Our Ambassador Tamara was in Namibia with TripLegend. Today she shares her experiences from the first part of the round trip, the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary in her travelogue.
Volunteering at Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary
Hi guys I am Tamara from the Netherlands and together with Triplegend I went to Namibia. In this blog I will tell you more about the volunteering that we did at Naankuse wildlife sanctuary, but first some inside information about Namibia.
Namibia
Namibia is a country in southwestern Africa, located on the Atlantic Ocean.
The country shares borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south. It has a dry, rugged mostly untouched landscape. Yet it is a friendly landscape that invites you to be discovered.
Namibia is truly an impressive country: it is vast, quiet, you can see the most beautiful stars in the sky and the landscape is amazing. It is also very photogenic due to its enormous contrasts in colors, shapes, views and animals. My camera was working overtime.
Namibia is really Africa: the spontaneous friendliness of the people; the endless savannah, baobabs, elephants, lions, zebras and giraffes and the different tribes. The capital is Windhoek and that is also the place where most trips start. Namibia is a large country, but it is the most least populated country in the world after Mongolia.
Naankuse wildlife sanctuary
N/a'an ku sê means “God will protect us” in San Bushman language.
The Naankuse Foundation Wildlife Sanctuary provides a safe haven and second chance for countless injured, orphaned and conflict animals. Wherever possible their aim is to release animals back into the wild.
Only animals too ill, abused or habituated remain at the sanctuary. This is done purely for their safety and survival chances, particularly vital for big cats. The release of carnivores, both cheetahs and leopards, is a top priority at Naankuse
It is Naankuse’s motto to keep the wild in the wild where possible, and to return the wild to the wild if circumstances allow. (source: www.Naankuse.com)
Day 1
Today the Namibian adventure begins. After the pickup at the airport you will meet the group at the hotel. After a delicious braai and a fun nice quiz night it's time for an early sleep.
Day 2
After meeting the group, the night before we have an early pick up this morning. (06:30) It is still dark and its freezing cold, but we are all excited for this new adventure. The sun is slowly rising and the moment we enter the main gate of Naankuse we see a mother giraffe with her baby. The day couldn’t start better than this.
After arriving at the sanctuary, we had some breakfast first and after that the morning was filled with presentation about Naanksuse and the volunteering program. We learned that the sanctuary has a strict rotating schedule, and that all volunteers are placed in different groups.
During the day the groups have two different activities one after breakfast and one after lunch. In the morning and in the afternoon the whole group gathers at the food prep, this is the place where all announcements are made and where you hear what the task is for the day. The Trip legend group received the name “Eland”. Our first activity was feeding the small animals. For example: the Meerkats, Mongoose, warthog, wild cat and the porcupine. After this we received our working outfit a zip off trouser and a t-shirt which came handy for the whole week. All meals are served in the outside common space there is even a swimming pool there.
Day 3
After a very cold night and to be precise the coldest night of the year in Namibia, (-6 till-10) there was no water, because of the cold all the pipes were either frozen or broken. The Naankuse maintenance team worked really hard to fix this.
Nevertheless, the day started with a very cool activity. Together with two rangers we were send out into the bush in an open truck to track the elephants and do a game count. At first you drive around, and with an antenna you try to find some activity. Once you find some activity you go further on food to spot and count the elephants. We were lucky that we found some elephants. During this activity we saw many other animals. Every animal you see you count and register in a phone system. The other purpose of this activity was to change the batteries and SD cards of the cameras who are placed in the whole Naankuse area.
The afternoon activity was checking all the SD cards. Basically, you file everything in folders on the computer.
Day 4
This day started with a surprise at the Naankuse primary school. The children of the school prepared some nice songs for us. After that we started with project work this can be anything, but most of the time it’s working with your hands. We were assigned to make a waterhole somewhere on the property. That means working with a lot of rock carrying and digging holes. During the work our truck broke down. We had to push to let it work again.
In the afternoon we had a very exiting activity feeding the big carnivores. This means Lions, cheetahs and more. But first we had to prepare the food ourselves. If you’re scared or think it's disgusting touching dead animals, it's not mandatory to do. There are always other people up for this task. Before feeding the animals, the ranger explained us everything about the particular animals. For example: what do they need, how do you take care of them and how did they end up in the sanctuary. Very interesting and informative. Throwing the meat into the enclosures and seeing the animals catch it was an unbelievable sight.
Day 5
Today we are Rhino rangers that means we are looking for rhino’s and see how many we can count. It didn’t take long before we spotted the first two rhino’s a mother and her child. To see which rhino’s they exactly are, we had to get out of the truck and walk a bit closer to them. It was really exciting to stand so close to these big wild animals. Who would have ever thought this was possible? Not me. After this encounter we saw so many more wild animals like zebras. Giraffes, a Leopard, Springboks, Steenboks, Elands, but the icing on the cakes was seeing 3 female lions. A morning for in the books.
In the afternoon our group did a walk with the baby Baboons. This means they will get out of their enclosure/home to walk around freely in the bush. Such a funny experience to see these baby’s and toddlers play around. I didn’t expect that none of the Baboons would walk away, after the play they just wanted to go home.
Day 6
During the weekends there is no strict schedule at the sanctuary. The only thing on the program is preparing food and feeding the animals, a fun activity for the volunteers and a braai in the evening. (bbq in Namibia) The rest of the day you have free time. The fun activity was a group competition with all sorts of games. We as the Triplegend group managed to win the competition and as a price we won a free drink during diner.
Day 7
The last day at Naankuse has arrived. This day we decided to take it slow and have a nice brunch and some pool time at the Naankuse lodge. Next to the pool there is an amazing canyon and now and then some animals visited the pool.
It was a great closure of this amazing week where we learned so much and where we did so many things we wouldn’t do in our normal daily life's. Every day was a new experience and if you love animals this is really the best trip you can have. This volunteering work would not be possible without all the staff of Naankuse. They work really hard to take care of the animals and of course to give the people an experience of a lifetime!
Accommodation and food
Let's talk about food and accommodation. During the stay at Naankuse you are provided with three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day there is something new on the menu. For breakfast there is always bread, cereals, coffee, thee, fruit, juice and something warm like eggs or oatmeal. Most of the lunches are warm food. For dinner you can always choose meat. They really do their best for vegetarians, vegans and people with an allergy. They don’t provide snacks. You can buy this in the little shop which is only open for an hour in the afternoon. Breakfast: 7am – 8am, lunch: 1pm-2:25pm, dinner: 6pm-7pm. All served at the common area.
As Triplegend volunteer you will be sleeping in the bush camp. This camp is a 20 min walk through the bush from the main aera. After dinner you will be walking in the dark back to your camp, the great part of this you will see the most stunning sunsets. The bush camp has several tent lodges with the most amazing vast views. Inside you will find beds, a closet, blankets and towels. The bathroom is outside.
Tips
Last but not least I will share some tips for a visit during Namibian winter:
• Water is scarce in Namibia so don’t use a lot of water for showering or hand washing
• Bring your own snacks
• Bring a bottle for water they don’t sell water bottles
• Bring drinks like cans of coke
• Pack more than one warm sweater
• Bring thermos underwear
• Wear a warm jacket for the mornings and evenings
• Bring hiking shoes
• Bring clothes which can get dirty
• Don’t forget a shawl, hand cloves and a head
• Take a big backpack where you can put all of your things during the day. There are no lockers and during the day it gets warm so you will change clothes.
• During meals wait until everyone has food before you go for the second time
• Don’t touch animals if you don’t have permission.
If this has whetted your appetite to volunteer at the Wildlife Sanctuary in Namibia, take a look at our Namibia adventure an. After the work in Naankuse we continue through the exciting African country.
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