By the second week of our African road trip, we were getting the hang of finding a good camp. We looked for areas with clear game paths or signs of wildlife, firewood, and clear space around camp or backed up to a canyon wall. Although the rooftop tents are safer than sleeping on the ground, they wouldn't slow down a leopard or lion.
Although the park had an abundance of wildlife, it also had too many rules. It didn't really have the feel of the wild Africa we were looking for. We stayed only two of our five-night reservation before moving on. After restocking supplies in Grootfontein and visiting the 60-ton Hoba meteorite - the heaviest on Earth - we headed north to Rundu.
About an hour after dark, we crossed the veterinary fence, a 10-foot fence across the entire country. Open grasslands and farms transitioned to dense mopani, acacia, and shrub. Before shifting out of Second gear, we were dodging goats, cattle, and their owners who crossed the road sporadically in the darkness. Distant campfires cast orange and black shadows through the bush, illuminating small mud rondavels and the silhouettes of natives. We arrived at the K'wazi Lodge and camp area late in the night. Waking up on the banks of the Kavango River, we pored over old maps with K'wazi owners Wyland and Valerie. On their advice, we decided to backtrack south to one of the last truly wild places in Namibia.
The Kaudom Wildlife Reserve had lured us to the Bushmanland region near the Botswana border. The Kaudom is merely an outline on a map: no fences, hotels, Asian-made trinkets, or tourists - and very few rules. Prior to entering Kaudom near the village of Tsumkwe, we made a side trek to two enormous baobab trees. The first, Dorslandboom, was a campsite of the 1891 Dorsland expedition to Angola. Traveling in ox-drawn carts, they hacked their way through an area seen by only a handful of Europeans. The other baobab sat a few hundred yards from a waterhole and played host for our nightly camp. A few hours after settling in, we got the crap scared out of us by an unexpected visitor.
We thought we had become pretty savvy at selecting relatively safe campsites in the bush. On this night, we set our fire between a baobab and our truck. After a coal-cooked feast of bush stew and a few coldies, a large bull elephant decided to join us. Our hearts pounded as the uninvited pachyderm passed within 30 feet of our campfire and disappeared into the brush. An hour later the bull returned, bellowing out a roar from the edge of the bush. We could hear his snorts and heavy breathing for what seemed like hours (only a few minutes). Looking up, we noticed a large raw area and gouges in an overhanging branch. The baobab was an elephant scratching post - and we were camped directly beneath it.
The following morning, while we were stopped refilling our water bottles, a family of San appeared from the bush. The San are thought to be the planet's earliest inhabitants. The women and children appeared first, followed by the spear-wielding father. We learned that they lived in a local village to the east and were apparently on a bush hunt. In bare feet they navigated the hot sands and thorny ground cover of the bush.
The soft track required four-wheel drive and was deep enough to drag the differential over most of the whoop-dee-doos. The next two days we spent tucked into observation blinds near the watering holes, watching the local wildlife jockey for position in the bush hierarchy and avoid becoming part of the food chain.