It never stops...

One of the things that has amazed us about our time so far in Namibia is the huge diversity of life. It's not only about the lions and elephants and rhinos. It's the huge abundance of plants and birds as well.

We come across new and wondrous things every single day!


We finished breakfast yesterday morning, and as we're walking out of the main building and back to our chalet, one of the gardeners has brought an attraction up to the walkway.

We knew it was poisonous, but we asked him anyhow. "Is it poisonous?"

"Oh yes", he replied. "Very". As he picked it up with two little sticks only inches from his fingers.

Hmm. Thinking maybe we will be wearing our hiking boots across the grass from now on instead of our sandals. We tried looking up the name of this scorpion, but it turns out that there are 59 different types of scorpions in Namibia! We think this one is called the burrowing scorpion.

So we decided to go for a walk outside of the property. Are there lions around? Oh yes, but only on the other side of the river, so we are told. Hmm. Okay.

There are also elephants around!

Although there are a lot of indications of elephants, we don't see any. Nor do we see lions. Good thing! We do see indications of hyenas as well, but don't see the animals themselves. Again, we're okay with that!

As much as it appears dangerous, you have to remember that there are local villages all around us and the locals themselves walk these paths on a regular basis. Having said that, it wasn't what you'd call a "relaxing" walk. Always looking around, if you know what I mean!

Walking along the path, there are no colors except for a little greenery and that grey brush color. Until we saw this one single bright red flower.

How is it that there can be only one? 

Further along, we did finally see another. And Ruth had noticed one field where it seemed there were a lot of these plants, but none with flowers. Wouldn't it look fantastic to see a whole field of these flowers??

We took the Namushasha Lodge afternoon game drive. We weren't expecting much, since most of the animals have moved away from this area since the rainy season began. But it was a fun couple of hours and we had the same guide, Alfred, who we had from our boat tour the day before!

And, we got taken out in one of their brand new Toyota LandCruiser safari vehicles!

This is the fruit of the "sausage" tree!

Alfred told us that his culture uses the fruit of the sausage tree to make a sort of tea that they bathe a baby in if the baby has tummy issues!

And this is the plant that the local culture has used as toilet paper! Why? Because when you take a bunch of it and stroke it against you skin, it is soooo soft!

We did see some wildlife!

The wildlife that you see on the Namushasha game drive is true wildlife. There are no fences. This is the real Africa. What I mean by that is, that while parks like Etosha are truly fantastic and not to be missed, they are fenced. The Etosha animals have a huge area to roam, and they live their lives naturally, but there is a fence that keeps them in. The animals around Namushasha in the Caprivi region are totally free...and wild!

And the bird life is amazing!

Is this not the most beautiful bird you have every seen?

This is the lilac breasted roller. It is said to have sixteen distinct colors on it!

See all of those round balls on the ground? That's elephant poop! There are normally hundreds of elephants in this area. All we saw was their poop!

Alfred and Ruth, taking a beverage break and scanning for animals!

Spotted a hippo on the far bank, and he was out of the water!

I love my zoom lens!

Haven't seen a leopard yet. We saw a leopard tortoise though!

So despite the fact that we didn't see any of the big animals, we still saw a lot of stuff and it was a great afternoon. Namibia continues to amaze us!