Buckle up, this is going to be a long one – because MAN was
this an awesome trip!
One of the benefits of being a US employee on loan to South
Africa is that I get both US and South African holidays. So since I had nothing
to do over Thanksgiving, why not take advantage of the days off to go on a
ridiculous trip to another country?
There were a few contenders in terms of destinations, but
ultimately we decided to go to Namibia for a number of reasons. (And yes, Mr.
Trump, it is Namibia, not
Nambia, you idiot). Close proximity to South Africa and relatively cheap
flights made Namibia easy enough to travel to for a short 4 day trip, but it is
also one of the most unique countries in Southern Africa – in my opinion at
least – in terms of diversity of geography and things to do/see. And what
better way to see it all then to do a road trip?
In an effort to see as much as possible in a relatively
short amount of time, we decided to fly in and out of two different airports,
allowing us to make a bit of a “U” shaped drive through the center of the
country. Now I have to be honest here. Other than picking the destinations
within Namibia that we wanted to visit, and booking accommodation, there was
ZERO research or planning that went into this trip. We very much had a “let’s
go with the flow and see what happens” type mentality towards everything,
which.. had its goods and its bads and... well... you’ll see.
Part 1 – The First Leg of the Journey
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| The first drive |
Departing at 6:30am to maximize daylight, we flew into
Windhoek, the capital city, which is roughly a two hour flight from Johannesburg.
I had booked a car in advance, so after going through immigration we went to
collect our vehicle – a VW Golf was the economy option, as Volkswagen is very
popular in Southern Africa. We got in the car, were ready to depart, and
realized that none of our phones had any service whatsoever, so we have no way
to navigate. While this may seem like a stupid oversight, I had already used my
South African phone in both Nigeria and Bahrain (which is outside of Africa)
without ANY issue, and on top of that, my travel companion has three phones.
Yes, three. She has a South African work phone, a US phone, and a US phone with
an international plan. And nothing was working.
So we went back into the airport to execute plan B. I went
back to the rental company to get a Garmin GPS for the car, and Morgan went to
get a Namibian SIM card because one of her phones is unlocked. We also asked
the rental company for a paper map as a last resort backup, but somehow they
did not have a map of the full country. Which…just.. not helpful, guys.
Anyway, we got back in the car, both the phone and the GPS
seemingly working fine, and set off on our Namibian road trip. There really
isn’t much to do or see in Windhoek; most of the exciting destinations are near
the coast. So, after loading up on some snacks and water, we began heading
towards our first destination, Sossusvlei, which was supposed to be a 4 hour
30min drive. Spoiler Alert: It was not.
Now I don’t know if anyone still uses Garmin GPS devices
anymore, but if you do, then Lord help you. That thing was SO out of date and inaccurate
as to where roads were. Now to be fair, there is a good amount of road
construction going on in Namibia at the moment, and detours can be tricky, but
that damn device couldn’t tell a road from the middle of the desert. Literally.
There were several points where it told me to make a turn where there was no
road and there clearly never had been any road. What are you doing, Garmin?!
But relying on basic sense of direction (Morgan’s, not mine), and the fact that
outside of Windhoek there is basically only one road going in each direction anyway,
we managed to get on the right course.
Namibia is quite a large, but relatively undeveloped country
compared to some of its Southern Africa neighbors. The population is only about
2.6 million (for reference the population of NYC alone is about 8.6 million),
and as we discovered while driving through, Namibia is overall one of the least
densely populated countries in the world. And it shows. We drove for miles, and
miles, and miles, and literally saw nothing but wilderness. No towns, no
villages, no rest stops (unless you count a bench under a tree), no gas stations,
nothing. We kept saying “where do people live!” over and over throughout the
drive. Thank goodness we bought food and water before heading out!
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| I wasn't lyin'... this is a sign for a rest stop. Bench under tree. |
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| I can see for miles and milesss |
Two other interesting things we learned about Namibia in the
first few hours; 1) if people don’t live there, telecommunications company
don’t build cell towers, and 2) if people don’t live there, cash-strapped
governments don’t pave the road. So despite buying a Namibian SIM card, we had
no cell reception for the majority of the journey, and because we did no
research in advance, we had a small hatchback on unpaved roads. AND because we
had to use Garmin instead of googlemaps, the route we took was nearly twice as
long.
It might seem like I’m complaining, and not having a working
cellphone or 4x4 car could have been a disaster, but despite all of that
nonsense, we had a fabulous, fabulous time. Namibia is a gorgeous country, and
by driving ourselves, we had so much freedom to stop and make detours as much
as we wanted. The topography changes pretty dramatically throughout the
country, and by being so remote, it just all felt like a pioneer-type adventure.
I’ve been to many African countries, but this was the first time I actually
felt like I was in cliché-Africa – the kind of empty, rolling savannah that you
see in movies. Think Out of Africa
without any weird colonial plantations.
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| Our little crap mobile |
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| The rolling plains |
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| We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn! |
Overall, the first leg of the journey took us about six
hours – so an hour and a half longer than originally predicted, but compared to
the second leg of the road trip, it was a cake walk.. but more on that later.
First, THE DESERT!
Part 2 – Sossusvlei
Our first destination in Namibia, Sossusvlei, is part of the
Namib-Naukluft National Park in the Southern corner of the Namib desert.
Because you’re not allowed to lodge in the park itself, the closest place we
could stay was about an hour from the desert, in a valley that is so remote the
area literally doesn’t have a name. Seriously. The address says “70km from
Sesriem,” which is the nearest “town.” The lodge sent us GPS coordinates in
order to navigate there… epic. There are actually a number of lodges in this
valley, although you’d only know it by the road signs, because they are all
miles apart and set way back from the “road.” Apparently most of these lodges
used to be farms, but because the land is so arid and in the middle of nowhere,
most of them were converted into desert resorts.
Anyway, we arrived at the We
Kebi lodge after our epic six hour journey, to find that we picked a
freaking amazing place to stay. We had our own little straw-roofed hut, and again,
it’s in the middle of nowhere, so we were completely surrounded by absolutely
beautiful, rugged wilderness. There were even animals wandering by, like
mountain zebras, giraffes, oryx, and wildebeest. The lodge makes a big effort
to minimize its impact on the environment too -
getting all of its power from solar, and water from boreholes (see Dad,
I asked about water). Even the pool is solar
heated! Most of the lodges in Namibia are actually eco-friendly though, because
- fun fact #1 - Namibia is one of a few countries in the world to specifically
address conservation and protection of natural resources in its constitution!
Go, Namibia!
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| Casual zebra stroll outside our hut |
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| Our view out the door |
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| View from the pool |
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| Wildebeest visit the lodge |
One of the first things we did was actually visit a nearby
lodge that doubles as a conservation/rescue facility for big cats. We were able
to see a leopard, two cheetahs, and four caracals. Most of the animals that
come to the site were abandoned as cubs, and bottle fed and raised by the lodge
staff. And unfortunately because they all arrive so young and are basically
raised in captivity, the guide said they can’t be released back into the wild.
But they all have large areas to roam, and seem pretty well taken care of.
The cheetahs were by far the coolest, and, fun fact #2, Namibia
actually has the largest population of cheetah in southern Africa not contained
within national parks. The cheetahs at the lodge were very friendly though –
the female cheetah especially. Her name is Wild, and she literally came like a
dog when the guide called her name (well, she did ignore him for a while
first...like most cats) – but as she walked up, she was PURRING so loud. I had
no ideas that cheetahs purred. It was crazy! Wild also enjoyed having her ears
scratched, like a house cat, and spent a good five minutes licking the salt off
my hands and arm. Side note: cheetah tongues are very rough!
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| Meowww |
No one tell Rookie this happened...
The next day, we were up at 4:15am to drive out into the
desert and experience the dunes before it got unbearably hot. The trip was
arranged by the lodge, and was just us, a guide, and this nice German couple,
so a relatively small group. As we entered the Namib-Naukluft National Park,
the guide pulled over and walked us through some of the smaller dunes to teach
us a little about the area. It was cool to be there that early in the morning
because you can see all of the animal tracks left on the dune from the night
before.
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| Sunrise over our van |
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| Gecko tracks in the sand! |
The guide also tracked down and showed us tunnels built by dancing
white lady spiders, a species of spider only found in this desert. (And no, I
didn’t make that name up). These spiders build tunnels at the base of the sand
dunes with an interwoven sheet of sand and silk covering the top, which
literally swings open like a trapdoor. The spiders can sense seismic vibrations
through the tiny hairs on their legs, which is how they hunt prey and
communicate, by tapping their legs on the sand. The leg tapping is how they got
the “dancing” part of their name. The guide told us that when a male finds a
female tunnel, he taps his legs on the sand outside the little trapdoor, trying
to get her attention, at which point the female spider either accepts his
proposal and comes out to mate, or – get this – she doesn’t accept and she
comes out to eat him. That’s some risky business.
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| Anybody hooome? |
We then proceeded to drive to and hike Big Daddy Dune, the
tallest dune in Sossusvlei standing at 325m or ~1,070ft. Now I have to say, the
dunes in this park are nothing like I’ve ever seen before. And it’s just the
coolest thing. The sand is a coppery red color, due to oxidation of the high
levels of iron in the sand, and they’re so red that it really feels like you’re
walking around on Mars. The dunes are also called star dunes – i.e. they have
multiple “arms” stretching out from the peak – because the wind changes
direction so frequently, thus sand is blown in multiple directions.
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| Up we go! |
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| Are were there yetttttt |
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| Hello Mars |
Hiking Big Daddy Dune was the hardest thing I’ve done in a
while. It was blazing hot, already 104 degrees at 9am when we started climbing,
and the dune is so steep, and the sand is so silky, that every step you take
you end up sliding back three feet. It was grueling. But the views were
spectacular! And sliding down the dune on the other side was pretty fun.
At the base of Big Daddy Dune is an area called Deadvlei, a
dried clay former riverbed home to numerous dead, 600 year old acacia trees
that have been scorched black by the sun. Although the trees are dead, it’s so
dry that they don’t decompose. The white clay floor combined with the red dunes,
dead trees, and heat haze really makes the area feel surreal, like you’re in a Dali
painting or something.
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| So many splinters resulted from this photo |
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| 600 year old zombie trees |
The whole national park was just nothing like I have ever
seen before - very cool experience.
Part 3 – The Second Drive
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| Drive number 2 |
Now I’m not going to go into too much more detail about the
ridiculousness of driving in Namibia, but I will add that the roads on this
part of the journey were INFINITELY worse than the first part. It was like the
entire road was a giant rumble strip. There were four different sets of tracks
carved into the “road” that I would shift back and forth between, including
driving down the wrong side of the road, to try and find any stretch of road
that didn’t make my brain rattle against my skull.
And being in a small car, I
was terrified of popping a tire and not having a working phone, so we barely
went above 20mph. And that’s not an exaggeration. The journey this time was
supposed to take us just over five hours… but.. yea.. it took us nine. And I
had to drive the whole way because Morgan doesn’t drive manual. So, new
personal record! Wahoo!
Two fun things about this leg of the trip though -
During the second leg of the drive we saw a HUGE heard of
mountain zebra run across the road in front of us. There must have been 50 or
60 zebras in all - it was crazy! Unfortunately I didn’t get my phone out quick
enough to capture the full run, but I caught a little bit of the herd in the
distance once they had crossed.
Second - a bit of hilarity – we knew we were going to need
gas at some point during this drive, so we planned to stop in a town called Solitaire,
which we were told at the lodge is the largest city in the area. City is a VERY
generous word. I wouldn’t even call it a town. Honestly, it’s amazing this
little spit of nothing showed up on the map at all. Solitaire is pretty much a
hotel, a gas station, a café, and a graveyard for cars. I couldn’t even believe
how small it was. When we stopped in the café for some coffee, I asked the guy
behind the counter, and he told me that eighty people live in Solitaire. 80.
How does that work? I have no idea.
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| Welcome to Solitaire |
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| Where cars come to die |
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| And what you see is exactly what you get... |
Part 4 - Swakopmund
The city of Swakopmund (and yes, this one does actually qualify
as a city) sits on the west coast of Namibia right on the Atlantic ocean. The
first thing that struck me after arriving – the buildings make the city look
like you’re somewhere in Germany. It really looks like Germany.
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| Guten Tag Swakopmund! |
So not surprisingly, I learned later that Swakopmund was in
fact founded by Germans in the late 1800’s when Namibia was part of the German
South West African colony. I always forget that Germany had colonies in Africa
before they were taken away after WWI. But the Germans were particularly cruel
colonizers, and systematically attempted to exterminate the whole native
population of Namibia, which was considered both the first genocide of the 20th
century and the model later used by the Nazis. Not a happy time in history... Anyway,
after WWI, Namibia became a protectorate of British South Africa, and remained under
the mandate of South Africa all the way until 1990. Ok, enough history.
But there are a surprising number of Germans still living in
Swakopmund and German is pretty widely spoken, which I was not expecting at
all. Fun fact #3: the name Swakopmund actually comes from the local language,
Nama, from the word Tsoakhaub, which loosely translates to "excrement
opening." The name apparently describes the Swakop River during flood
time, which carries “excrement” in its riverbed, like dead animals, past the
city into the Atlantic Ocean. So, there you go.
The city itself is quite lovely though – safe and walkable, with
nice restaurants and German style pubs. We went to this one restaurant at the
end of a long jetty sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean. The walls were all
windows, so we were surrounded by ocean views throughout the meal. Very nice.
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| View from the jetty |
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| Din-din |
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| The jetty. Restaurant above at the end. |
Surrounding the city on all sides except the West (which is
ocean) is the Namib desert, which in this part of the country consists of
billowing yellow sand dunes, also star dunes like in Sossusvlei, but totally
different colored. Looking out across the horizon it almost seems like you’re looking
at a painting because all of the colors of the dunes blend together so
perfectly.
Our second day there, we actually drove out into the desert
to go sandboarding on these yellow dunes! It’s pretty much snowboarding, but..
on sand. And it worked way better than I thought it would to slide down because
the sand is so soft and fine. Now, I’m not much of a snow sport person - I’ve
never been skiing and only tried snowboarding once, so this type of balance was
completely new for me. But the instructor was patient, and I was eventually
able to slide down the dune pretty nicely! There were some experienced snow
boarders in our group, so compared to them I looked like a doof.. but I was
proud of the progress I made J
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| So much sand... |
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| Beautiful golden sand |
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| Just keep a' paddlin' |
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| Looking cooler than we are.. |
We also got a chance to “sled” down one of the bigger dunes –
lying down on a flexible sheet of plastic. You can go pretty fast too! One of
the guides had a speed gun, so we were able to see how fast we each went down
the dune. My record was 36 mph, but someone else in the group got theirs up to 41
mph!
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| Weeeeee! |
But, let me tell you. Sandboarding. Is. Exhausting. Every
time you slide down the dune, you have to trudge back up through the sand, in
the heat, carrying your board, with huge snowboarding boots on your feet. There
ain’t no chair lift in the desert! It probably wasn’t the best plan to do this
two days after hiking Big Daddy Dune, haha, but it was still tons of fun! However,
after a few hours, we were so tired and sore that the rest of the day was
pretty much shot.
On the final day of our Namibian adventure, we decided that
spending four days in the desert required a cliché desert experience to wrap up
the trip – so we rode camels. Every time I see a camel, I have to marvel at how
this animal came into existence. They’re just so bizarre looking! From the
humps, to the weird two toed non-hooves, long rounded necks, and smushy faces
that always look smug – what are you, camel?! Why you so smug? You think
you’re better than everyone because you don’t need water?! Huh?! Seriously, ten
dollars to anyone who can find a picture of a camel that doesn’t look haughty and
aloof.
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| Look at that smug bastard. |
The camel ride was a little short – about 30min. But it was
fun to trudge through the desert, and we even got to trot a teensy little bit. Camels
are very lanky, so their stride really sways you back and forth while you’re
riding. Makes me wonder what a camel gallop feels like… maybe someday I’ll find
out.
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| Trot trot trot we camel-ot, camel-ot... |
Sadly, after our camel ride, it was time to head to the
regional airport in Walvis Bay, leaving the rugged wilderness behind to return
to the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg. Four days was really not long enough.
There’s much more to do and see in Namibia than we were able to fit into this
trip – we really had to prioritize. So if anyone wants to vacation in Namibia –
I am 1000% in for going back. But this time we’re renting an SUV. And bringing
a map. And maybe a satellite phone… :D
Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!
