Onkoshi Resort — Hotel in Oshikoto

The place is great. The staff is friendly and customer oriented. The views are spectacular, very different, but spectacular. We got there after driving from Dolomite Camp. It was en route that we came across our real hosts; the Namibian Wildlife Resort company. This appears to be a State Owned Enterprise, like ESKOM in South Africa. As a result, Etosha is managed like a cash cow, with the bare minimum of investment. The roads are so bad that you want to give up the will to live. The signage is about the speed limits, and hardly any distance markers. You can't do the speed limit anyway; without damaging your suspension and tyres. Camp management is barely seen. There was no wifi. There were no fridges (37 degrees outside). There were no kettles. The food is tasty, although the portions are small - 2 calamari rings as a starter? When a corporate manager was asked about the situation our conversation was cut short by a call from his supervisor. The conversation was littered with terms like "oubaas" and lots of laughter. Clearly the problems of the camp were insignificant. But thank god, nature and animals saved the day. See photos. Go there for no more than 2 nights and...

Onkoshi is in a truly stunning situation overlooking the pan but is in need of a lot of investment. We arrived to a dirty entrance, construction work and a pool that was out of service - the whole place was rather depressing and felt like it should have been closed for refurbishment. Our rooms smelt overpoweringly of varnish. The was little water pressure and the shower barely worked. It's a shame because the fundamentals are there and the rooms were probably quite luxurious once. At least the bed linen was good and the bed itself comfortable, no complaints there. Other reviews mention the noisy generator and we experienced that too. Perhaps our biggest issue was that it took an hour to get to Onkoshi from the Von Linquist gate and there's not much to see wildlife-wise en route. We spoke to other guests who did the night drive and said it was a complete waste of time. If you do stay there, do so for only one night for the experience of staying literally on the edge of the pan (not for the animals) - you don't want to drive all the way out and back again for your main...

Staying at Onkoshi was an interesting and, overall, pleasurable experience. ||||The whole edifice is very rustic and somewhat creaky, especially the long walkways, whilst the rooms were very spacious and quaint - full of seemingly ethnic touches and complete with a massive bathroom. The bed was very large and comfortable until I awoke in the middle of the night with ants crawling all down my shoulders (just me, my wife was untouched): as this is Africa at its most rustic I just coped with the problem and went back to sleep.||||The food was quite good and, in fact, the breakfast was excellent, overseen by an extremely competent and well organised cook.||||The setting is magnificent, although this was the dry season - it may be much more "interesting" after the rains when the mozzies emerge.||||Unfortunately the whole lodge seemed to be plagued by poor service: everyone was very friendly and willing but with a large dose of inefficiency (nobody really seemed to be in charge). This was the one drawback of our very brief stay.||||Despite this we would stay here again...