Leaving Omguma, I started heading south again, slowly back towards Windhoek. I decided not to take the main road to my next lodge, but a smaller road through the farmland. The problem with the main road was, that it would'be been 200 km longer, therefore although it was tar instead of gravel still a bit longer. Also I was told that on the main road from here to Windhoek I would have to be a bit careful, and better not stop anywhere. So because of all this, I chose the other road. At first I made a short stop at the meteorite, apparently one of the largest existing. Don't really know what I expected, but was actually a bit boring, just a stone. From here on the landscape had changed quite a lot, I was now in typical farmland, either corn fields or cattle farms. The only problem driving through farmland are the gates. Most farm have gate across the street. The standard rules apply: If it is open, leave it open, if it is closed, close it again after you. As I had read before that usually kids would come running to open the gates hoping for so sweets, I had brought some with me especially for this. Summary: In about 100 km there were 8 gates, all of the closed. Only once a kid came running, twice an adult opened it for me (they didn't get any sweets), and the rest of the time I had to do it myself. And what do I do with all my sweets now? I then arrived at my new lodge and found out I would be the only guest for tonight. Feels actually a bit strange to know that all these people are now only working for you. The lodge lies in a huge property, which is nowadays only used to keep wild animals for the visitors. Since they have quite a few animals, usually at the end of the dry season, they help out with some extra food for them, as not enough is left. Also for a few years now they have a few hippos, which usually only live further north, where there is more rain. And since hippos need up to 60 kg of grass every day, they also feed the hippos. I went on a sundowner drive to the hippo lake then, and didn're just see the hippos, but also buffolos and white rhinos. Since they knew that there was food for the hippos, they also wanted some. When the hippos then came out of the water to eat, I could see that one had a broken leg and couldn't really walk anymore. Poor thing! Apparently it broken it a year ago, running and dripping into a hole in the ground. Since this hippo now really can't get any food for itself, they took more care of it, and my guide always tried to chase away the rhinos trying to steel the grass. I wouldn't have dared to get as close to the rhinos (even though it was only the white ones), but I guess the rhinos knew they wouldn't get any more food tomorrow if they hurt him. (But even I could see that they weren't really happy. Next morning after breakfast I then got to see the feeding of the cheetahs. Cheetahs are endangered here, since farmer don't really like them and hunt them. On this farm they usually let the cheetahs live, as they would only pass by this area. A while ago however, they had found and injured cheetah lady, who had fallen into a canal and broken a leg, which had grown back together wrong. So also this cheetah wasn't able to catch food for herself anymore. So they took her in, gave here a big fenced in area to live, and fed her so that she would survive. A bit later then they got a male cheetah from the Cheetah Protection Center to join her. This one apparently grew up in captivity, and then was let free. As he had never learned how to hunt for himself he almost starved, before he was found and saved. So this way I also got to see the two cheetahs up close (since I didn't manage to see one in the wild). Finally I left the lodge again and made my way down to Windhoek, this time on the main road (there was no nice alternative), but as promised without stopping on the way.
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