The Petrified Forest | And Arrival at Etosha Safari Lodge

Article by guest author Peter Brooker

We gain no further than 20 yards from the lodge when Marius stops the truck and hangs out the driver's door. "A leopard. A young one only 3-4 years old. Heading to the lodge."

The Petrified Forest is believed to be 200 million years old. Frozen in the ground, with the appearance of a rock formation that no doubt would be overlooked by 99% of the world's population had it not become a national monument, (proclaimed on 1st March 1950) after being discovered by two farmers in the 1940s.

The guide talked of the two trees, being over 45 feet long, being Pine Trees. The red quartz, forged from the incipient minerals that had impacted and condensed the tree into rock, glimmered in the morning sun. The blue cobalt is less so. A sign on the door said any theft from the Petrified Forest would result in jail time. Interestingly, you can buy Petrified Wood on Amazon, although I cannot vouch for the legitimacy of such products nor their resellers.

The workers at the forest were out of water so Marius gave them our 5 litre keg of water. It really was the first sign of kindness towards his fellow Namibians that I had seen. He would later tell stories of how he had helped self-drive tourists that had broken down on the side of the road, in contrast to what he had told us in Sossusvlei.

He coughed and sputtered on the drive to Etosha Park. His bloodshot eyes belied his jovial spirit. Marius was currently on his ninth back to back guided tour. "I’m starting to feel it," he winced. "I don’t want to do this for much longer, especially over Christmas."

Four hours later, we arrived at the boundary of Etosha National Park, the south region. The park covers more than 22 thousand square kilometres. Etosha means "Great White Place" referring to the massive (130km long and 50km wide) dry pan in the middle of the park, believed to have been formed over 100 million years ago.

The Etosha Safari Lodge, part of the Gondwana Collection, is situated on a hillock and overlooks the bush savannah. There are 65 double room chalets that sloth off down the hill beneath the Mopani bush and the wooden platform where diners watch the sun go down drinking happy hour mojitos. For some reason, even the upmarket lodges such as this, never serve any decent vodka.

Smirnoff and Stolichnaya. "Clearly the Russians aren't coming to Namibia," the wife said. Outside of the odd Windhoek beer, which always looked appealing when Marius would knock them back in long gulps, we never ventured far off the wine menu.

A young lady bashfully came to our table and welcomed us with drinks. She got our names wrong, our drinks, and our room number. It would be a running theme with the same lady who was trying her best to be endearing, but was quite bumbling and inept. Her young innocent looks made her by far the prettiest of all the staff we've seen on the trip thus far. I have no doubt it's these cherubic features, affable and demure qualities that have gotten her high up the chain of command as a floorwalker in the lodge.

"She's just weird," the wife remarked. I disagreed. She's just young, shy and has no grasp of how to do simple things.

The plains were completely bereft of life, sans flora and fauna. Only the wasps, the kind I wish now I had made a note of the kind of wasps, drunkenly sauntered from one table to the next. Their large legs dangling beneath like a child on a swing. The sounds of their wings frazzled through the breakfast bar and ambushed us at the door to the lodge when I came to unlock it.

I took sudden and evasive action which startled the wife who quickly told me to man up. "At first this was cute, the whole being scared of creepy crawlies but its getting tiresome now."

"I'm sorry. Have you ever been stung by one of these c*nts? Me neither. I don't intend to start tonight. Next time one flies into your face lets see how you react."

It was a short back and forth. We were both tired. Tomorrow will be a different day, and another world awaits in Etosha Park. One filled with lions, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and the most curious of all creatures and yet unsighted by me, the honey badger.