Day 10: Hello Kitty!

We spent the next two days driving around Etosha National Park looking for animals.  Although we searched and searched we didn't see any cats (big or small), but we saw tons of other species.  Thomas is an avid bird-watcher and with his keen eyes we saw tons of birds.

We got to the gate as soon as it was open just as the sun was coming up.  We drove in on a long flat road to get beyond the borders of the part.  Within the first 5 minutes of entering, we saw our first animal.  A large rhino.  It was a little hard to tell whether or not it was a white or black rhino (distinguished by the horn) because it was a little far away, but it was still super cool.

We spent the day driving around the park in their several different environments - vegetated, more desert - hoping that our little car would make over the roads, some of which were in pretty rough shape. It's a little less exciting to listen to me talk about everything we saw, so below are a bunch of pictures!!

I took these pictures with my phone, so the quality isn't that great, but it gives you the general idea. We saw around 20 different species, but I didn't get pictures of all of them.

Our first spot of the day!!

This is one of the watering holes in the park.  We counted 8 or so different species all hanging out around the water.

The condition of the roads!  But our little car managed just fine.

Giraffe!

Herd of Zebra!

We interrupted this elephant in the middle of taking care of an itch on its tuchas.

So many Springbok!

Gembok

"Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba

Sithi uhm ingonyama"  (For those of you don't speak Zulu, this is the beginning phrases of The Circle of Life from the Lion King.  That's all I could think about when we were passing this part of the park.)

Sociable weaver next.