On a frosty winter morning there is no wind over the Khomas Hochland in central Namibia. Rising over 2 000 metres into the atmosphere, this plateau was elevated hundreds of millions of years ago during the turbulent birth of Africa. Today, with its deeply incised valleys, it is where the wind of the day gains its strength.
It’s hard to believe that more than five centuries ago Portuguese sailors caught sight of the empty sands of Namibia’s coast and sailed away, never to return. Today visiting Europeans, who can’t find a single metre of beach at home that is not occupied by an oiled compatriot baking under a beach umbrella, will think they are either time travelling, already in heaven… or holidaying on Namibia’s Atlantic coast.
Among the most often-asked questions by visitors to the Etosha National Park are “Where are the lions?” and “Where are the elephants?”. These awesome animals are understandably on the wish list of every tourist. However, Etosha boasts a daunting array of other creatures that pose a challenge for the discerning sightseer.
“You’re going where?” I heard whilst fiddling with my corseted dress and battling the onset of nerves. Our registrar seemed both surprised and quietly impressed when I told him our destination for our honeymoon, which was fast approaching.
Wild horses? In Africa? Everyone thinks of encountering lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo. But it’s true; there are also wild horses. How these magnificent animals came to be in Namibia and how they survive the hot, dry, hostile climate has all the ingredients of a myth. But their legend hasn’t grown through generations of tale telling. It has many beginnings, each arriving at one perfect end.
The Namib Desert – an ancient landscape with a long human history and an array of bizarre plant and animal adaptations – is Namibia’s invaluable west-coast asset. Nestled in the middle of this coastal strip is the Namib-Naukluft Park, poised to become, in its second hundred years, the centrepiece of a protected area extending from South Africa to Angola. A more effective configuration for sustainable development of Namibia’s desert lands is hard to imagine.
Do you dare to go to Namibia on your own? Absolutely!
Change is a constant. This inescapable fact illustrates itself vividly on Namibia’s desert coastline where the sea advances, swallowing lagoons, and retreats, leaving shipwrecks stranded in the desert.
It’s not the distance, it’s the experience. Somehow the million kilometres that the blue Land Rover has just clocked up smell of time and exposure. There is a spirit within, a subtle reminder, a feeling of connection, of dust, mud, rain and desert – of grease, diesel, spanners and an endless shifting Milky Way under Namib skies.
Endless expanses of dunes that are virtually impenetrable to man are a common misconception of what makes up a desert. In reality dunes globally occupy only around 20% of the area of deserts.
After the gritty heat of Chobe and Kasane, taking the boat to Impalila Island is a joy. The island forms the north-eastern tip of Namibia at the meeting place of two major African rivers, the Chobe and Zambezi, and four countries, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Imagine if your telecommunication company gave you only half an hour each day to make a long-distance call. You would probably make absolutely certain that you were ready to make the call the moment the lines were opened – as would everybody else – and for that time there would be a flood of long-distance calls and communication.
The opportunity of getting to a destination offers an intriguing chance to those willing to take up the challenge, and that is to complement the fantastic conservation efforts encountered with an equally conservation and environmentally friendly approach to the journey itself. This too is a relatively new mindset amongst a concerned group. Innovative environmental approaches are already emerging. Amongst one of the most effective and environmentally friendly ways of accessing remote destinations is by air, especially if the air transport is tailored to form part of a larger environmental programme.
Namibia is known for its inky nights, but the sky up here is even blacker than usual. The moon isn’t in residence yet tonight, but the stars are punching high-contrast holes in the darkness.
With the country fast approaching December and the national holiday season, the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) proudly launched their Holiday Activities Campaign, “Namibia in a Day”, an exciting new campaign that aims to entice locals to travel more inside the country by exploring various activities available in and around various cities and towns.
On a sweltering day in southern Namibia, I followed a turn-off onto a rutted dirt road leading to the viewpoint at Garub, where horses from across the plains had gathered, standing in the sun as if the glaring celestial body was shining blessings onto their sweat-laden hides.
Imagine a pointing index finger, more than 500 kilometres long and 32 kilometres wide. This giant digit is attached to a huge fist, a landmass punctuated with soaring sand dunes and oceans of desert. Surround the finger with rivers— the mighty Zambezi, the Chobe, Linyanti—and you have the Zambezi Region, a water-rich extremity shooting from the north-eastern corner of Namibia like an arrow into the heart of Africa
Namibia is blessed with a fine system of roads, bisecting the country and connecting all the major cities. Once off this arterial tarmac highway, you will be on a gravel road. All the district roads marked as a ‘D’ with four numbers on the map and most ‘C’ roads are not paved but surfaced with gravel.
When whizzing downhill at 80 kilometres an hour strapped to a plank, it’s best to keep your mouth shut. The alternative, if you fall, is grinding paste in your intestines for the next week.
No, not your fellow motorist but rather the four-legged variety of hogs. If you drive anywhere within central or eastern Namibia, you will see them grazing along the roadside.
