Namibia is the closest country to Cape Town, we’ve travelled on the “Cape Namibia Route” many times yet, in four years, never put together a plan to go! This all changed when our friends from Glasgow, Scotland, Sue and Iain Macdonald decided to come and visit us for a second time. Iain has had a book about Namibia since the early 90’s and is keen to put it to some use. Angelka has painstakingly put together a twelve day itinerary, plaugerising significant tour operator itineraries, saving 30-50% of their costs, and here we are in Windhoek, after a short flight of just under two hours.
The roads of Namibia are the stuff of folklore, unmetalled, in poor condition and you need a very solid 4x4, of choice, to try and avoid the tales of multiple punctures. We’d chosen a Toyota Fortuner and popped in to Hertz, Cape Town office to ensure we’d get one. Needless to say, best laid plans... we end up with an Isuzu which they claim is an upgrade! We reluctantly head off reassured it will be replaced the following morning.
Downtown Windhoek is very civilised, a roof top bar at our Hilton hotel shows off the city, a high rise business district, lots of SA brands and banks, pretty normal stuff. The first thing to strike you is the people. They are delightful, a real can do attitude, and good fun to get in to conversation with. We take a walk down town, it’s not a city of attractions, however, the German church, Chrisuskirsche, resembles a gingerbread house and is very cool. The temperature is around 100F, it’s dry but, hot. It’s unusual to see huge memorials to German soldiers who have died in the many wars, however, Namibia was once a German colony, the language is still apparent and German culture is honoured at most bakeries and on menus. A lot of the tourists are German with some having holiday homes here, on the west coast.
The following morning is to be the start of our adventure as we head to Soussusvlei, home to a park that features the huge dunes Namibia is famous for, as well as Deadvlei, a huge dried up lake that has skeletal trees dotted over its pan, you’ll recognise the photos when you see them!
There are obviously close political and financial ties with SA, this is a little inconsistent, you need a passport to enter, the two currencies have the same value and can both be used, but, you cannot buy duty free in SA to take to Namibia! We have brought a cooler box with us and visit the local shopping mall to stock up. South Africa’s Pick n Pay is there with lots of other SA shopping brands. Ironically, the booze we wanted from duty free was cheaper in the Windhoek shops. It was great to see the shoppers in The capital. Namibia appears to be transformed, equality and earning potential equal amongst its citizens. When you travel Africa you do note SA’s backward reluctance to transformation.
The people are a delight. Wesley, the boss of Hertz has driven a Fortuner in to town for us to exchange, only for us to realise, sheepishly, that what they had given us was best! He says that he’s never had a puncture with our tyre brand!
Our journey is to be over 310kms on both tarmac and unmetalled roads. We stop for coffee in the first main town, they still only have filter! Once we hit the rutted roads you realise the problem is corrugation, the way to drive it is reasonably quickly, say 80kms per hour to reduce the buffeting! When you follow a car it’s amazing to watch suspension and axles moving so quickly!The scenery is breathtaking, no two mountains the same, the early part looking like Sedona in Arizona before becoming something completely different. A tour guide who would be a geologist would be perfect, it’s fascinating. Apart from a stop at Solitaire, a petrol, cafe, bakery and accommodation, we plough on until reaching Kuisev Pass, it looked like the Rift Valley in Jordan, just gorgeous, again strata and mountains that capture the imagination. We had decided to point out, and note, the many different animal species we saw. In theory a good idea, however, there are lots of Oryx and we decided to stop frequently shouting out “Oryx” in case people thought us a car full of people with Tourette’s!
Having set off at 10.30, we arrived at 4.30, only the last few Kim’s being really hard going in the car. We are staying in a desert camp, where a very welcome cold beer goes down a treat. We also get WiFi and a plethora of What’s App messages from Rory, my son, tell me of Aston Villa’s frequent goals at Norwich, his notices and goal videos arriving quicker than the BBC!
Day 2 starts with a 4.30am alarm call as we are taking a hot air balloon flight at 5.30. The night sky looked tremendous and we stopped on the road, there were no lights and above us the most amazing celestial abundance, such a treat to see in a place with so little lighting.
This is our third “flight”, Sue and Iain’s first. Apart from the burner, not to mention our Turkish pilot, Ceran, frequent observations, it is so serene to float above the massive sand dunes, desert and the early morning sunrise. It’s a perfect morning, to the extent that he puts the balloon down on the trailer bed that it’s transported to the site upon. It’s also only 100 metres from where they have set up a champagne breakfast, as you do! There have been three balloons flying, so we sit with our other passengers, 12 in total, on a table, exchanging our international tales of where we’ve come from and, are going next! We sit with a delightful Indian family who are roaming Southern Africa, next stop Cape Town!
We’ve moved hotels to an excellent lodge at the gates to the Sossusvlei National Park. Unlike the roads leading to it, it’s tarmac, the relief! After a drive of 45 Km’s we come to Dune 45, who’d have thought!! It’s 30+C, climbing up the dune is tiring, each footstep falls away from your pressure as you try to straddle the pinnacle line left by the wind. The surrounding desert and dunes are a wild palette of colour, all under a cobalt blue sky. It is such a sight!
Next stop, at the end of this valley, is the largest sand dune, “Big Daddy”. We are all agreed it’s too hot to climb however, next to it is Deadvlei, a much photographed dried up lake, leaving what looks like salt deposits and skeletons of trees created by the dearth of water. It’s quite an earie place. We are lucky to be here alone, there are not too many tourists and we all get lost in this vast expanse. The simplicity of the colours is very striking, ochre sand, cobalt sky, white salt and black trees. We are encouraged to park up in a 4x4 car park and use the tourist truck, a sound idea when we help release two vehicles trapped in the sand!
We return to the park’s entrance to visit the Sesriem Canyon. Amazing that in such an arid place, water once eroded a canyon, with its great volume. It’s a little similar, once more, to Petra in Jordan. All of these attractions are simple, no signposts, toilet blocks, fast food.....
Our fourth day sees us double back on ourselves to Solitaire, establishes by a Canadian with a Scottish name, ginger beard and gait, where the coffee is surprisingly good! The Apple pie is legendary, albeit, we think it nice rather than great. We are rotating driving duties and Iain is driving us to Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, which lie on the West coast. The journey is fantastic, ignoring the corrugation for much of it, the mountains all appear to be a different strata, a lunar landscape of tangled, twisted granite. We pass over the Tropic of Capricorn, a signpost bedecked in stickers from all over the world.It’s incredibly attractive, a real wow. Namibia is a fascinating country, the landscape spectacular but, incredibly varied. As we head to the coast, the landscape becomes desert, wind blowing it across the road and clouds starting to dot the sky. Walvis Bay is an industrial, commercial town, the country’s main port. It’s not a tourist resort, hence the journey up to Swakopmund, which is. Walvis Bay is home to a huge number of pink Flamingos. We find hundreds on the coastline, padding the silt to try and get grub to come to the surface, it’s a great sight.
We are staying at Swakopmund, it’s a sleepy town, very few buildings over one story, however, neat and tidy and our hotel’s interior design wouldn’t have it out of place in NE United States. Dinner is a case of trying to find a dish and bottle of wine which, while featured on the menu, is actually available!! We are here to fish, shore fishing. There’s an international completion going on. It sounded dreadfully boring when I booked it as a gift for Iain’s birthday, however, bumping in to shore fishermen taking our flight from Cape Town, changed that. The competition is to try to catch shark from 60-200kgs!!
Our host, Shane, gets us all set up, it’s foggy, grey and chilly, not unusual for this part of the world. He can cast from 50-120m and tells us how to fish. When you get a bite, you don’t strike, after all your line is 50m away, you wait for exaggerated tugs and then reel it in. Fortunately, Iain caught the biggest fish while I was lucky to catch the largest number of species. My shark turned out to be only 2 weeks old, but, a “banjo” shark gave me a good fight. Anything under 40cms had to go back. Shame, our host, is most impressed by our tyres, having driven up and down the sandy shore in our hire car. He’s surprised a rental company has put such expensive tyres on a hire car! We really enjoyed it and took our fisherman’s tales back to the hotel before the next stage of the journey.
We were headed to Spitzkoppe, the second tallest mountain in Namibia. From a long distance away it looked like a pyramid. It was, relatively, a short two hour trip and we arrived at the most fantastic lodge set beneath the mountain. Bespoke cabins, interlinked by walkways, watching the sunset cast shadows on the mountain was magical, we were all captured by the location and accommodation. It’s one of those places where the troubles of life, the world, disappear and you marvel at the existence of nature.
We are up to Day 6, wondering why it had taken us so long to visit this marvelous country? It was another long drive to our next stop, Camp Kipwe, which is further to the north, it took over 4 hours, creating a huge plume of dust behind us as we went!
Having been captivated by Spitzkoppen Lodge we were surprised that we liked this destination even more. The rooms, in the Ovahimba style, had all been built in to a mountain, with outdoor showers and bathrooms, staff were delightful and Iain could put his “Birds of Namibia” book to even more use as he bagged species after species! He’s already over 20!
Most days we’ve been headed for bed by 9.30pm, the heat is tiring, as is sitting in the car for long hours. As a result, early starts are not a problem.
Day 7 is a 6.00am breakfast before tracking to find elephants. Wildlife, in general, is struggling with the drought. Much of Namibia not having seen rain for two years. Cows are a liability so, they’ve been replaced by the more hardy goats while wildlife knows where to get water so, it’s a case of finding a source and seeing which footprints determine the nearest species. The elephants are desert adapted and arrived marching down a hill as they have been in the mountains overnight, where it’s warmer.
We spent a couple of hours amongst them, a troop of over 10. The bull is ostracized until one of the cows are in season, the family units see Mums with their daughters and sons. They feed from bushes and threes, eating bark for fibre and leaves for nutrition. The youngsters before tired and lie down for a morning snooze while Mum, lowers her trunk to make a fifth leg and dozed upright. We were so close to them we could hear the youngster gently snoring! How “hunters” can be allowed to kill these magnificent cheaters to satisfy their monied egos beggars belief, it incenses me!?
That afternoon we visited a burnt mountain, it looked like a slag heap to me, organ pipes, basalt tubes of rock replicating the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. We also saw some cave painting, at Twyfelfontein, dating from 2-6000 years ago. This painting was communication. Water holes were identified, the birds and animals of the region detailed for the next nomadic tribe.
Day 8 sees us take a long drive to Opuwo, I say long, over 400 kms. Much of it was good, rutted roads, they are often planed and you look for the most recent surface for the smoothest ride. Every journey to date has enjoyed magnificent scenery, however, this one was long and tedious, the last 240kms being on a tarmac road with never ending straights with a mirage in front, and behind! We had stopped for coffee en route, found strong WiFi which lead to numerous interactions with the world pinging through! Kipwe had next to no WiFi and we all had “admin” that needed to be taken care of!
We are now less than 50 kms from the Angolan border, it’s certainly less sophisticated, however, we are here to observe the Himba people who came to prominence a couple of decades ago when National Geographic wrote about them. That, and, finally, drink Jargermeister, which is the most successful import, by Namibia, to the world, I doubt I’ll drink it again!
As with most civilizations, it’s the Nimba women who truly represent their culture. We visit a village, 7 of us. They are bare breasted but it is their hair, clothing and jewelry, that illustrate their culture. All three identify their status, puberty, not married, how many children, husband and family. The hair is fashioned with materials and beading to denote who they are, the jewelry around their neck, and their loin cloth and adornment, likewise. We are taught how to greet one another, learn of their skills and practices. While they are uneducated, you are humbled by their three languages, their questions to us mainly to do with age, marriage and children. They form a circle to sell us jewelry and curios, given the lack of materials and tools, great achievements. They expect to bargain, I find it incongruous to do so, I can afford what they ask for, why not give it to them. I’m pleased to see that the hotel exchange the right to visit with two big bags of maize, cooking oil and sugar which is shared amongst the women who also perform a dance to rapid handclaps, for which we have to pay. One lady wanted to braid Angelka’s hair, much to their amusement and curiosity in how it felt. The matriarch of the village made an incense, which they use as a deodorant, as well as grinding ochre pebbles to create a paint which they painted on the cheeks of Sue and Angelka. When mixed with an oil it becomes sunscreen. The lady must have been in her seventies and despite a life in searing heat, her skin was blemish free! The Govt provide bore holes to create wells, however, one is still some distance away and we distribute the water the hotel have given to us, their need far greater than ours.
Originally, this was to be the end of our holiday, however, a flight out of town every three days meant we extended by two more days. After the village we had nothing on, days filled with at least two different things, or hours in the car have us with nothing to do but relax, ah, that’s what a holiday is for! Sadly, Sue decided to head butt the pavement near our room, which left her with a black eye, a couple of grazes and dented pride, however, it could have been much worse!
Day 10 had us heading back on ourselves, south to Etosha National Park, this is Namibia’s Kruger, or Masai Mara. It had rained overnight which was much needed for the region however, this has a negative effect on the game drives. If there has been rain there is water everywhere and the animals don’t need to make for the water holes. As a result we didn’t do the afternoon drive, just relaxed, if watching Scotland lose to the Japanese, with a Scotsman, could be called relaxing. While Angelka has worries about the hotel, we all really enjoyed it, especially the food. As ever, an early start and breakfast. Day 11’s early hour was lightened by a tourist accidentally falling in to the hotel swimming pool! It had rained again and it was a very chilly start. All of the guides were saying that there was little to see. Indeed, at the main waterhole there were no animals where earlier in the week there had been 30 elephants as well as lions! However, we saw many species, at one stage our road was blocked by Springbok, Zebra and Giraffe crossing in front of us. Life does, or doesn’t continue, an elephant’s skeleton, a rhino’s recent death left the body rotting. Fortunately, neither were down to poachers, just old age and turf wars. Despite the disappointment we were not to enjoy the full effect, we saw more than enough to make us replete!
The afternoon involved driving to our final stop, the Africats conservation project in an area called Okonjima. This destination is a huge reserve where cheetahs, leopards and lions, not to mention a new project involving pangolin, are saved due to being made orphans, or from a farmers gun, and rehabilitated before being reintroduced to the wild or, kept, for their own safety, within the reserve. I say safety because they have not been brought up by parents who would have taught hunting and protection skills. The animals are reintroduced with tracking devices so that vets can observe their habits, movement and success in their natural habitat. We followed the signal for a female leopard, called Vamos, no mean feat as the rain had created dangerous flash flooding around the reserve. From the top of a big hill, overlooking the plain, we picked up her signal and, eventually found her, to then watch her stalking kudu. It was fascinating to watch the attacking and survival skills at play, in the end, she did not attack however, incredible tension and marvelous to observe. The kudu make the most enormous bark to tell the predator they know they are there and to give the impression that they are too big to mess with! It’s a wonderful organisation and the warm fires, sundowners, only missing the sun, and dinner were a fitting final stop.
Our last day had us up at 5.00am, why break the habit! This time we were to observe cheetahs; two 12 year old brothers, to whom we got very close, too close on one occasion, judging by my face on a photo. The big pens had them next to other cheetahs who they would attack in the wild to preserve access to food. A lion roars in the background before we went in to the project centre, vetinary rooms etc to learn more of this wonderful project. It really is very special. Back at The Barn, as they called the social hub, the staff had organized bubbles and cake to celebrate Iain’s 70th, delivered by a joyous snake of singing staff, hopefully, broadband will allow me to post!
That was it, a brisk drive to the airport, an argument with the car hire people about a couple of small spots on the windscreen, successfully negotiated with a firm “no”, and a tiresome trip home as were delayed by two hours as Air Namibia was broken, online platform, computer system and customer service! It would take more than their dysfunction to blot any memory from a magnificent holiday in a spectacular country.
Namibia is a “phantasmagoria”, a constantly changing series of events or scenes that shift in colour and intensity! Our itinerary is very extensive, however, it is missing Fish River Canyon to the south, close to the border with SA. We are determined to be back, making a road trip from Cape Town, for a couple of days hiking. You are very welcome to join us!!