Namibia: Ai Aiba & Erindi lodges

We left Swapkopmund and started driving north along the Skeleton Coast. We heard on the news that there were three lions spotted close to the beach near a place called Mile 14. We looked for them and met a group who were probably military hunters doing the same. We didn’t spot any lions, but saw quite a few indicators to all these Miles. Mile 14 in particular is a camping ground, so it made sense why the authorities were so concerned. I read later on the news that they didn’t find any lions in the area, just brown hyena tracks, and that all the lions that are collared were checked and were where they were supposed to be.

We stopped to see the Zeila ship wreck, where we met some people who looked very poor and were trying to sell us cheap souvenirs. A few of them caught a ride in our friends’ ute to Henties Bay, where we went to have lunch.

Zeila was wrecked not that long ago (in 2008). It was already in disuse at the time, being towed to India to be used as scrap metal, when it became loose from its towing line and ended up stranded where it is today.

The location for our lunch in Henties Bay was amazing – a picnic table on the high coast overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the village golf course. The Atlantic was as angry and as grey as I’ve always seen it and, being overcast, everything else looked gloomy.

From Henties Bay we continued driving north west. The landscape was amazing, arid all the way till we reached the mountains, when granite boulders started dotting the landscape. We stopped at a rock market in the middle of nowhere, where there were quite a few women from Damaraland (which is around the Erongo mountains) selling semi-precious stones that their husbands got from the nearby Erongo mountains. They spoke Damara, which is a click language, and one of them explained to me the four different clicks. I was really impressed how she was able to speak not only her own language but also English, German and Afrikaans and wrote the translation of some words (containing the various clicks) correctly spelled. Their houses looked pretty run down / corrugated iron shacks really (and the other villages that we had gone through up to that point were not any different), contrasting with how neatly they were dressed.

From this market we continued our trip to Ai Aiba Lodge. We hadn’t even realized that we went up 1200m by the time we reached it, after leaving from sea level in the morning. A short video with some sights from this drive can be seen here.

Ai Aiba Lodge is located near some big boulders, and apparently is owned by one of the richest men in Namibia (who also has a company selling bottled water). We were welcomed with ice tea, then had a quick refresher in our cottages before heading out for a nature drive.

The guide (Deon) who drove us around was very knowledgeable and showed us lots of plants: African lavender, peppermint, sage; a plant that stinks really badly (aptly named Boscia foetida) but apparently is good for earaches; another one that smells nice and is used by women from the Himba tribe who apparently traditionally never wash themselves and only use clay / ochre to cover their skin and various plants to smell nice; mopane trees that have interesting butterfly-shaped leaves and host the mopane worms that are a delicacy for the locals, who also use its wood for fire and to make charcoal. He also showed us kudu-trees that have seedpods traditionally used by hunters to help them outrun kudus – when placed under the tongue the seed stimulates saliva secretion so it is easier for them to run.

We saw dassies aka rock rabbits that are found in abundance in this area. Their urine leaves a characteristic white mark on the rocks, giving away their preferred hiding spots. We saw a few grey go-away birds that apparently start flying in front of people (and other predators) warning other animals to go away – obviously not loved by hunters.

Ai Aiba is famous for its Bushman rock paintings which we got to see.

The cherry on the cake was a young leopard that was near some other paintings that Deon wisely decided it was probably not a good idea to try and see. The leopard was so well camouflaged in the tall grass. But when we stopped he stopped too and looked back at us from a good, sunny position… posing so we could take some really nice photos!

Before heading back to the lodge, we went for a sundowner in a beautiful spot, and on the way back we were treated with the sight of a few owls, a Kori bustard (with its impressive wingspan when he took off), and an elephant shrew. When we got back to the lodge there was still beautiful light from the sunset with Jupiter and Venus shining bright towards the west as well.

Next day we joined Deon again for a walk to the San living museum. He had interesting things to show us again – a wild fig tree, trees the bushmen use to make bows out of, another tree used to treat diarrhoea, desert roses, some more dassies on the rocks.

The experience at the Bushmen museum was quite extraordinary. Those who work there live in a village about 200 km away and they work at the museum for a few months at a time. They showed us the traditional way to make jewelry – usually by the pregnant women, who can’t go gathering food anymore; how they make traps for birds and animals; fire; how they hunt; how they make rope out of a Sansevieira plant. The poisonous arrow tips used to hunt are dipped in a substance found in the cocoon / larva of a beetle that feeds on a certain plant (diamphotoxin). They use “love bows” that they get into the lady of their choice’s bum – if she keeps it, it’s a “yes”, if she breaks it, it’s a “no”. The older San people don’t know how old they are, as they don’t have birth certificates. Men have one or two wives but from the same tribe as they aren’t allowed to “share the meat” between tribes. The men have to prove they are good hunters to be accepted as husbands by the girl’s father – this however apparently is just for show / telling foreigners apparently, as many of them just use “wallets” nowadays and don’t follow tradition any more. We were told they are allowed to hunt only in certain places and only for a few animals. We learned that lions are afraid of fire and that’s how they defend themselves against them. Doesn’t work for the leopards but luckily their claws / paws are not as strong, so our guide suggested one could try to fight it as long as they protect their neck and belly from the sharp claws. We also learned that many hunting-guides leave their jobs after a while as those those who come to hunt here (mostly Russians, but also Germans and Americans) are quite cruel to animals by not shooting them properly (and not killing them, causing pain by just injurying them).

Late afternoon we drove around and onto some boulders

then to another nice viewpoint to watch the sunset. We didn’t spot any more leopards this second evening, just the smallest antelope, damara dik-dik. If you have time to watch a video, you can find it here.

Next day we woke up quite early and walked to see the sunrise on the rocks behind the cottages. It was amazing – the views, the stillness just before the sun came out. There were a couple of dassies watching us from the top of the rocks and also a couple of starlings feeding on a desert rose bush. On the way back to our cottage we came across a few baboons sun basking and frolicking on the rocks.

When we left Ai-Aiba a bustard and a couple of hornbills came to wish us safe travels.

We drove via Omaruru, an interesting and colourful town where we saw beautiful Herero ladies with large hats that imitate cow horns, as they take so much pride in their cattle.

We tried driving through a river bed but we gave up after a few kilometers as it was very soft in places and we didn’t want to get bogged.

Erindi was the last lodge we stayed at in Namibia. The balcony of their restaurant overlooks a large waterhole where we saw hippos, Nile crocodiles, antilopes, giraffes, rhinos, warthogs and lots of birds so we kept coming back and spent a few good hours here throughout our stay.

The first evening we went for a game drive which was quite an experience! First of all the guide took us to see a female cheetah with four cubs, all feeding on an antelope that the mum had pulled underneath a tree. We saw quite a few birds as well (Marabou storks, a cape vulture) and nyalas, a weird looking but pretty antelope from the northern parts of Namibia that they’ve introduced here as well. The guide really wanted to show us a female leopard which he did find using the radio receiver, but not before driving properly off road through very thick bush, over trees and tree stumps. We saw a huge male giraffe from quite close, baboons, impalas, black wilderbeet and a black rhino.

After coming back we had a beautiful dinner and saw an adult and a baby rhino at the waterhole near the restaurant. The staff also sang a nice capella song for the guests, and before going to sleep we admired a majestic elephant from our terrace.

Next day we had an early morning game drive with the same guide. It was really cold initially and, even though we had lots of layers on, an extra fleece poncho that they gave us was quite useful and welcome. We didn’t do as much off-road driving but had a very close view of the same female leopard on the rocks and then an amazing experience coming face to face with a pack of elephants marching on the road. Our driver was in a bit of a hurry to turn around though, as apparently one of the females in this pack doesn’t like Diesel cars – probably a sign that she was traumatised by an encounter with a car before her time at the lodge. We saw many other animals – giraffes, zebras (plain and mountain); a hyena (but only briefly as it ran in front of us), baboons, warthogs and two mamba snakes – one literally jumped / threw itself into a tree, the other one slowly crawled across the road into the tall grass.

These lodges are really safe heavens for many of these animals, as in the wild they often get into conflict with humans (either because they destroy crops, as elephants do, or they feed on cattle, as most big cats would do). Especially these lodges which are not for hunting, they are a good place for them to be.

With big grins on our faces, we came back to have breakfast then lingered around the lodge enjoying an early afternoon thunderstorm. We were mesmerised by a newly born baby hippopotamus and the mamma hippo trying to protect it from other hippos. Interestingly the crocodiles did not go anywhere near it, they seem to have a healthy respect for hippos. However there was a bit of a gruesome show when the placenta came out and the crocodiles had a fight over it (we only saw the fight and one of the locals told us what was happening).

In the evening we went for another game drive. This one offered more spectacular views with the stormy, threatening, majestic clouds closing in and a colourful rainbow. We got to see lions among many other things (a leopard tortoise, more antelopes, a black wilderbeet). We learned that baboons will occasionally eat antelopes. That black rhinos can get very angry and compared to the white ones they are solitary, have a beak-type mouth (while the white ones have a wider mouth that gave them their name), eat twigs and braches, don’t have a hump on their backs and walk with their head higher. Meerkats are very susceptible to rabies. Hippos are very susceptible to anthrax. Cheetahs only eat fresh meat and the hunter drinks the blood first. Leopards are stalkers and together with the lions they hunt at night.

Back at the restaurant, we watched the baby hippopotamus again, a herd of elephants that came to drink water, two white rhinos, a leopard that went across at the back then came across inspecting the front.

When we left Erindi next day there were two big giraffes in the middle of the road at a crossroad where we had to turn right. We then drove past a pack of impalas. One of them had quite a large wound on the side of her body – had probably been attacked by a big cat.

We stopped at a wood market in Okahandja. It was an interesting experience and very different to the stone market earlier in our trip, with the vendors much more aggressive and annoying, trying to make us feel bad about not buying stuff from them.

Since returning from Namibia I read a bit more about the various animals that we saw there and learned some more interesting facts.

Despite the bulky appearance, hippos are herbivores and primarily graze on grasses and aquatic plants, using their lips to pluck the short grasslands. They most often venture out at night to graze and need to consume up to 60 kg of vegetation in a single night – which is actually much less compared to other herbivores relative to their body size. This is likely because they save a huge amount of energy by spending most of their time in the water resting during the day (which is not subject to great temperature fluctuations and they also don’t need to use their muscles as much to maintain upright posture). Hippos have a specialized three-chambered stomach that allows them to ferment and break down cellulose effectively (and release essential nutrients from the fibrous plant material), but they’re not ruminants as they do not chew the cud.

Giraffes are browsers, which means they feed on leaves, buds, and fruits of trees and shrubs. Their long necks allow them to reach the most nutritious tree leaves high up in the canopy that other animals cannot. In addition, their narrow muzzle and long tongue, often over 45 cm in length, allow them to pluck the most nutritious leaves with the highest protein content from between big thorns. Giraffes have a complex four-chambered stomach that aids in the fermentation and digestion of fibrous plant material. They rely on gut bacteria to break down cellulose and extract nutrients from tough foliage, making them the largest ruminant.

White rhinos are grazers and primarily consume grass, whereas black rhinos are browsers and favour leaves, fruits, and woody plants. White rhinos’ teeth have adapted to crushing grasses thoroughly before swallowing, while black rhino’s hooked lip assists them similarly to a giraffe’s narrow muzzle when browsing highly nutritious leaves. Unlike ruminants, rhinos have a simple, single-chambered stomach, and in order to extract maximum nutrition from their plant-based diet, rhinos have an extended digestion process that relies on fermentation in the hindgut.

Elephants consume a wide range of plant material – grasses, leaves, bark, roots, and fruits, depending on the region and the availability of food. Despite their size, they have a relatively low metabolic mass (about 15% of body weight), which means they require proportionately less food energy than other mammals (for example, zebra have a metabolic mass of 25%). Elephants have a single-chambered stomach similar to that of a typical herbivore. Their hindgut fermentation process helps break down cellulose and extract nutrients from tough plant matter. Digestion this way is less efficient than that of a ruminant. Food, therefore, needs to be consumed in large amounts, as much of it will be excreted in the form of poorly digested dung – acacia thorns included, which aparently can cause flat tyres if driven over.

Hornbills often sift through elephant dung to locate any insects feeding on the decomposing grass material.

And some shops in Windhoek sell elephant dung for quite a bit of money!