The north of Namibia offers some of the country’s most spectacular scenery. The remote northwest, including Skeleton Coast North, is fabulously wild in feel whilst the Kavango and Caprivi regions in the northeast are dominated by rivers and lush green forests; a beautiful contrast to Namibia’s largely barren landscapes. However Etosha National Park is the highlight of a visit to this area. One of South Africa’s best game reserves, it's home to 114 species of mammal, 340 of bird and 110 of reptiles.
Etosha Pan dominates the park; a vast mineral bed of salt and clay that becomes a shallow lake in the rainy season, attracting spectacular flocks of flamingoes. For the rest of the year it’s a white-dust basin (the word Etosha translates to ‘Great White Place’), and watching animals trot across it is surreal to say the least.
The pan is surrounded by grassland, and artificial waterholes are dotted throughout the park (including a floodlit one at Okaukuejo), attracting great numbers of animals all year round. Blue wildebeest, zebra, elephant, giraffe, eland and buck are the staples, but the big cats are in place too; lions frequent Fischer’s Pan in the northeast, cheetahs may be seen hunting springbok in the short grass plains, and if you’re really lucky you may see a leopard. But Etosha’s animal highlight is its endangered black rhinoceros, and some of our camps offer the opportunity to track the animal on foot; thrilling stuff.