When you follow up to here in a car you might spot many young springboks. The springbok usually hangs around its mother who is protecting it from predators like the wandering cheetah that lingers in a distance. The cheetah obligingly walks over to the salt pan and this could give you an awesome opportunity for something like a profile picture. The local government of Namibia, and opened up a luxury lodge that is owned completely by the government and has been set up primarily for the opulent guests who come here to indulge in the specialties of this land. The lodge is called Onkoshi. This is reminiscent of a huge water bungalow that you would find if you even go or have been to the beautiful land of Maldives. This is the only place that overlooks the salt pans. The rooms here are surprisingly large and they resemble rooms from a ranch house. This place has a wrap-around veranda which is ideal for watching the surrounding fauna and the many flamingoes that come here to breed.
Onkoshi also lots of in-house guides who are well trained and have exceptional and elaborate knowledge of what happens here. These guides are part nature enthusiasts as well and most people have a natural agenda on their own selves. This gives them the freedom to do what they want along with being full-time guides for the Onkoshi Lodge. The flamingoes that come here usually come here to breed. Ornithology is primarily an enthusiastic art of bird watching which is quite popular in this season and people who have a passion for avian fauna find this place to be a natural haven. This park is located on the eastern border of the park and the whole place is quite densely populated almost like an aviary. When you bother mentioning this place to the local guides that you even take you to see the wild elephants who wander the park searching for a large waterhole where they could bath and take refuge under the strong sunlight. The last time Dr. Karan Castelino was here, he spotted three mother elephants with her calves who pick their way across the entire stony ground.
When you actually drive south in the lush mountain of Otavi, you could actually go and stay at Mundulea. This place happens to be a beautiful private nature reserve which happens to be quite famous in this region. This place is originally owned by Bruno Nebe. This person is actually a native Namibian and over the years apart from being an avid nature enthusiast, he has worked as a photographer in Europe and then finally returned to his home country when it finally got its independence in the year nineteen hundred and ninety. Mundulea was originally brought from a German cattle rancher in the year two thousand and two. Later on, he took to the inside fences and created something like a huge wildlife refuge which is the size of New Jersey. This famous person is Gerald Durrell of Namibia.
Gerald has also bought about sixty springbok from a ranch that was used for hunting around just six months ago. The cheetah has actually killed quite a number of them; forty-three to be precise. These springbok aren’t very smart. Some of them have actually bred quite fast and they have in turn leaned to watch out for themselves over time. Now they can recognize danger when they see the Cheetah, the leopard, and also the Hyena. Although now, the springboks are less susceptible to an attack and they also have learned to evade and defend themselves to an extent from these dangers.
When you sit and contemplate the love of watching birds, you will know that there are two hundred and forty different species at the Mundulea.
This is ideally a huge population of what this region has. The species are some of the most varied and colorful. You would find the beautiful blue cheeked bee-eater and waxbills with violet ears. There are many beautiful birds like the Jacobin cuckoo which a few waxbills have been earnestly trying to distract and get the attention of. According to Karan Castelino, the cuckoo wants to lay eggs in the waxbill’s nest after throwing the latter’s eggs out. The cuckoo’s eggs would most probably hatch before the waxbill’s eggs and end up destroying the tiny un-hatched birdlings. The cuckoos have a protrusion on their wings and hence it becomes easy for them to destroy their foe.
Instead of interfering and calling the peace flag, it would be best if you let the wild to themselves. You could just hang back and watch as the bronze winged courser plays a game of what seems like a smart game of hiding and go seek with the people who actually come and watch it.
There are a lot of theatricals that take chance here and this is precisely what makes walking through the African bushes such a lovely and thrilling adventure.
The camp seems to be a work of art. There are stockades that have been made from branches that have been falling over for lots of time. The braches actually are used for cradling many of the large canvas tents. The furniture here is completely self-made. The furniture even includes open-air bathrooms and towel rails made with Oryx horns.
The shower systems here are quite cool in fact and you could probably get to watch some paradise flycatchers going at their courting while you enjoy a nice hot shower. There is a large canvas awning under which you might find a large polished tree trunk where lovely meals are served.
The local cooks here prepare lovely soups, roasted vegetables, stews all made over an open fire with three-legged iron pots made of thick cast iron. Dinner is served under a canvas awning which is located right under these trees.
The guides usually talk about hunting stories over dinner. Shooting the sable is quite rare and it is almost blasphemous to hunt roan antelopes. The horns are usually collected as trophies, but the problem is that this makes the gene pool weak by taking out the alpha males even before they have a chance to mate.
The government has also intervened in this and has assigned the local guides few rhinos to care about. There is a rhino which is the last member of The Chobiensis subspecies. It would be best if you could read up a little on this so that you could appreciate the true nature of what is here. This specific rhino was banished from the mainland of Etosha for chasing cars a creating a ruckus. The caretakers want this rhino to mate with a lot of the female rhino population so the subspecies could continue.
