South Africa and Namibia

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Arrived in Cape Town, a little stressed from the travelling and worried I’d miss our pre-departure meeting. Fortunately everything was pretty quick and I found a taxi really easily. Although I couldn’t venture into Cape Town much, due to leaving early the next morning, it seemed like a really nice city, quite European in parts with districts where the touristy areas are, more than others. The waterfront was something else, complete with flamingos next to golf courses with what felt like a cold Scottish Easterly breeze coming off the coastline. I will definitely have to revisit and climb table mountain and explore the city far more.

Day 2 started the 10500+km to Nairobi. It was great meeting everyone on our trip and checking out the scenery of South Africa. The ground was much lighter in colour here, more a yellowy sand, I was used to seeing the redness of the soil in Eastern Africa from my previous Kenya/ Uganda trip. This gave the area a much lighter calmer appearance. First thoughts of a place area always interesting as to what sticks into your mind the most and here was no exception. I am used to seeing cows and sheep sharing fields however South Africa have cows and ostriches sharing, who would have thought that would work, but somehow it does and well, apparently.

Our first stop of the tour was at a South African wine orchard, complete with a wine tasting session. I am not normally too fussed about wines but these were much sweeter than European wines which is why I really liked them. I was particularly impressed by the traditional South African wine called a pinotage.

Next day we were off to the border of South Africa and Namibia. Here on the orange river, the land suddenly seemed much harsher and dryer. The cool nights we had been accustomed to in the wine region and Cape Town was no longer protecting us from the heat and the roads became dirt track dusty roads with epic mountainous rocks on either side. It looked like a moonscape. This was real Africa and a taster of what lay ahead when we would cross into Namibia and onto the Namib desert.

The days travel across Namibia was something I have never seen before, the ground became a much redder colour very close to what you expect Mars to be like. I was half expecting to see Matt Damon emerging on a martian buggy. As we meandered along the deserts dusty roads, we passed barely anyone and it became clear as to the limited population Namibia has with only 2 million citizens spread across the whole country. At one stage we passed a Spar supermarket, which looked like it had been plonked in the wrong place and was missing a city. It was right in the desert, with only a small village of wooden shacks as a local market.

We finally reached our desert campsite pitched our tents on the sand (one of many similar tent sites to come) and headed to the second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon, Fish River Canyon. Unlike the Grand Canyon, which I am yet to see, but I imagine would be pretty busy with planes and buses passing by it each day, this was a canyon in the middle of nowhere with incredible scenery and craters which we had all to ourselves!! We walked around part of it, stopping to take way too many pictures, which probably won’t do it justice and ended up having tea over-looking the canyon and seeing the sunset.

During the winter months, it is meant to get colder in the Namib desert, so we were told, with wash buckets filled with water being covered in ice the next morning however the desert days certainly did not have that, what seems like luxury, in store for us. By the time we were heading for Sossusvlei the temperature was comfortably in the 40’s (Celsius) and over the coming days it would not let off. I did feel a distinct difference from Namibia heat and Fiji heat and that was the humidity. On hot days in Fiji, which would reach in the high 30’s, you felt as though you were sweating out your body weight in water. Each day 4.5-5 litres of water still made you feel like you needed to drink more. In Namibia, although it is hotter there is no humidity, so you definitely need moisturiser for the skin and only 1.5-2 litres of water to drink.

By the time we got to Sossusvlei and pitched our tents the only thing we could do was sit in a pool overlooking the desert. Conveniently enough there was a pool for this very thing J the next day was an early start with a trip to Dune 45 in Sossus dune region. We climbed this at 6.30am and by 7am we were already feeling the heat. The dune sand was so soft and it was incredible to see how this landscape somehow creates these sand mountains purely from the desert sand. They look like U-shaped valleys with the flat gravel desert features which climb up to large steep hills of orangey red sand. We felt so unprepared as we climbed barefoot up the hill to get the best pictures, only to have older Japanese tourists walking up in full mountain climbing gear, complete with gaiters and walking boots- totally unnecessary and must have been epically warm.

Later we headed for the dead trees- Deadvlei, which was a jeep drive away, courtesy of Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR) further in the desert. These trees were incredible and had been the way they were for hundreds of years. At the time the seas had covered that part of the desert, there was a limestone base and as the seas dried up trees grew on the exposed limestone, however as the water in the limestone rock also dried out, so did the trees. It left them preserved like you see peatbogs leaving vegetation or animal traces preserved, albeit very dry and splintery remains, totally bizarre and extremely unique.

The next night was spent in the desert with a watering hole where zebras and orax came to drink. Occasionally the orax would fight amongst themselves or push the zebras away, but the zebra herd were really fascinating to watch. One- possibly the leader would go up first whilst others would slowly follow keeping an eye out, others would stay in the background and keep watch. Any noise would startle them and would cause the herd to occasionally run away in panic, leaving you needing to remain completely motionless to watch them. I never knew how much zebras farted though- the gas coming out of them could probably power our campsite!! At one point one zebra let rip and it made all the other zebras (including the zebra that farted) sharply look up as if to say ‘what was that’! Some ran away whilst others just kept looking around. I wondered if they thought it was a predator and that’s why they looked up, or if they were just shocked by the noise by one of their fellow group. It was tricky to not laugh at that point- farts are always funny- even startled zebra farts.

Following this day we headed to the city of Swakopmund, which is regarded as Namibia’s activity city. Again the city felt quite European in one sense and the sea front often had a mist over it, similar to Aberdeen. The key difference was just outside it was extreme heat and desert. Here we managed to go out into the desert on quad bikes and see some stunning desert landscapes. Although sandy the shades and sand hills are extraordinary to see. The next day, I braved my nerves and headed out to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but never felt like I had the nerves for….. a skydive!! This was incredible and I am thrilled I did it. The plane could only take 6 skydivers at a time, so me, my skydiving leader and photographer and the same again. It took 25 minutes to get up to 10 000ft before we dropped out of the sky. The feeling was something that is difficult to describe as nothing can prepare you for the feeling of dropping out of a plane. Gravity seems a lot stronger at that moment and your stomach feels like it has been left behind!! Instantly the rush of the air makes it tricky to breathe and at the time you start to get used to the feeling the parachute had been pulled and you are zooming back up into the sky again. The rest of the journey down is nice and slow and feels more like flying. I took the reigns of the parachute for a short time, which was tricky to steer but exciting to feel briefly in control. The landing was so easy and the lead skydiver- the guy you’re strapped to, made it seem so effortless and simple.

The next day we were back to the desert, with a brief stop at the Damara tribe living museum, to see how people used to live in the desert. The villagers spoke Damaran, which feature a lot of clicks and tongue ticking at the top of your mouth. Pretty cool and certainly not a language you would hear often. They showed us which plants they can use in the desert for medicinal purposes, a game (unpronounceable as it is in Damaran) which chiefs used to play to gamble on their villages, something that must have been annoying for the rest of the village, and how they made fires using dung, grass and sticks, which amazingly enough works. It’s amazing how useful poo can be!

Etosha National park was next, this started with an afternoon game drive and then an early morning drive the next day. Because it is still very dry, the best places to see any animals were at the watering holes. Over the course of two days, we saw black rhino, giraffe, wildebeest, springbok, orax, kudu, zebra, ostrich, a herd of elephants, complete with baby elephants, spotted hyenas, lions and black backed jackal, We also saw rhinos, springbok and giraffes at our watering hole beside our camp site on our first evening, but rhinos and giraffes are much politer at watering holes than zebras. On our night drive we were fortunate enough to clearly see lions, even two lions getting ready to mate- sadly we didn’t have any smooth jazz to play to them, so we left them to it. A lion mating session often takes 5 seconds, but they attempt mating over 50 times a day, according to our guide!! We also saw spotted hyenas, flat tailed fox a bull elephant and black rhinos. One of the highlights was actually seeing jackal eating a dead zebra. Our camp site was full of jackal but they looked pretty sweet and innocent, but put a dead piece of meat in front of them and wow the noises they make makes you think they are hyenas.

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