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Published: September 14th 2007
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The second part of our independent trip was in Namibia and it was amazing!! Recommended. We landed about lunchtime on our first day and made some enquiries about car hire, our plan for Namibia. It was not reassuring. The prices were much higher than I had anticipated. In the end we ended up hiring a little VW Chico from AVIS at the airport.
So we drove off into Namibia on our own and it was a great feeling. But it was also wierd - so like Australia in terms of landscape, and conveniently they drive on the same side of the road as us in Namibia which made it much easier, but the road signs were wierd! We headed straight to Windhoek, the capital, about 45 kms away. After a bit of messing around at tourism bureaus it all got so confusing and we felt we were wasting time so we just got driving! We headed north because we had prebooked two nights accommodation in Etosha Nat Park, a notoriously difficult place to get a booking. Especially this year because the Nat Parks people are renovating all of the resorts in the park. Our first night there was supposed to
Etosha
Check out my nuts! be the night we arrived, but because of the flight delay we missed it.
We drove north and stopped en route at a local suburbian supermarket. This was our first real experience with a "car guard". We pulled in right in front of a car guard, and as we got out of our car another car guide came up and said "no, park here!" and indicated the bays that he was looking after. We didn't move but the guy said that he would also look after our car. So we went shopping and then came back and decided to give both guards a tip as that is the way it works. We gave them each N$5 ($1 Aussie is about 5 or 6 Namibian dollars). They were absolutely ecstatic. It was quite unbelievable to watch how excited they were by what is such a small amount of money back home. It lent credence to what I had heard about there being 40% unemployment in Namibia. Not sure though.
We rested at a road side rest camp that night before getting moving to Etosha early the next morning.
Etosha was amazing. We did some great game drives in east
Etosha
Ah the hard life - sitting there all day for the tourists africa, but doing it yourself in your own car is a real experience. You feel a lot closer to the wildlife. The most amazing sight was a group of 4 lions. We also saw giraffe, ostrich, heaps of zebra, wildebeest and some new things like springbok, oryx, kudu and mongooses and squirrels. The camp sites at Etosha are pretty cool too and will be even better when they are all fully renovated, although no doubt heaps more expensive.
From Etosha we headed into Damaraland. Our first stop was the Petrified Forest. It doesn't look like the usual forest you would expect, as it isn't trees standing up, rather it is just a bunch of tree trunks. But a very important lot of tree trunks! They were all apparently washed up in this place by a massive flood about 2000 years ago. It looked more like stone than wood. Evan was very impressed with this wood and took many pictures.
Next stop was Twyfelfontein where there is a world heritage site protecting a load of rock paintings. They were really amazing. According to our guide they were done by shamans and were used to educate children in the tribes
Twyfelfontein
Check out the lion's tail (its hand) about life, the universe and everything. Very interesting, but only about 600 years old which can't really compare to our Aboriginal paintings back home.
After this we moved on to Brandenburg Mountain - the highest mountain in Namibia. We weren't there to climb it - rather we went to see the Painted White Lady (which is actually a man). It was a nice walk and nice to see the paintings, but like I said before, it didn't really compare to the Aboriginal paintings we saw back home.
That night we drove to Spitzkoppe, a conservation area managed by the local tribe. It was a pretty basic camp because we arrived late - but the toasted marshmallows we had were yum! We took off to explore the wierd rock formations and did a climb a bit reminiscent of Ayers Rock - having to use a chain to get to the top. But it was worth it as the view was spectacular and there was some nice rock art to see as well. Aside from the amazing scenery (we would recommend that anyone going camp there for at least two nights as the camp sites are really nice and isolated
Spitzkoppe
The only surf Evan has had for a while all over the park area) we also had a bit of a bonus. We picked up two camping chairs which fell off the back of a truck! Well, probably off the back of someone's car anyway. We found one to start with and were concerned over the fights this would generate when we drove further and found another! They were a great find.
From Spitzkoppe we headed straight to Swakopmund, the German town on the coast, to replenish our cash and start the southern part of our trip.
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