Dunes and waterholes

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Namibia

Windhoek was like arriving in the emerald city after the adventurous journey, a great relief to finally have made it. The city itself was rather more like a village despite being the capital, but it was a completely different world from where we had been the previous month…it was clean and tidy, no boisterous vendors greeting us off the bus, there were air conditioned indoor shopping malls and clearly plenty of money there, as the trip progressed we were to find out how important money would become.

Following various pieces of advice we decided to hire a car as the public transport system was non-existent, and despite the normal delays at the rental place, ‘Africa time’, we left having been upgraded to a 4WD (that would be useful on some of the terrible gravel roads that they have in these parts). We had 11 days to do a whistle-stop tour of the country, it was decided to attack the scenic highlights first and finish on safari once more this time in Etosha NP in the north of the country.

First on the list was the spectacular Fish River canyon, the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon. It certainly lived up to its billing…it was very large! But also a spectacular sight in what was a stunning and remote part of the country. Interesting to note though that it costs US$15 for a 7-day pass to visit the Grand Canyon, to visit Fish River for one day the generous Namibian government considers US$30 to be reasonable! Our first taste of the costs in these parts! Nonetheless it was a very worthwhile trip.

Much of southern Namibia is covered by the Namib Desert (makes sense!) which is characterized by its large colourful dunes and being one of the driest places on the planet. Enter Freeman / Markwell!!! It was an incredible drive in the evening sun to arrive at the location of the dunes, absolutely stunning. We were able to sneak a campsite at the best location for accessing the early morning sunlight, again this was a national park so the going rate for two people camping here was US$100!!! Yep that’s right, oh well it would be worth it to get the colours from the sunrise, one of the great wonders of the world. Matt thought he was dreaming when he felt raindrops on the tent in the night - surely not possible in this part of the world, and you can imagine the delight of a cloudy morning to greet us after that 4.30am start…keeps the sunburn at bay though!

Despite the overcast start to the day, and the fact that our 4x4 got stuck in the sand for a short time before digging ourselves out, the scenery was still fantastic, and we enjoyed watching a pack of jackals and ostriches going about their lives in the dunes. The sun did break through in the morning just in time for us to get seriously hot in on a short walk, but that did really bring the place alive.

Hiking in the Naukluft mountains followed our little dunes adventure and the weather was back to its searing best. We followed the waterkloof trail which was a beautiful loop through some mountains following a river most of the way (and there was even some water in parts - odd as every other river in Namibia at this time of the year is completely dry), the local fauna was also out and we saw the rare mountain zebra en route into the park, and then little antelope called klipspringer, kudu and baboons on the walk…our hot and sweaty bodies towards the end were cooled with a dip in a lovely pool (ok it was our first ever skinny dipping session but promise there is no photographic evidence!).

Our route then took us to the Germanic resort town of Swampkomund (the “swak” as a certain British couple we met liked to call it...oh dear), and a return to civilization, we had a bed for the first time after 18 nights under canvas…heaven. Swak was a pleasant if bloody cold place on the Atlantic coast; with a wind that tore through the place every day. We took the chance to initially have a break and Lynda was in doggy heaven with the three residents at the hostel we stayed at.After a day of ‘chilling’ (literally) we participated in a couple of the adventure pursuits that the town is renowned for - sand boarding and quad biking.

The sand boarding basically means finding a very steep dune and sliding down it on a plank (we opted for the less technical lying down approach); the dune was very steep and we went very fast! Quad biking (ATV’s for the North Americans) was also a great evening trip through the dunes; scenery was amazing, driving was fun and we both jumped on the back of a local guy’s bike which was extra fast for an adrenaline ride - Matt claims never to have hugged a man so tight! The only downside was that once again the weather was not cooperative and after a stunning initial part to the tour, cloud came in to obscure the sunset, and it was unbelievably cold…again! Oh, and somehow matt managed to have to bail from his bike, not sure quite what was happening there!!!

After the fun in the sand we headed away from civilization for a couple of days through western and northern Namibia, en route for more safari adventures. We drove up the bleak skeleton coast, first visiting a huge seal colony at Cape Cross. There were thousands of seals, most had newly born pups and the noise was terrific as they squabbled amongst each other and the aroma…well lets just say it was very aromatic!! Heading inland through a desert region called Damaraland was very scenic; barren, red earth, straight roads, the scenic highlight was perhaps Spitzkoppe (rugged rock formations, which a few bushmen had scribbled on). We also thoroughly enjoyed visiting various other galleries of rock art (some paintings and some rock engravings that had apparently been there for thousands of years), and were delighted to see some desert elephants (they are basically the same as other elephants that we saw but truly wild and slightly smaller due to the sparcity of the food that they eat). Continued camping to help the coffers, and managed to maintain usage of our plastic utensils; eating cornflakes with a plastic fork and spreading jam with fingers (that’s straight out of the red cross guide to hygienic travel in Africa that one!).

The far northwestern region of the country is famed for its indigenous population, a culture known as the Himba. We stayed in the area and visited a local village; now the culture is primitive and they are renowned for covering their bodies in a red ochre butter (which keeps the sun and insects at bay) and also not wearing many clothes (well, the ladies anyway, the chaps are quite comfortable in shorts and t-shirts!). Fascinating to see people still existing in such ways, and most amusing when the palest lady in the country (err Lynda) had her face painted in the red ochre...quite a contrast to the rest of her skin!!!

Final stop in this fabulously beautiful country was in the Etosha National Park for a couple more days on safari. This was another spectacular park and yet again scenically different from where we had been before; the park was dominated by the Etosha pan (a vast flat salt pan and a real lunar landscape), and the bush was very sparse, so that it was a real wonder that anything managed to survive there…but it did in truck loads, especially next to the various waterholes that were present. Our daily drives were reasonably successful (except when the hire car broke down) seeing vast herds of zebra and other antelope on the plains, also plenty of giraffe, ostrich etc. Also managed to see the spotted hyena by day which is quite unusual, loads of jackals and right at the very end two large male lions eyeing up their prey at a waterhole. The real gem however was the nighttime activity at the waterholes…there was a floodlight one by our camp and it was all we could do to actually go to bed such was the activity. On the first night it was a wildlife who’s who; first up a herd of elephant were quenching their thirst and as soon as they sauntered off a white rhino appeared. Shortly thereafter a pride of six lions arrived, and if that wasn’t enough a leopard and cub slunk in out of the dark. It got really entertaining when the lions chased off the leopards, and then a rhino came back and chased away the lions…we left the waterhole shortly before 1 am with a solitary rhino still hanging around. Our second night followed on where we had left the previous evening; the night was dominated by a large herd of elephants for several hours, including we believe the birth of one baby…its first steps were straight out of the ministry of silly walks…despite their presence a pack of hyena still loitered, and three more lion came and went, but it was only after the elephants finally departed that four black rhino wandered in for a late drink (two calves with mothers). It really was like being in a zoo.

A great way to leave a great destination, a true highlight of a great continent.

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Comments

[Joools]

Wow!
Tessa always said Namibia was her favourite bit of Africa and your photos only go to reinforce that! Looks amazing! I spent the day traipsing round NY with friends that are in town - good fun but queuing for 45 minutes in Abercrombie doesn't quite equate to sitting by a floodlit waterhole! :-(