Camping at Daan Viljoen Game Reserve – December 2006

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Arrival

The next day we packed. Since we planned a long-term camp and are not campers who prefer to camp as basic as possible, we had a lot of equipment. “Heiko, can I borrow your trailer?” He laughed. “Yeah, sure!” Arriving in the park, we first had to register at the office. I said we were planning to camp for four days. “Four days! So many days!” The staff was amazed that we wanted to stay so long. But in exchange for the parking and camping fees, we received the permit. The campsite was almost empty. We chose a place near a big sweet thorn acacia. This tree would give us a lot of shade in the morning. The alternative was a place in the second row with afternoon shadow (actually better) but without grass or an area with no shade at all.

The construction of our castle was mainly my job, while Anita took care of the interior and the other little things. I was setting up the frame for the tent when an elderly black man approached us. “Het julle hulp nodig?” he asked. No, we didn’t need any help. We would manage as two white women. Shortly afterwards he came back and asked if we would sell our Bakkie. No, we weren’t planning to sell the car. This black man turned out to be the caretaker of Daan Viljoen’s campsite. He cleaned the sanitary facilities and swept or raked or watered the lawn. Since it is always useful to have someone to keep an eye on the camp when you are not there, we occasionally gave him a Coke or a coffee with sandwiches. We were still in the middle of setting up the tent when a second black man came along. He looked very interested, almost obtrusive, into our tent, which I found irritating. I was in Namibia mode, i.e. always on guard against thieves. He sat down a few paces further in the shade of the tree and watched us. I approached him and asked if he had no work. “But I’m working!” he said. At the same moment, I noticed the uniform of a security company. He was the security guard who defended the campsites from looting baboons or stealing batsotsis. We became good friends with him as well. One might think that security man in Daan Viljoen is a “lekker job” – as he sat in the shade of the tree. But it turned out that only he and a colleague had to make sure that the whole facility was guarded 24 hours a day, seven days a week – not such an easy job after all. The baboons proved to be a real nuisance. It was because of them that you always had to close the tent when you left the camp. No food was allowed outside. They loved to tip over the trash cans to find something to eat. We were happy about Security, who also walked around at night with a rifle. Another task of all Daan Viljoen’s staff was to chase away the horses from the campsite. Although pets are not allowed in the park, there were some horses around. Maybe they were planning to offer horse trails – we didn’t know the reason for the presence. All animals, except one, which was hard to catch, were well cared for and well-fed. But there was one thing they were not allowed to do: graze on the grass of the campsite. As soon as the caretaker or security was out of sight, they came up the stairs to the campground and ate the only green grass in the park. But that didn’t do the lawn much good, because they tore out the plants rather than biting them off. That’s why they got chased off the grass over and over again. But it didn’t apply to the tourists. When a horse put its head in the tent, I could touch it and stroke it but did not chase it away. We once considered keeping a tally of how many times a day the horses came up and were chased away after a few minutes. We abandoned the plan because of the effort involved.

On the first day, we noticed that we had forgotten two essential things in Windhoek: the gas bottle for our cooker and sunscreen. So we went back to the Seilerhof to get these things. It was a 30-minute drive each way. At about 18:00h we were back in the park. It was the ideal time for a game drive. The Game Drive is a 7 km gravel path, which requires some offroad skills in some places, even with a regular car. On this route, you could always see most of the animals. It turned out that Daan Viljoen had not let up in this respect. There were still many animals. We spotted wildebeests, oryx, zebras and hartebeest in large numbers during our game drive.