Inaugural Bush Camp

By Rebecca McGehee (Carleton College)

Written on October 3rd, 2014.

After spending all of last week around Wereldsend (our charming base camp in Palmwag Concession), we were all excited to go bush-camping. On Monday, September 29th, we packed up the trucks with all the gear we would need for our one-night bush camping trial, and hit the road early. (Okay, so it might have been 9:00am, but we’re getting better). Quickly, the landscape changed from the red, cobbled, shrubby steppes to which we’re accustomed, to golden sand dunes with trees as tall as any oak back home. Within moments of arriving at the Huab riverbed, we came upon a herd of ten elephants.

This was the band of elephants we came across in the Huab Riverbed. They didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by our presence, although the calf was shuffled towards the center of the group. And check out the tree! It’s enormous compared to anything we see around Wereldsend!

It was our second elephant sighting, and I am convinced that no matter how many times I see them, my breath will be taken away. Seeing an elephant in a zoo is neat, but watching them roam freely in their natural habitat—there are no words to capture their immensity or majesty. We finally let the elephants disappear from our sight and continued toward our camping area.

On the way we passed through the village of one of the game guards who joined our company yesterday (Oct. 2nd). All of the houses were made of mud, sticks and tin. This minimalist approach to architecture reflects not wealth (the amount of livestock a family has does that), but practicality. What use is a great big house in a place like this?

We had some spectacular bird watching on our drive to our campsite. This is a Southern yellow-billed hornbill, one of four hornbill species that can be found in this part of Namibia. So far, we’ve also gotten to see the red-billed hornbill and the Damara hornbill.

We got into camp around four in the afternoon. I should elaborate that camp was a stretch of sand track in the Ana Huab riverbed. Beautiful, although not exactly what we’re used to in the States. This is not to say it wasn’t gourmet—from the refrigerated vegetables, to the fold out toilet chair—we were comfortable. We climbed up to the top of the hill to watch another spectacular sunset.

The next day, we were up at sunrise to pack up camp and check out the famous stone carvings of Twyfelfontein (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). These engravings were made by the San People between 2,000-6,000 years ago. Scattered on enormous slabs of sandstone were hundreds (maybe thousands) of engravings of giraffes, lions, wildebeest, even penguins and seals.

This is an example of some of the engravings we saw in Twyfelfontein. The lion in the middle is the most famous image. It is part lion, part man; showing how the shaman joined his body with that of an animal.

Perhaps even cooler, our guide named Tio was willing to teach us some Damara (a local “clicking” language). !Nava means rhino (! is the symbol for the loudest click). After our tour, we went to check out to nearby geological features, the Organ Pipes (igneous rocks that resemble organ pipes), and Burnt Mountain, an ancient mound of volcanic ash. We drove back to Wereldsend, and were lulled to sleep by the far-away cries of black-backed jackals.

We’ve been here for little more than a week, yet I feel at home at our base camp, if only a little wary of the snakes and scorpions that aren’t lurking in every dark corner. Since getting back from our camping trip, we’ve been buckling down on the academics, doing several readings each day, and fine-tuning our distance estimation skills. We went out on a nighttime game drive on Wednesday, and after seeing nothing but the backsides of rabbits and jackals, we were shocked to come across an aardwolf. They look like a strange, small hyena with an abnormally long, thick neck and a black mane running almost all the way down its back. Apparently most groups come and go without ever getting to see one!

Yesterday (October 2nd), Eric and Ephraim arrived. They are two game guards who work for Torra Conservancy and will be accompanying us as we begin the process of collecting data. They are both full of interesting stories. Yesterday, we sat for several hours talking to Ephraim about local customs: weddings, Christmas, New Year’s. He gave us another lesson in Damara, much to our delight. Around the fire that night, there was as much nonsensical clicking as actual conversation. It’s strange being in a place where you might not understand a single word.

On our first day of the program (after getting to Wereldsend), we attended the Annual General Meeting for Torra Conservancy, and everything was translated into three languages: Afrikaans, Damara, and Otjiherero. Vehi, our Namibian instructor (who also speaks all three of those languages and others too), translated everything into English for us. Since then, the Afrikaans dictionary has been living on our dining table. Speaking of dining…. We had another success in the cooking department yesterday. For the first time, we cooked bread in the solar oven, and it was delicious! We had to make more today because yesterday’s loaf was eaten so quickly!

This morning, we got up before the sun and went on our very first point count, collecting real, usable data. We divided into two groups to survey two locations. Sam, Vehi, Eric and I drove into Stumpy the Rhino’s territory (no sign of him, still), and hiked about 1.5km to a point overlooking an enormous plain. In places, we could see probably up to 10km away, and were able to spot zebra, oryx and springbok 2km away. Close by, there was an oryx and a couple of ostrich.

(all photos by Rebecca McGehee)

(caption for top photo: This is a part of the view we had during our point count. If you look closely, you can see an oryx. Here is how we would describe it’s position during a point count: Look at the Euphorbia damarana in the left corner closest to us. Look at the one immediately to its right. There is a second Euphorbia behind that, and the oryx is up and to the left of that. The ostrich are hidden behind the Boscia albitrunca in the foreground.)