I didn't believe it at first, but it is there). The mountain zebra are just black and white. It was really interesting to see a totally different kind of zebra.
We also saw a huge group of giraffe traveling together. I think there were about 17. It was really neat to see them all walking in a row like this.
We also saw some great landscapes and topography. These weird looking bottle trees covered the hillsides. And we had a stop at this amazing canyon. Also, these plants, welwitshcia, spotted the sides of the road more towards the coast. René and I had a bit of a running joke about the welwitshcia. We read about these plants in the guide books, but nowhere were they pictured. So, throughout our trip we continuously made up what we thought they looked like. "Oh, there's a welwitschia!" we would say as we were driving a long. Finally we found an actual welwitschia and had to wait until we returned to Oshakati to google image it to make sure we had properly identified it. Apparently they are just two huge leaves growing from one stem in the middle. But, as they grow and are exposed to the elements the leaves tatter and tear and that makes them look like they have many long leaves. The leaves can grow up to 4 meters long (12 feet)! I wish I would have taken this picture from above, but the welwitschia didn't fit into the frame!


Just before we left the concession, René spotted this jackal. (René is a great spotter, even when he's driving, so when he's not driving he sees EVERYTHING!) René immediately said, "Where is the kill? Where are the lions?" Sure enough, after driving another minute or so, we spotted lions!!! On a zebra kill!!! It was crazy! Especially since we were in this open-air safari vehicle. At one point Everest, the driver, shifted the truck (so that I was on the lion side) and I started moving over towards René, pushing camera bags and water bottles out of the way. René said, "What is wrong?" And I proceeded to tell him that I was scared. It WAS scary! The lions, who already had blood on their faces, were ridiculously close and we weren't behind glass or a fence or anything! Everest assured us that they were too tired from chasing the zebra and eating it to do anything to us. Still.... Anyway, there were three female lions and one dead zebra with his insides missing. Whenever I start to feel bad about animals dying, I remind myself 1.It's the circle of life and 2. We must have seen a thousand zebras just during that four hour drive. The lions have to eat, too!

After this excitement, while on our way back to the lodge, we stopped for a sundowner outside of the park, but not too far from these lions. The sunset was amazing!

Me in the safari vehicle. There is nothing in this picture that indicates that this vehicle is lion-proof.
René, pleased after a successful game drive.