Africa Adventures: Part 7 (The Etosha Episodes 2)

Sometimes during the trip, we treat ourselves with a special stay. We drove to other side of the missing Etosha lake and stayed one night at the Mokuti Resort. Oh my goodness was this a nice respite from our camping travels. The boys immediately asked if we could stay an extra night. We thought about it long and hard but ultimately decided to just do a late checkout at 4 pm the next day so we could enjoy all of the food and amenities this place has to offer.

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During our stay at Mokuti, we did a couple of activities, the first being a bushman walk. This was soooo fun. They took us to a reserve area where the bushmen showed us how they hunt, track animals, build shelter, and identify skat. We learned how certain trees produce poison in their leaves, and this poison is used by the bushmen on arrows to kill prey.

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We also did a night safari where we looked for hyenas. This sounded very scary because Disney made them seem terrifying. In reality, in this particular environment, they were like little puppy dogs. They were super cute. We also got to see a bonus porcupine.

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As a side note, when traveling in a safari vehicle where you and the guide are within relative close proximity and you let our an SBD (silent but deadly), the guide may literally stop the vehicle, announce to the entire tour (8 humans), “Do you smell that? That means there is a rotting carcass near by. There must be a kill that has been sitting awhile. Maybe we will see some bigger prey.” We did not see bigger prey for obvious reasons. Anyway, moving on….

At Mokuti we enjoyed swimming in the pool and watching the animals roaming the campus. The drinks, food, and staff were excellent. We headed to our next stop in a beautiful plateau area called Waterberg. We were arriving late, so we ended up doing our first night drive. This was exciting. Night driving is not really allowed per our rental agreement, but if you are heading to your next stay and run a little late, it’s okay. The truck has a governor that turns on at night time and maxes you out at 80 km/h. This made the drive last forever!

We nestled into our campsite and saw this sign.

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We did not want to mess with the baboons, so we were very diligent about locking our food away at night. Well, the night time wasn’t the true time to worry about these hairy fiends. The morning came, and havoc took place.

It started by the campsite staff yelling and shouting from the neighboring campsite. A rake was being used as a very large baboon, we will call him Shadowfang, tried to steal the trash from the workers there. There was a male worker, we shall call him Tarzan, and a female worker, we shall call her Ruka. Ruka was very effective at scaring Shadowfang with her rake and broom. Shadowfang dodged back and forth, terrifyingly, but she held her ground. Tarzan had literally no fear and was chasing Shadowfang and his nimble friends, the gang collectively we will call The Bonebreakers, out of the campsite. Tarzan was chucking large rocks, and every time The Bonebreakers came by, he ran them off.

This is when the leader Shadowfang decided enough was enough. As we are innocently packing our tents up, the bed of the truck and the back truck door on the driver side are open. Shadowfang runs from Ruka and the other campsite and jumps into the bed of the truck. He looks around a bit, drops down, and then jumps into the back of the cab! In the fucking truck, WHERE ANDRE IS SLEEPING!!

I am about 20 ft from the truck with this happens. I see Andre pop-up like a jack-in-the-box, and Shadowfang effortlessly glides into the front seat. I can see this big bastard’s face about 12 inches from Andre. Andre very casually opens the door and exits the truck with his sleeping bag still on, leaving his door open and running quickly to the firepit. Then hero Owen runs over to the truck, slams the door with Shadowfang in there, and exclaims, “LET’S TRAP IT!” Jeff very quickly opens the driver side door, and Shadowfang bounds for the woods. Tarzan finally arrives to help.

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Upon seeing Tarzan, Shadowfang quickly runs to the other campsite, where neither Ruka nor Tarzan are prepared due to the ruckus, and steals an entire bag of trash. Success for The Bonebreakers. Very smart, very smart and absolutely terrifying. He could have literally eaten Andre’s face off, but he didn’t.

When we returned the truck later that day to Africar and told them the story, Heidi, our Africar specialist, looked at us literally wide-eyed and was speechless. She exclaimed, “That is incredibly dangerous. Oh my god, someone is looking out for you Andre. If that baboon would have shit in the car, it would have been totaled. You can’t get that smell out.” Thankfully Owen’s “trapping” method was thwarted by Jeff’s quick thinking.