We continued north to the Caprivi strip where we got to see them: hippos grazing on land and lying on top of each other in the water and elephants breaking branches off the trees and crossing the road just in front of us. We watched them for a good while, but then one came quite close, shook his head, flapped with the ears and our guide said we better leave now. We also saw lots of very grazile impala antelope which was not shy, the rare roan antelope, a group of mountain zebras, a water monitor lizzard, vervet monkeys playing and a mole snake escaping just in front of the car. This game drive was well worth it! At the end we marvelled at a huge baobab tree.
Then we visited a local village - it was actually a show village for tourists so that the people living there do not get disturbed. They showed us scenes from their everyday life which was very interesting: how to store corn, make flour and baskets, catch fish ... There was a mouse trap to protect the corn and the mouse was then used in the cat trap which was there to protect the pigeons. The people also explained how they used to hunt hippos: with an instrument called a "hippo caller" they made a noise similar to the hippos to attract them and then shoot them from 6m distance with a poisoned arrow - and run away fast. Very impressive was the dance of the medicine man, just not describable. There is still a lot of superstition and traditional medicine which partly keeps due to lack of access to modern medicine. I quite liked the idea of a healing dance for psychiatric patients.
For the next posting you will have to wait a little while again as I am going away tomorrow to Spitzkoppe mountains for walking and rock climbing. By the way, yesterday I received my registration certificate as a pharmacist in Namibia! I think I should start a collection, see how many I can get in my life.
