We are now ensconced at Grootberg, which sits on the very edge of a glorious canyon in the Khoisan/Hoas Conservancy. Bryce and I are each loading a blogpost, me on my phone ad keyboard, she on the iPad. Technology!! The birds are flying about and Joseph, who is one of the chefs, just had to be called to gently catch a bird who flew inside the lobby and set it loose. But the most amazing thing? Listening to the wait staff speak to each other in their native language, which includes consonant clicks, even while singing!!!
But this post is about our stay at Twyfelfontein. This is further south, and had many interesting features. Like the baboons that make a racket at night and look down on us in th open air bathroom. Pic above is of the rascals who woke us up.
The lodgings are tucked against this wall of rocks that have been like this for millennia, but look likely to fall. Jim assured us that this would not happen.
We went on a game drive in the morning, with our guide Phillip, and lo! After seeing tracks of elephants, kudus, giraffes and yes even a leopard, as well as lots of elephant poop, and working our way up the river bed and around countless hills, we happened almost by accident on a 30 year old bull elephant!!! This was thrilling to say the least. And elephants? They eat a seriously high fiber diet. I never conceived that elephants could be desert adapted but here they are. They live 50-60 years. What leads to their demise? Their molars fall out, and they can’t chew the branches. So they need a dentist… Another amazing thing: they climb mountains and crush trees in search of water.
Once we found the first elephant, and then another family unit with a 4 month old!! Then we found the group of 8 giraffes. I might be leaning towards thinking that I like the giraffes better. Those long necks, those goofy faces!
As if that was not amazing enough, we then headed out for an afternoon of cool geology—-a place called the organ pipes with columnar features and then Twyfelfontein itself. This is a World Heritage Site, and involved climbing over and around boulders to find a ton of pictographs etched in the sandstone thousands of years ago to communicate with other nomadic groups gathering in the area. Among images of elephants rhinos and antelope were penguins and seals. Meaning they walked a very long way to share tidings here. All in all, an amazing day. Did I mention geocaches?
Oh and fun fact: elephant dung (which is huge and easily found, is noted to be effective for foot swelling: you mix it with warm water and soak your feet. My work colleagues take note!!!
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