An entertaining, detailed, informative and well written report, as always. Most enjoyable.
Originally Posted by Seat 2A
The male was said to be one of the oldest and arguably the largest male lion in Namibia, weighing over 500 pounds.
No wonder! Well-fed lions confined to a small enclosure tend to get lazy and fat.
Lions are not easily and often weighed, so statements such as "largest" and "heaviest" should be treated with some caution. A few years ago a wild lion in the Boyela area north of Shingwedzi in the Kruger National Park weighed in at 254 kgs (560 pounds), on an empty stomach. Now that was a big lion!
Originally Posted by mad_atta
I'm sorry to read that downtown Windhoek is now considered unsafe. One thing I found so refreshing about Namibia, in contrast to South Africa, was that I never felt unsafe anywhere
Once upon a time, the downtown areas of all South African cities were perfectly safe. Oppressive regimes are very good at keeping crime levels low, if they want to. The South African apartheid goverments were of course very selective about where they fought crime (few people know that South Africa always was, and still is, an under-policed country). Until say, twelve years ago I could walk from downtown Johannesburg to Hillbrow and Berea after dark without having to be too concerned about my safety. This changed in a very short time.
The decline in Windhoek has been more gradual, and I don't think the situation is as bad as some would have us believe. Seat 2A is quite right, a modicum of common sense is the best weapon against crime.
johan