It is seeing animals against the unique backdrop of the Etosha Pan -- a vast expanse of desiccated white clay characterised by distant mirages and spiralling dust devils -- that makes the game-viewing experience in the world-renowned Etosha National Park different to any other. In September 2007 the park celebrated its first hundred years of existence, the centennial celebrations taking place at the Namutoni Resort in the eastern section of the park.

 

The park was originally proclaimed as a conservation area in 1907 by German Governor Frederich von Lindequist. This entailed the region south, west and north-west of the pan and Governor von Lindequist named it Game Reserve No 2. (Game Reserve Nos 1 and 3 were established to the north-east and the Namib Desert respectively.) With subsequent additions Etosha became the largest game reserve in the world, extending over a vast area of approximately 80 000 square kilometres westwards across Kaokoland to the Skeleton Coast. However, for political considerations, it was progressively diminished in size until 1975 when it was reduced by 77 per cent to its present surface area of 22 912 square kilometres.

 

The definitive feature of the park is the Etosha Pan, an immense, shallow depression of almost 5 000 square kilometres of dry, white cracked mud, its flat surface broken only by shimmering mirages and the occasional animal wending its way across the empty wastes. It is this typical appearance that gave rise to the name in the local vernacular as ‘the great white place of dry water’. In the rainy season, fed by the Cuvelai system that has its origins in the highlands of Angola, floodwaters drain across Owambo. The pan fills with water and becomes an important breeding ground for migrant flamingos.

 

Consisting of saline desert, savannah and woodlands, Etosha’s vegetation varies from dwarf shrub savannah and grasslands to thorn-bush and woodland savannah.  Mopane, Colophospermum mopane, is the dominant tree species and is found in eighty per cent of the park. West of Okaukuejo a large stand of African moringa, Moringa ovalifolia, referred to as Sprokieswoud, Fairy or Phantom Forest, is the only location in Namibia where this interesting tree grows in a flat area.

 

A total of 114 species of mammals are found in the park, including the rare and endangered black rhino, cheetah and black-faced impala. Large mammals include giraffe, elephant, blue wildebeest, mountain and plains zebra, hyaena, leopard and lion. The diminutive Damara dik-dik is the smallest antelope species and the largest is the stately eland, with kudu and gemsbok in between. Smaller mammals are bat-eared fox, black-backed jackal, warthog, honey badger and the endearing ground squirrel. A large number of birds occur in Etosha -- about 340 -- from ostrich, kori bustard and flamingos to vultures, owls, nightjars, bee-eaters and several species of waders.

In the dry season the best places to see the game is at the thirty odd waterholes, which provide outstanding game-viewing and photographic opportunities. During the rainy season when there is plenty of groundwater the animals are distributed throughout the park. The best policy is to enquire from camp staff, before setting out, what the current game movements are.

 

Etosha can be entered through three points: the Andersson Gate in the central southern section, the Von Lindequist Gate in the east, and the King Nehale Gate from the north-central Owambo regions. The park has three well-laid out and equipped tourism resorts: Okaukuejo in the centre of the park, Namutoni in the east and Halali halfway between the two, all three with luxury bungalows, well-equipped camping areas, information centres, restaurants, shops and museums.

 

Surrounded by legend and folklore are Namibia's two 'bottomless' lakes -- Otjikoto, distinguished by it emerald-green waters, and Guinas, by its mystical inky-blue depths. Both lakes lie north-west of Tsumeb -- Otjikoto 24 kilometres along the road and Guinas on a farm 32 kilometres further west. Lake Guinas is therefore less accessible, and can be viewed only after obtaining the farmer's permission. 

 

Lake Otjikoto was discovered by the two explorers Galton and Andersson in 1851. At the time they measured its depth as 55 metres, an assessment that was proved accurate by subsequent plumbings (the depth varying from 33--90 metres). At 100 metres, Guinas is somewhat deeper. However, the legend that Otjikoto was bottomless persisted. It was possibly this notion that led to the dumping of a considerable supply of artillery and ammunition into its murky depths by retreating Schutztruppe, rather than let the armaments fall into the hands of the South African troops. Many years later, in co-operation with the Windhoek State Museum, divers salvaged some of the equipment, among others an ammunition wagon still in perfect condition, which can be viewed in the Alte Feste Museum in Windhoek, and canons and other armaments that were restored and are now displayed in the Tsumeb Museum.

 

One of the many legends that surround Lake Otjikoto is that the body of Johannes Cook, a postmaster of Tsumeb who drowned there in 1927, was never found because the lake was bottomless. In fact, because Otjikoto is shaped rather like an upside-down mushroom, it is thought that his body was caught under one of the overhangs. 

 

Both these lakes lie in the Otavi mountain-land, which consists of a thick succession of well-stratified dolomite and limestone about 700 million years old. Being carbonates of calcium and magnesium, these rocks are soluble in water, especially if they contain some carbon dioxide. The rocks are criss-crossed by a system of solution channels that have generally developed on joints, fracture zones or bedding planes, which become partially filled with groundwater. Now and then big cavities are exposed by weathering, or the roof caves in when it becomes very thin, as in the case of Otjikoto and Guinas. These solution channels lead away from them, although the two lakes need not necessarily be directly connected. The lakes are fed by water seeping through porous rock from southern Owambo.