Etosha, day 1

Etosha National Park today. I suppose you'll be expecting herds of wildebeast, titanic struggles between lion and oryx, giraffes staring balefully at you through the treetops...

Well tough, because what you're going to get is the Ballad of Nick's Camera – or 'How my newish camera went “pphzzt” within twenty metres of the park gates'. I'm totally serious, and still can't believe it. You want Schardenfreude? Fill your boots.

We drove through the main gates (which had me humming the music to 'Jurrasic Park'), stopped the other side for toilet breaks and for Bjorn to pay the entrance fee. I turned on my camera to take a photo of the main gate and...'Lens Error', The lens came out, then wouldn't go back in. This had happened before, but normally turning it off and on again sorted the problem. Not this time. Nosiree. It's totally screwed. So, the one time I thought I'd be taking lots of photos, well, I'm not at all. I'd had a rubbish night's sleep and, while I initially laughed at the improbability of the timing, after the third person asked me if I had a problem with my camera, I honestly felt like bursting into tears. You know that thing where you don't want to say anything because you think your voice might crack? Rubbish, I know, but there you go.

I spent the first part of the game drive fiddling with it, taking it apart, then spent lunch at the camp, doing the same. It was by turns touching and irritating having to explain to almost every person in the group just what was wrong and what I was trying to do to fix it. Bless them, everyone was being so helpful, but when you hear 'Have you tried turning it off and on again' for the fifteenth time, I was exploding on the inside, whilst remaining cordial on the outside. Heather, one of the Australian girls even offered me her camera, saying, 'Look, use mine. You take much better photos that me.' Really touching. Bjorn did the old 'kick you in the bollocks while shaking your hand' thing again. He told me we're in Windhoek in three days, which does have a camera shop...but it'll be a Sunday, so it'll be closed. We might be able to visit if it opens 8am on Monday, but 9am will be too late. The only other hope, then, is Mauun, which is the self-proclaimed 'Gateway to the Okavango Delta'. My plan is to simply purchase an identical camera and hang the expense. For now, my tent-mate has lent me his spare camera – a 7MP compact. It's better than nothing.

After lunch, we headed out on a game drive, with me still fiddling with my defunct camera. An hour in, Radda, my Swiss seat-mate mentioned she'd once lost a camera in South America, and it was at that point I had a word with myself and put my camera away. It kinda dawned on me that it wasn't the end of the world. My dear sis and (now) brother-in-law had their camera removed at knife-point in Paraguay, after three months of their round-the-world trip in South America. They lost not only the camera, but the memory card containing all their photos of South America, including those when they got engaged on the salt flats in Bolivia. They were probably a tad more stoi about it. So yes, it could be worse.

It also led me to question just what I wanted from the game park. Was I here to see animals, or to photograph them? A few years ago, I'd be excited at simply seeing the animals, and perhaps snapping a few on a small camera. Now, though, my emphasis seems to be on the photographs – the photography. So, it's time to shift that, and appreciate what I see for what it is, rather than what I can capture in a picture. I've just been down to the waterhole and seen a mother and baby rhino drinking, and I actually spent time watching and listening, rather than composing and fiddling. Quite refreshing, really. And on that ever-so-optimistic note, bed.