Oct 23rd

Oct 23

Ai-Ais – Bush camping

8 brutal miles

Erik:

We stayed at Ai-Ais most of the day. We were drained and felt as though we needed to maximize our use of the pool we had paid for.

During the day we talked to a lot of people, and some germans had told us about a very outrageous thing that had happened there. The day before some baboons had been caught in the park. One was a mom with her baby, and the other was an older female. Now, we think to ourselves, wildlife resort. . . you expect some wildlife. Just dont feed them, and set it up so the people are safe from the animals. Well the employees went above and beyond. They had captured the mother and baby and kept them in cages, upsetting the whole baboon family, hitting them with sticks etc. Then they spray painted the other female white. So now, every time that baboon tries to go to her family they run away because she is a different color. Apparently, this tactic was meant to teach them not to come close to the resort. Steph and I were very upset when we heard this.

We have no idea why you would spray paint the baboon, what positive outcome can come out of treating pretty darn intelligent animals like that. In the US, you couldnt do that to a dog, but they did it to a baboon here. We can't find (online) why this would be done.

This park is run by Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR). They are also the ones that run the accommodations in Etosha park up north. We dont know what employees did this, seasonal or permanent or what, but we are going to contact NWR and ask if they know that it went on and what they plan to do about it. There is a namibian magazine called insight NAMIBIA that wrote a rather scathing article on NWR. They are apperently not making waste management any sort of priority. Making illegal dumping sites on national parks, things of that nature... No bueno.

Spray painted baboon in the campground, eating from the trashcan. So the "tactic" obviously had no effect.

Around 4 we decided to get out of the canyon (8 miles) to a bush camping site. Bushcamping was amazing, watching the moon and stars, and the sunset was great. No lights or people anywhere in sight.