Monkey Gland and Salticrax

From Swakopmund we headed north and camped one night each at Spitzkoppe and Twyfelfontein. Spitzkoppe was an impressive granite mountain and we had a really nice camp amongst the over size boulders at the base. We also climbed up to have a look at some bushman rock paintings in a place called Bushman’s Paradise. It was quite a surprise as you came over a crest of bare granite and a big grassy valley opened up in front of you surrounded in all sides by high walls of granite. From the ground there was no indication that there was anything up there except a lump of bare rock. The paintings weren’t all that spectacular, but the area was certainly worth the climb.

Twyfelfontein is famous for Bushman stone engravings which were pretty interesting and well preserved. More interesting was the Texas cut pork steak we had for dinner that night. Take a decent size leg ham, cut an inch thick steak across the front of it, throw in a bit or marinade and flame grill on the camp fire you are pretty much right. It was probably enough to feed half a dozen people but we knocked most of it off and are now looking for another one! It was great – probably the tastiest cut of meat we have found so far, and we have tried a few……

On the subject of food we have noticed a few interesting names for the local culinary delights. Heading the pack, and vying for the title of dodgiest names, are Monkey Gland Sauce, Salticrax Biscuits and Wimpy Burger. Wimpy burger has it for sheer numbers (there are stores nearly everywhere), but I think Monkey Gland Sauce is still the winner so far. It is a bit sweet and goes well on Boerwoers (sausages).

Once we managed to haul our distended stomachs out of bed after the pork binge we headed to Etosha for three nights and the park didn’t disappoint. The floodlit waterholes are each camp were a highlight and we spent hours each evening sitting watching the comings and goings whilst nursing a beer or rum and coke. We saw quite a few black rhino, rarer and smaller than the white rhino we saw at Kruger, and watched a great stand-off between a rhino and a large bull elephant. Moral of that story is don’t pick a fight with a rhino! Even though he was probably several tonnes underweight he wasn’t backing up an inch and in the end the elephant gave up and wandered off. We were also lucky enough to find a leopard sleeping beside the road whilst driving around. He moved off the road when we stopped but only went a couple of meters into the bush and lay down again. He was happy to just sit there, but took a more active interest in things when Nicole climbed out of the window a bit to get a better view. She got back in the car again pretty quick. Other than that we glimpsed a lion a couple of times one evening at a waterhole and there were vast herds of springbok and zebra everywhere plus the usual assortment of giraffe, elephant, oryx, hyaena and the list goes on (and on…).

We are now in Windhoek again waiting to catch the bus tonight to Livingstone, Zambia to check out Victoria Falls. It is a 20 hour bus ride but we are on the luxury bus – a two story greyhound style bus – which hopefully means we won’t be sharing our seats with too much livestock. We also part ways with the red rocket today. The little beast survived its ordeal surprisingly well, although it took a kind chap at the backpackers nearly and hour and half to clean it last night for the princely sum of AUS$8. We felt a bit bad so gave him our esky, folder chairs and our left over supplies which he was pretty happy to take. We worked out that we have driven almost exactly 11,000 km over the last 6 weeks and SA and Namibia. Not a bad effort and I think we have definitely got our moneys worth from our two hire cars.