Day 92 - 106: Namibia

Namibia is self-drive heaven. Two weeks on the open roads beckon. My preconception was that Namibia would be just an adjunct to South Africa albeit a massive, empty, destertified one. Almost immediately this was dispelled. How could I have forgotten that this used to be German South-West Africa. English comes in a poor fourth, to German, Afrikaans and whichever indigenous tongue you might prefer. The capital city of Windhoek is full of German beer, wiener schnitzel and twee churches. Some black ladies dress in the fashion of the turn of the 20th Century - no crop-tops for these gals. The music radio, our semi-constant companion around the country is all guttural Boer songs, perms, rolled up sleeves and blouson jackets. There's even a channel that on first listen might sound like a satellite war-report from Iraq, all clicks and quacks, but no, it's Damara or Bushman or one of the many other impenetrable languages where the exclamation marks come mid-word.


- Overtaking on the left is perfectly acceptable

We head North, stopping first at the Waterberg plateau, where we experience the first of a series of incredibly clean and efficient restcamps. This is a camping trip, so we pitch tent and fire up the hired gas stove to create our first pasta/rice and sauce combination. The plateau is quite beautiful, and Namibia, from here, looks relentlessly green. Disappointing. Not what we expected. Not complaining though.


- Getting ready to dive into Namibia from the Waterberg


- Lucy inspects dinosaur tracks

Next it's Etosha for some more game viewing. The rain has joined us here and it means business. The puddles it leaves render the much-lauded watering-holes around the great salt pan redundant. The animals scatter, leaving us with mud and few sightings. The highlight is a proper up-close look at a lone black rhino. It really doesn't like the sound, smell or, on closer (too close) inspection, the sight of us. It runs away, swaying its great arse like a prop forward dodging tackles. Then it returns, ears swiveling manically as I try to start the car without making a sound. He could turn the car over if he's in the mood. Eventually he decides we really are quite boring and shuffles off. For us two it's a bona fide fight, flight or, with neither option available, stifled-giggle situation.


- This Black Rhino got way too inquisitive for comfort


- Wildebeest yoga

Etosha is just too muddy, so we run the clouds and enter Damaraland. The landscape becomes dramatically mountainous and sparsely vegetated. Some peaks look suspiciously like giants' caches: piles of boulders. Others are tormented magmatic things turned at funny angles. Little tuberous bushes grow on them. The rain does not try to follow us here. Our camp site is more basic than the average, but that's forgivable as our pitch is on the banks of a dry river bed. Our saloon is joined by a few 4x4 campers, almost exclusively driven by old Germans. The 6000 year-old rock art at Twyfelfontein, just down the dirt road, is magical. Equally interesting are the organ pipes and Burnt Mountain; it's in this territory that Lucy comes over all geological. Her collection of stones begins.


- Rare first edition hunting guide at Twyfelfontein


- Damaraland vista


- This is elephant poo, next to our tent!

Deeper into Damaraland we go, towards the coast. Apparently this used to be covered with a great sheet of lava, and the mountains are the remnants. On our drive to the skeleton coast we pick up three lonely hitchers. One is going to the "shop", another is looking for his cows, the third needs to go 50km to get home (a twelve-hour walk, he informs us solemnly, clearly having made that journey before). He turns out to be the son of the gatekeeper of the Skeleton Coast park. Can't imagine being a teenager in this kind of inhospitable environment. Even broadcast radio gives out well before here (actually, a relief for us). Beyond the park gate is hard desert to the sea. White sand and rock. Yellow sand and salt. Gravel and gems. Perversely, the driving improves in this ultra-hostile environment. The gravel roads we've been getting used to, with their layer of grit, and sickening losses of grip are replaced by a quiet, smooth salt road, glistening with crystals. Our stop for the night is Mile 108, a desolate row of ablution blocks on the beach, supporting a couple of hundred camping pitches. Magically, we are the only guests. Walking off down the coast utterly alone is pure liberation with a measure of fear mixed in.


- Torra Bay, the skeleton coast. This gets a great big dot on the map


- Shiver me timbers!


- Seals at Cape Cross. Individually cute, en masse, disconcertingly rat-like


- Mile 108. Surely one of the most desolate camp sites on the continent? We get it all to ourselves


- WWI tank tracks in the Namib - closest thing we could find to weaponary

Nothing much lives out here, but the Little Shop of Horrors has been at work, coming up with the improbable Welwitschia Mirabilis, a great shambling mess of waxy leaves, solid-looking flowers and a woody mid-section that might make Georgia O'Keefe blush. The oldest of the bunch, at 1500 years old or so, is fenced off for either it's or our safety.


- Welwitschia Mirabilis, 1500y-o desert success-story

We emerge into civilisation in the form of Swakopmund. It's a sleepy seaside town with a touch of style. Nice German architecture, a good restaurant in the form of a beached tugboat, and a cool beach bar built on the sand from palm-fronds. Our camp-site is luxurious, with a private toilet. Later, after another gruelling driving session, we crawl back here to recuperate and drink wine.

Rather splendidly, whiling away an hour over a coffee at Wimpy, we double-take at the sight of four Himba women, all ochre skin, leather, matted hair and bare boobs. Dunno why, but we kept seeing them shopping at the Spar. They, as with all the people we meet, are a friendly bunch, but this is in the face of grinding poverty and really tough living conditions. Begging is almost non-existent but the sight of a small present of food would light up a face, even of those with jobs.


- Shopping trip in Swakopmund

Further South, the iconic Namib desert opens up to Sossusvlei, a dead-end river that peters out in the face of relentless red dunes. It's a relatively expensive day-trip, and irritatingly, we have to bribe a local guide to drive us the last 5km in his 4x4 - nobody told us we couldn't get all the way in our Polo. Franz, the guide, was born in the vicinity, and grew up with the oryx, ostriches, impala and sand. He tells us that the dunes don't walk like others, but are fixed in place by the !Nara (start practicing that click folks, otherwise they won't know what you mean!) bushes. It really does look like the postcards eh?


- Desert chic at the magnificent Sossusvlei


- Dune, tree, Oryx


- Turns out that the Japanese have the secret to posing successfully in front of landmarks after all

Next time we visit we'll be needing a 4x4 expedition to seek out the really obscure spots. Any volunteers?