Namibian Elephants Safari

Namibia’s elephants are the toughest in the world- and they have to be. In a country consisting largely of desert, these animals manage to live amid surroundings at once breathtakingly beautiful and vastly empty. To see them, one must go into the heart of Namibia’s Northern Central Plateau, through some of the most awe-inspiring scenery on Earth.

The second least-densely populated country in the world, with the world’s largest sand dunes and vast areas of desert, Namibia is a country where Nature rules. In such a dry place, it may seem surprising that large animals can survive at all, let alone animals as large as elephants, but survive they do, superbly adapted to the demands of the climate and terrain. The environment itself, in all its stark magnificence, ensures that this remains first and foremost the animals’ place, a land where few humans -except for the Bushmen, themselves as well-adapted to the land as the elephants- choose to make their homes.

Obviously, the elephants themselves are the stars of this trip; with luck you’ll get to see representatives of communities of elephants living in the salt pans, the desert, the woodlands and near the river, each with their own idiosyncratic behavioural “dialects”, suited to the different demands of life in those areas. You’ll pass fields of huge sand dunes that leave you feeling as if you’ve landed on another world, and the Doros Crater, the eroded remains of an ancient volcanic cataclysm. At Okaukuejo, in Etosha national park, you’ll see wildlife aplenty, even at night, as lions, rhino and of course elephants come to drink at the floodlit waterhole; and in wet season, the nearby Etosha Pan floods, forming a vast shallow lake which temporarily transforms the entire landscape.

If you want to see elephants in the wild, this is the safari par excellence. Eleven days in one of the world’s true wildernesses, the only backdrop against which these animals can be truly appreciated. Camping -at well-provisioned sites- is interspersed with more luxurious lodge stays, so you don’t have to leave comfort behind altogether, but this is definitely a trip for those passionate about wildlife and wild landscape; much of the day will be spent in vehicles in the desert searching for and watching elephants- a prospect which will either enthrall you, or not. If the former is the case, then this tour is a dream come true.