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Published: March 18th 2005
Northern Namibia - Caprivi to Swakopmund.
Whoah dude, Utah Rocks. Moab is soooo cool. Uh oh, Reality check. We are still in Africa, although I have to keep reminding myself, because it feels more like the Southwest USA. Swakopmund is a beautiful tourist town - ok, so they don’t have the Slickrock trail and the Porcupine Rim, or any Ellesworths or Santa Cruz Blurs to rent, but they do have the ocean, the dunes of the Namib desert, sunshine, cool sea breezes, beautiful authentic German architecture, great restaurants, clean streets, cafes, bookshops and even the Brauhaus that sells Erdinger Weissbeer, rather than rather insipid local draught brew. In short I want to retire here (although if they could find some slickrock out back that would be even better).
By European standards Namibia is a vast country - I don’t have the guidebook to hand so I can’t give exact figures, but you know, it is bigger than Wales and all that. And there are only 1.8m people (I think). The low trees and shrub that we have traveled through from Kenya petered out as we approached Etosha National park and has now been replaced by desert, wild mountains, dunes
and rocks. Potholed roads, also a symptom of many of the places we have been, have largely disappeared, and been replaced by long straight stretches of smooth tarmac. Even the dirt and salt roads are well-graded and pleasant to drive along.
Suddenly the supermarkets are well stocked. Prices have normalized, so whilst fresh vegetables are now more expensive than we were buying them at local markets in Malawi or Uganda, luxury items such as cheese (of all varieties), mushrooms, bacon, ready-made sauces, olives, wine etc that are very expensive or non-existent elsewhere, are more reasonably priced and affordable within our increased budget. So, given the high standard of culinary ability of the passengers we have been having sumptuous feasts - our cook team's Thai curry was very passable, and our lively French-Canadian oversaw the creation of the most exquisite Bouef Bourguignon. My waistline that had reduced over the last two months has sadly grown again.
The nine days it took us to traverse the lands from the Caprivi strip to the Atlantic coast were actually one of the most tiring sections of the trip. This was due to a combination of moving on every day plus many pre-dawn
Waterhole
By our campsitestarts for game drives or sunrises. However, unlike the Tanzania section where it was clearly very tough and you knew you would get tired, in Namibia we have been off the truck a lot doing various activities, and so the tiredness has crept up on people. Additionally our relaxed mood led to later nights, and we were also unlucky in having several nights where sleep was interrupted - first by fat beery South Africans burping and farting, then the Camp disco continuing until one in the morning despite a complete lack of punters, then a group of slightly too lively upper-middle-class Anglo-African women arguing about nonsense, then a Honey Badger raiding our rubbish bins, then the usual howling dogs, barking dogs, dogs trying to get into the tent … the list goes on.
Kudos to Paul the driver, who has run this section of the trip on his own, showing little sign of fatigue at all. Whilst the passengers have been grabbing what sleep and rest they can in the back of the truck he has been trundling away, day in, day out. We even offered to forfeit one of the Etosha game drives (there were plenty) to give
The Driver
Frightened by the real world? Confused about your sexuality? Lost that major modelling contract? Why not be an overland truck driver? him some chance to recover but his response was “No, I like game-driving. I’m going anyway even if you don’t come.”
After leaving Botswana we drove along the west edge of the Caprivi strip, and then Northwest, following the course of the Okavango river upstream, with Angola on our right hand side the whole way. That night we stayed in a lovely campsite overlooking the river and into Angola, literally a stones throw away. The next day we headed for Etosha National park, via the worlds largest intact meteorite and a lake in a sink-hole where the Germans ditched lots of weapons during the first world war.
The now ubiquitous Getaway magazine ranks Etosha as the second best game park in Africa, after Moremi but ahead of South Luangwe and Kruger. I actually think their rankings are quite accurate, but really they should know, shouldn’t they ? We had the equivalent of three days in Etosha, moving between three campsites and managing six game drives in the truck. Each campsite boasted a floodlit water-hole and here we saw the nocturnal activities of elephants, rhinos, owls, jackals, and for those hardy souls who stayed up to nearly three in
the morning, lions.
The great advantage of Etosha over many of the other parks is its relative lack of vegetation. The centre of the park is a vast salt-pan, wild, empty and hauntingly beautiful. Understandably we saw very little wildlife out on the pan, and that which we did stuck pretty close to the edges. However when we drove the truck onto a viewing area stuck out about 500m into the pan, we saw animal tracks heading of into the centre.
The rest of the park is low scrub and trees, but with many stony open spaces and waterholes, so you can often see a long way. On many of our drives we saw very little - a complete absence of wildlife even at the waterholes. However on many of our drives we saw an awful lot, including a hyena eating a fresh Springbok kill whilst being harassed by two jackals, lots of zebra, wildebeest, impala and springbok “migrating” together at sunset for some reason (one night when we were watching the waterhole we saw a line of running zebra silhouetted near the tree-line - they kept coming for several minutes, all running at the same pace, single
file, left to right across our field of view - very odd). We also saw a couple of lions and a white rhino our in the bush. So on the whole, despite it being wet season, our Etosha experience was really very satisfying.
The next two days were bewilderingly short drives, something that puzzled us, as previously in the trip it was clear that our driver had a preference for merging two short days drive into one, to allow time for more exploration and activity where possible. As usual he had pulled a fast one, and our surprise campsite was the aptly named “Cheetah Park”, sending some of our members into a state of suppressed frenzy.
Wild cheetahs are common across Namibia, and cause a great problem for farmers, who tend to solve the problem by the simple expedient of shooting them. Cheetahs are not on the endangered list as there are several thousand worldwide, but most of these are actually in Namibia. In game parks further North Cheetahs are dying out as every time they try to sneak up on some unwary prey a host of tourist laden Toyota landcruisers descend on them, alerting the prey that
something is up. Cheetah Park came about when a family of farmers, fed up of losing their livestock to these animals, decided if you can’t beat them, join them. So now they offer a significant payment for any farmer who has a cheetah preying on their land, and then the Cheetah park staff come and catch the offending beast and add it to their collection that roam relatively freely across the parks fenced-in lands. Thanks no-doubt in part to the overland truck circuit they now have the makings of a reasonable business, although apparently Cheetahs take a lot of feeding. As you can see from the photos we were privileged to watch this process, in which you realize these cuddly cats really are vicious predators and not to be underestimated at all.
From Cheetah Park we headed into the wild beauty of Darmaland on the way to the Skeleton coast. On the way we stopped at “cave” drawings between 2000 and 6000 years old, amongst the oldest on the planet, visited some small basalt pillars at the “Valley of the Organ Pipes” (no Fingal’s Cave I’m afraid) and the Burnt Mountain, which was a small volcanic slagheap, which as
a tourist attraction was frankly, rubbish - you can see more impressive examples from the windows of your average Sheffield terrace. But we didn’t dawdle and were back at our wild campsite in time to climb the nearby hills for some beautiful sunset views.
Darmaland is not protected in any way - just wild. Elephants and Desert Rhinos roam free here, although they are quite rare, as do the more common hyena, jackal and leopard. So, whilst you are pretty unlikely to encounter one of these animals there is a possibility, and hence care must be taken. That night Kim and I chose to sleep under the stars in a dome-tent style mosquito net, in order to deter scavenging hyenas. The campsite had two characterful dogs, one of which was a beautiful “Namibian Husky”. Early in the night they came to find us and tried to get into the tent as they could see through the netting, until I gave one a sharp clout on the nose. Then they decided to sleep nearby, which I was quite pleased about as it would deter hyenas - until of course the younger dog sensed something and launched into a cacophony of
barking for half an hour. Grrr.
The next day was a biggy, but great. We had voted to take a detour through the Skeleton Coast National Park, on our way to the famous granite intrusion of Spitzkoppe. Hence another dawn start was required to ensure we reached Spitzkoppe before sunset. Those first hours driving through Darmaland with the sun low provided some of the most beautiful desert scenes I have ever encountered, and I seem to have spent a fair few holidays roaming around deserts. The stunning scenery was complemented by the presence of Springbok, Oryx, Kudu and the occasional Jackal, all looking stunning standing in the barren rocky desert in the warm sunlight. Sadly Kim was asleep on my locker containing my camera bag, so that section will be just memories for me. I hope one day we can go back.
The Skeleton Coast is named on behalf of the myriad of ships that foundered and wrecked in its treacherous waters. If you survived the process of the ship sinking, you were almost certain not to survive the barren landscape you found yourself in - one of the bleakest and inhospitable I have ever come across. In
the course of our drive through we stopped at the remnants of an oil rig, somehow carried about a kilometer inland, and the bones of a small tug or fishing boat. At this location six of us piled into the cold Atlantic to make the refreshing and exuberant statement that we had traversed Africa East to West (how many times do you traverse a continent like this ? I have done it once before, in North America, and hope to do it again shortly on the Trans-Siberian.) It really felt quite special for our ocean-fall to be at such a barren, wild and beautiful place.
We left the park and stopped for half an hour at the very smell Cape Cross Seal Colony, lots and lots of sea-lions doing lots and lots of daft sea-liony type things. Great to watch but it took a proper launderette (something Namibia has) to get the smell from our clothes. Then after shopping we headed two hours back inland through flat desert to the series of granite inselbergs, the largest of which is well-known as Spitzkoppe.
Initially I was not that impressed. Paul the Driver stopped the truck and shouted - Stop
Sleeping, this is spectacular. At first we weren’t really sure if what we were looking at was really it - it didn’t look big enough (Spitzkoppe is supposed to rise ~700m from the surrounding plain). As we drove closer it appeared bigger (funny thing, Physics), and when we reached our campsite right under the main face I had to think, ok, this is pretty cool. We had a couple of hours before sunset so Kim and I went on a reccy for photo locations. This led to us trying to circumnavigate the inselberg (try saying that when you’re drunk), which in turn led to us getting stuck amidst huge boulders on an innocuous looking col, and having to turn back. It was still a good trek, and we saw only one other person on the way.
We got back to find the truck moved after an aggressive bit of territorial possession by a South African tourist, prompting a rendition of that timeless Spitting Image song, and the occupants spread out atop granite outcrops at various heights ready for the sunset, which was duly beautiful and stunning. That night we were treated to the aforementioned beef stew, and Matt and
I played with our digital cameras taking long exposure pictures of nearby galaxies (in his case) and rude flashlight trails (in my case). Ah, the beauty of nature.
Next morning Kim and I rose an hour before dawn to climb to the summit of one of Spitzkoppe’s lower peaks to witness sunrise (which we actually did from the col, reaching the summit about half an hour after). We got back in time for breakfast and then headed off to reach Swakopmund about lunchtime. I was really sad to leave that place … but the modern luxuries of Swakopmund have won me over.
Two observations:
*Don’t try getting anything meaningful out of someone who has just sky-dived for the first time. They will just stand there grinning inanely at you, and/or giggling.
*We are very much on the South West Africa overland circuit now, and the number of trucks we encounter has increased. I can think of nothing that demonstrates the subjectivity of existence as well as the behaviour of passengers when two overland trucks pass each other in a campsite, most usually when one is already established and the other is driving in. Both sets of people
will stare, unashamedly, almost open-mouthed, in an Ostrich-like belief that because they are within the microcosm of their fellows their rudeness cannot be seen. Clearly there are some technical reasons for this behavior, as those of the same sexual-preference can assess and compare for reference, but generally I think it is just idle curiosity with a tinge of territorial tribalism that is being expressed. Of course, as with everything, I do it myself.
This afternoon I have succumbed to the marketing pressures to go Quadbiking on the nearby sand-dunes, and tomorrow we head off for the giant dunes of Soussovlei, in the middle of the Namib desert.
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Elza
non-member comment
Hi
You have some amazing pictures...