More family visits

The past two weeks Bruce's parents, Aunt Mary Alice, and our daughter Leilani have been visiting. They left this morning, so I decided I needed to update the blog. It was such fun to have family here and show off this beautiful country.  I will be posting some of the things we saw and did over the next few days.
 

We visited the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) again. (You can see grandpa in the background in the green sweatshirt.) The wonder of seeing these amazing cats has not diminished. This time we were able to see a couple of them run. They are pretty darn fast. The cats are exercised by chasing a flag tied to a cable that runs along the ground. 

 When they catch the flag, they are rewarded with a treat of  meat. The staff are very careful to avoid handling the meat and offer it to the cheetahs on long "spoons". The cheetahs are very smart and soon figure out that the flag will come around the corners again if they wait. So the staff have to remotely change the direction and speed of the flag. It is just like playing a game of "chase the yarn" with a house cat only a a much larger scale. The cats hunch down and ponce just like our little Snickers kitty does.

  Eating time!

 On the drive out to see the cheetahs, we saw many small Steenbok along the road. They only stand about 18 inches high and look like baby deer. My guess is that they were always around, but we were able to see more of them because the grass is much shorter during the dry winter months.

  

This is a picture of one of the dogs in the guard dog program. The CCF breeds these dogs as part of their program to enable the cheetah to live in harmony with people. These dogs are placed with a goat or sheep farmer while still young puppies. The pups "adopt" the livestock as their family and become very protective of them. They will chase off any predators that threaten them. Ninety percent of Namibian cheetahs live on farmlands, so it is important to reduce the human-wildlife conflict to ensure the long-term survival of the cheetah. 

More animals

Some more pictures from the trip with Kelda.  Hopefully you can identify some of these on your own! If not, just enjoy the pictures.

Swakopmund

While Kelda was here, she and I went to the coast. We left Bruce behind to do that thing called work which allows Kelda and I the money to go.

Swakopmund is different than any other part of Namibia. It is the main tourist destination for the locals. The town is a study in contrasts. You drive through desert and sand dunes until you hit the coast. Fog blankets the coast most of the day. There is a cold current coming up from Antarctica, which keeps the sea water very cold. The air and land is desert and warm, resulting in fog. The fog gives moisture, allowing more plant life than most of Namibia. The coastal gardens were stunning.

There is a German influence in the architecture. 

 

Kelda tried sticking her toes in the water. It lasted all of three seconds.

While there, Kelda and I took a half day bay cruise out in the harbor. We learned about oyster farming, which is becoming a major business. We got up close and personal with the pelicans and seals, getting to feed them from and on the boat.

There were hundreds of seals. The colonies here in Walvis Bay are quite small compared to up north of Swakopmund  at the Cape Cross Seal Reserve. There the seals number in the thousands. I have not been there, but the guide books say it is the smelliest place on earth. I can believe that. The smell coming from this smaller colony was bad enough. They were entertaining to watch.

 We also saw two different types of dolphins. We were not lucky enough to spot any whales that day, although there are frequent spottings near the opening of the bay.


After the cruise, we spent the afternoon in the desert. The sand dunes come right down to the ocean in many places. We are talking big dunes, not just little beach dunes. We drove past a salt processing plant and salt beds which were very interesting. They use evaporation beds to harvest the salt. Most of the salt produced here in Namibia is pure and for industrial or chemical use.

We toured in a four wheel drive. It was beautiful, but some of those dunes are a bit steep!

I doubt you can really get the feel of it from these pictures, but these are pictures of the truck going down this dune.

The next morning Kelda convinced me that we needed  to go quad biking on the dunes and sand boarding. According to my daughter, going 80 km down a sand dune on a waxed  sheet of what looked like flimsy shower board was something that we really needed to do.






 Anyway, here we are quad biking--again those dunes are pretty high and steep. You get to the edge to start down and you can't see anything but air! After a couple of times of literally freaking out, I actually had quite a bit of fun, but I will continue to deny it. I don't want to give Kelda the satisfaction of being right about doing this.
Being out on the dunes makes you feel very small.

Sand boarding, however, was a bit more terrifying. I have no pictures. You will just have to trust me on this. I really did it. You lay down on a waxed sheet of slick white board that is flimsy enough to bend. You grab hold of the top, curve it up and stick out your elbows. You use your toes to "steer", putting one foot down in the direction you want to go. Then our wonderful guides push you off a cliff of sand. In about 5 seconds you reach the bottom. At this point, I was still alive, but sand blasted from head to foot. Then you get to climb up the dune! I did this once. Kelda did it twice. One heart attack is enough for me. Although I will admit that after a shower, my skin was radiant! 

Light house in Swakopmund.

Palm tree lined street. 

Birds

I am dedicating this post to my brother-in-law, Coke. He really enjoys birds and Africa has some of the wildest, strangest, and amazing birds I have seen. I'll start with the big birds.

Take for instance the Secretarybird. (yes--this is really just one word) This is a huge (1.4 m tall--about 1/2 the size of an ostrich). It is a long-legged raptor that hunts walking, looking down for snakes, lizards, rodents and insects. It makes me think of a hawk with stork legs on steroids. It looks a bit intimidating and Alfred Hitchcock really should have used some in his classic movie.

My next example of strange is the Saddle-billed stork. This one  also stands about 1.5 meters tall. We spotted this guy (the female has yellow eyes) in a pond just outside of the northern gate of Etosa. 

The Kori Bustard is one of the heaviest flying birds. It can get up to 135 cm tall and looks quite awkward in flight. It stays mainly on the ground looking for small reptiles, bugs and seed to eat. 

The largest of all, of coarse, is the ostrich. We have seen many. They tend to stay together in larger flocks and when you see one, you are almost guaranteed to see others. We actually got to see several dancing, but had not figured out the video on our new camera, so sorry--no video

This brings me to out next big bird, the pelican. These pictures were taken in Walvis Bay when Kelda and I went on a morning catamaran cruise. The pelicans, while wild, are feed from the boats. You get really close up--maybe a little to close as one beat me in the head as it was flapping its wings.

We also saw lesser and greater flamingoes in Walvis Bay. The greater flamingo has a white body. Only its legs and beak turn pink from eating shrimp. The lesser flamingo is smaller and turns a deeper shade of pink all over. They winter here on the coast and migrate to Etosha and the interior to breed. They were just returning for the winter when we were there.

Greater flamingoes

Lesser flamingoes

This little guy is a lilac-breasted warbler. We saw many of these and they never failed to take my breath away with their beautiful colors. 

Blacksmith Lapwing

Great Egret

Black shouldered Kite

The Grey Go-Away bird gets its common name from the shrill warning 

it makes when a predator is detected. 

Ovambo Sparrowhawk

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill

I would now like to add a disclaimer. If any birds are misidentified--well we did our best. We also finally saw some vultures, but the pictures were just too far away.