South Africa + a Safari in Namibia

We arrived in Cape Town with a beautiful view of the ocean from our hotel. My husband and I had bid on a safari trip to Namibia and we added a trip to Cape Town on to it. We had visited South Africa years ago but wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible when traveling with our family. As such, we arranged for a few days in the city with Jacques, our private tour guide. We began with a drive around the cape on our way to the ferry for Seal Island. The water was a bit rough but that didn’t stop us. It was incredible to see all the seals and I was thankful no sharks joined us for dinner! Next we made our way to the beautiful landscape of Cape of Good Hope. Here we saw wild ostrich, lots of baboons, and even a few penguins up close.

While the first part of our trip was great, the second part was truly amazing. We flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg, to Windhoek, and then on to Namibia. From there we took a small charter plane for two hours over the Savannah until we reached our destination. We landed on a single airstrip in the middle of nowhere! We called Ongava Lodge home for the next four days and words can’t even describe how amazing this place was. The view of the water hole from the lodge, and even our private chalet, was unsurpassed. The staff was incredibly knowledgeable about the lands and animals of the area and the service was above and beyond. Being a pescatarian, I was served seafood instead of beef or chicken, and the staff even made my gluten-free hubby homemade gluten-free bread!

Sunset at Etosha National Park in Namibia

Our guide for our four day safari in Namibia was William and he taught us so much. We took part in two safaris each day, once to Ongava Game Reserve and once to Etosha National Park – an area that covers 22,270 km and has 114 mammals! Every day we were able to see animals such as giraffes, elephants, lions, zebra, wildebeests and more. I kept a checklist with us on the trip and all in all we saw 29 mammals, 20 birds and 1 snake (a python!).

Etosha National Park in Namibia Giraffes

Zebras and Gemsbok at Ongava Game Reserve

The whole trip was amazing and humbling. We were able to see how different life is in South Africa and Namibia than they are at home. We got to see such beautiful and inspiring views and watch animals most only see in zoos out in the wild. It was spectacular!