Anyway... on to other topics to stimulate your coming to Namibia on holiday!
I write a weekly column in a local newspaper called: the Windhoek Observer. My column is called: "shout out." I also write a monthly tourism section in a magazine called: "Insight Magazine". I write monthly for the inflight magazine of Air Namibia under the nom de plume: Jackie Marie. And, occassionally, I write for the largest daily newspaper in Namibia, called "The Namibian." I have two major feature pieces in February so far.
I am actively trying to get a piece in O Magazine's South African edition, but they are not interested in anyone other than South Africans as their authors and story bases. Being in Namibia means that all we can do for O, is buy their magazine and be grateful that we have access to it. We are a small market, so I guess that is how the marketing cookie crumbles. So much for that!
As a feature writer, sometimes pieces I write don't get published for various reasons. One of those is a piece called: "Lunch on the Pan." I liked that piece which was about a trip taken with a representative of the Adventure Travel World Summit who was doing a site visit to Namibia to decide if they would have the event here or not. In an earlier blog I published pieces of this article, but here it is in full.
Lunch in the Pan
By Jackie Marie
(sorry, none of my pix will upload! I am told "server rejected"...I'll do the great search to find a solution, but until then... please read on!)
While it is not yet on offer to the public, NWR, with special Government permission was able to lead a special nature discovery walk and set-up a light lunch on the fringes of the Great Etosha Pan.
We followed that walking lion all the way until our eyes could not make out the trail any longer. The paw prints disappeared into seemingly, nowhere.
Hoof prints of Springbok, Gemsbok (Oryx) and Blue Wildebeest were also all over. We followed some of the tracks for a bit, imaging what great mission took these beasts out, alone on the Etosha Pan, during the rainy or muddy season.
Closer to the edge of the Pan, there were the huge bones of a giraffe that had joined the circle of life sometime in the recent past. A piece of its brown speckled hide was still left to tell a bit of the tale. The giraffe skull and bones were blanched by the sun and picked clean by scavengers. The guides and armed rangers looked at the bones and the various paw prints around that site and told us a possible story of what could have happened. The young male giraffe likely made a bad choice and got stuck or slowed down in the mud of the Pan and was unable to escape hungry predators of the Etosha night.
We discovered that the distances on such a flat plain like the Pan are a trick on the eye and mind. We left our vehicles to walk straight out onto the Pan. After walking only 20 minutes in a straight line, we turned back to see our cars and they were just dots on the horizon, barely discernible as cars! Turning around 360° on the Pan, you can see landmarks with no real point of reference about distance. We were told that an outcropping that looked like a nearby island was actually over 5 kilometres away! Nature’s Etosha Pan is greater than our puny human eyes and brains.
As we walked, the crunch of the floor the Pan was audible. Surprisingly, there was little impression left by our footprints on the sun-cracked and baked Pan floor. I was concerned that our passing would destroy something pristine. The rangers and the conservation scientists with us told us the story of seasonal rains, new life unlocked, flowing waters, animals being renewed, salt, sand, calcium, breeding flamingos and nature. Any evidence of our presence would be washed away when the rains came. The Pan would remain, but we would not.
The most intoxicating thing about this walk and then the lunch on the edge of the Pan was the explosion of color. How does one describe in words, an azure blue of the heavens so rich that you feel like you are being encircled by the sky? I walked on the Pan with the constant feeling that I wanted to duck down to make room for the sky. Was it the light wind tickling my hair or was that the sky pressing down on my head?
I wanted the colors to assimilate me. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a movie; on the Pan, the body-snatcher is the sky. The all-absorbing sky blue meets with the chalky white/light gray, sun-cracked Pan floor in an endless carpet rolling forward until it is completely out of sight.
By the time we were instructed by our guides to turn towards the site set out for our lunch, we all were running around giggling, laughing, staring at the horizon, getting a natural high from the Pan. Maybe there was something in the fumes from the salty chalky sand beneath our feet?
We talked animatedly while we ate lunch; but, I realized we rarely looked at each other as we spoke. We were all talking and eating, but we are also all staring at the horizon across the Pan. We enjoyed a light lunch of salad from Namibian-grown asparagus, peppery rocket, butter lettuce, chick peas, shredded carrots, slivers of red onion, walnuts and a bit of sliced apple, tossed in a light balsamic vinaigrette. We ate Gemsbok filet, medium-rare grilled on kebabs wrapped in bacon slices. We also were served a mixed bean salad, grilled prawns with a home-made spicy cocktail sauce and vegetable-filled spring rolls with a sweet chili dip. The locally baked garlic bread and coconut cake, topped up with Namibian Breweries’ Tafel Lager or a merlot or a cold chardonnay from South Africa, made the meal sing.
Leaving the Pan with regret and drinking ample water to replenish ourselves, we all were lost in sky blue memories for rest of that nature drive through Etosha.
Tourists to Namibia can also enjoy the Pan at from other vantage points in the Park. NWR’s Onkoshi Camp is built right on the Pan itself, giving marvellous views of the Pan in both rainy and dry seasons. Day visitors to Etosha can also have their guides take them to various public spots around the Pan and get body-snatched by the sky.
