While spotting game in Namibia's famed Etosha Game Reserve is a wild experience - the accommodation is anything but, writes Chris Ord.
In Africa there are no guarantees. Not that you'll see a lion, nor a rhino, leopard, elephant or wild buffalo – the ‘Big Five' as they are known and emblazoned on every imaginable souvenir and then some.
Okay, you'd have to be visually impaired to not catch sight of any number of antelope species – Impala, Springbok, Kudu and their cousins – or Zebra, which remains rather exotic in the flesh but can only be described as rare when served from the kitchen.
There are definitely no guarantees on the weather and to bet on a road being passable would be to throw your travellers' cheques into the gusty savannah breeze.
With only a few weeks up our khaki sleeves, and imaginings of how the salubrious colonial set once lived it up in the African wilderness, we decided that the only way to ‘guarantee' a relaxing holiday was to splurge. We were, after all, honeymooners; we had excuse to indulge in the G&T-bearing butler service of Africa's finest lodges.
But while fluffy white towels, world-class wine lists and stuffed-animal opulence are all very pleasant, they offer no protection from the incongruities that epitomise and pervade African life. I speak not only of the earth shattering, a la syphilis-deranged despots devolving a country from breadbasket to basketcase; it's the little things, too.
Like a laundry bill.
That'll be AUD$100 for your laundry sir. Yes sir, I realise that is more than you paid for your six-course dinner last night. No, I cannot think of a reason why a small load of washing should cost more than a gourmet meal. Yes I realise that included the wine sir. No, sir, your clean washing does not come with a bottle of Bordeaux.
But then such exasperations go a long way to characterising Africa's unique charm. Besides, be it five-star or under-the-stars, adventure by its very definition is all about surprises. Especially in Africa.
We pointed our particular expectations for the unexpected toward the Etosha Game Reserve, Namibia's and one of Africa's most famous. Here, they promise wild animals roaming like cattle herds; hard to miss, easier to hit as you drive along the reserve's web of dirt roads, 80-300mm zoom lenses at the ready.
We were, however, destined to taste the local fauna before we were to see it, our maiden stay in a luxury lodge confirming that in Africa they treat national emblems with as much respect as we do kangaroo and emu. And so we found ourselves being served medallion of Springbok at the Epacha Game Lodge and Spa, Namibia's first five star establishment located an ‘easy' 40 kilometre drive from Etosha's southern entrance.
At this point I note to you that Namibia is in the throes of a tourism-fuelled epidemic of 4WD campers, usually piloted by autobahn-addicted Germans who obviously regard the placid nation's 120km/h speed limit as suggestion, not law. It took a puddle the size and depth of which would bathe a herd of twenty elephants to demonstrate why the ubiquitous 4WDs, not 2WD sedans like ours, are de rigueur for tourists on self-drive safaris.
Arriving at Epacha's grand foyer entrance, six inches of water still draining from our car, head to toe in mud and shoeless, we felt like tramps begging outside the Ritz. A stretch Hummer and black tie would have been a more appropriate style of arrival.
Set on its own 27,000-hectare game park (which hosts a population of rare black rhinos), Epacha epitomises the sumptuous style imported by colonial adventurers determined to experience Africa on their own, refined terms. ‘Look old fellow, there's a lion, pass the Pernod would you? Jolly good,' practically echoes across the bar.
We're talking grand entrances with stuffed lions, cigar rooms, libraries, polished floors, waiters that pick up your dropped napkin in a jiffy and a quintessential African landscape that stretches out beyond the endless horizon pool.
Our air-conditioned villa mixed lashings of Africa in its exposed wooden beams and a thatched roof with faux Victorian-era history in the darkwood furniture buffed to an inch. Vogue-style fittings completed the picture, including two showers – one indoor with view to a spectacular sunrise, one outside for that truly au naturale experience. It's obscenely luxurious, but there's something about a bed the size of an average shebeen (small, illegal bar) that softens the guilt.
Sadly, there are only so many days you can circulate between pool, bar and restaurant no matter how enthralling the view or delicious the fare. We weren't here to judge the culinary values of the wildlife, we wanted to catch it in the crosshairs of our Canons, and so carefully avoiding puddles, we set off for nearby Etosha.
Lying in the north-western edge of the Namibian Kalahari, the 22,270 square kilometre reserve supports no fewer than 114 species of mammal, including four of the Big Five (you'll have to head further east to see wild buffalo). Its main feature is Etosha Pan, a 4,760 square kilometre salt flat that shimmers in its heart.
Translated, Etosha means ‘Great White Place of Dry', which also bears out why the place is known for its prolific wildlife viewing – its inhabitants all head to the same waterholes for their sundowners. Whack in some semi-decent dirt roads, a few signs warning people not to get out of their cars and you have a reserve where game viewing is ‘guaranteed'.
Unless, like us, you don't believe in pre-trip research and end up visiting at the wrong time of the year when Etosha becomes the ‘Great White Place of Wet'. With showers sweeping across the plains, our game-spotting adventure turned into a farcical game of Hide and Seek, with animals the clear winners. Plenty of groundwater means animals don't need waterholes. Birdwatchers rejoice at times like this, as the rains bring all manner of species, but Big Five spotters have to suffice with their twentieth zebra herd. A small posse of giraffes gave us small cause for excitement, celebrated with an entire roll of film.
Three days we traversed Etosha, scanning the horizon, repeatedly confusing a solitary tree shimmering in the distance for an elephant (occasionally it was an ostrich). Such was our desperation that we abandoned Epacha in favour of the three more proletarian camps located inside Etosha.
Okaukuejo, Halali and Namutoni offer good facilities with hot water, cafes and stores selling fresh meat and alcohol for a traditional braai (barbeque). There's even a pool at each - slumming it in Etosha is hardly roughing it - and they all have waterhole viewing platforms where, if photographs don't lie, lions, elephants, giraffes and rhinos regularly quench their thirst.
It was our final day within park limits that eventually delivered. Barely a lion's roar from Nuomtoni's gates a pride of them rested fresh from an Oryx kill. You could smell the blood. The lionesses sat well-sated, eyes aglow but passive in their post-meal lethargy. A scene worthy of our three-day mission.
Of course, such encounters must be celebrated. We did so by checking in to another resort, this one on the fringe of Etosha's eastern boundary not far from our lion sighting.
Onguma Tented Camp is the new breed of Africa's top-end offerings. Modern chic replaces colonial opulence; politically correct artistic woodcarvings of giraffe and buffalo replace beheaded mounts of the real thing. Where Epacha is a bubble of luxury to be relished after a hard day on safari, Onguma keeps you firmly entrenched in the African wilderness.
Featuring seven luxury en-suite tents, the ‘camp' is set around a natural wildlife waterhole. A pool, reception area and open-walled lounge and dining room are included in the huddle, all facing the waterhole and all furnished with definitively African-flavoured modern fittings.
Whether seated in the lounge perusing any number of exquisite African coffee table books or relaxing on your own tent balcony, it's easy to imagine raising your glass to a lion indulging in its own waterhole tipple barely 20 metres away, which is exactly what happened only a week or so ago informs our host: "A lioness and three cubs, actually. That's why we have a no children policy," he smiles, seriously.
"Here at Onguma, you're still very much in the wild. It's entirely possible to stumble across a lion or leopard walking back to your tent," he says explaining why all guests heading back to their accommodation from the restaurant are escorted.
It seems there are nastier surprises in Africa than mere laundry bills and no amount of luxury will protect you from them.
But then, that's the beauty of Africa.
Chris Ord - Editor of TTR - freelance writer/journalist, researcher and photographer. www.thetravelrag.com 
