Namibia - Part 1

13th - 16th December 2023

Ben writes: The thought of buying an old 4x4 with a roof tent and driving through Africa is something which fills me with the kind of excitement experienced by young children on Christmas eve. Convincing Beth, who is partial to the odd facial and manicure, I thought may be a tall task. Surprised with the positivity with which the idea was met, I quickly booked flights before she changed her mind.

One week later we were standing in front of a 2.8L Toyota Hilux complete with roof tent, snorkel and 3ft axe. I was in love. We called her Sandy.

We were offered a quick tutorial of how to get the best out of Sandy. I nodded along pretending that I of course knew the tyre pressures required for gravel vs deep sand, what all the different gear ratios meant and what to do if we got beached. And then we hit the road!

Namib: Vast space.

Lake Oanob

With 2 hours until sunset we raced down to our first campsite, just over an hour outside of Windhoek, keen to set up camp before sunset. Lake Oanab was beautiful. A rare oasis in a very dry country. We watched the pinky clouds set in as the African sun said goodnight and went about setting up our camp. We switched our head torches on and we were met by thousands of flying critters who had taken advantage of the only water for hundreds of miles and decided to breed en masse. I fumbled around trying to erect our roof tent recalling half listened to instructions. Beth however, had listened intently to the demonstration, rather than pretending know what he was doing. She adeptly lept up onto the roofs, did a couple of pirouettes, and 2 minutes later our bedroom was ready.

The next morning was heaven on earth. After being gently serenaded awake by a chorus of masked weavers and bare cheeked babblers, we unzipped our tent and looked out over the most tranquil lake - the placid water broken only by the ripples of our morning swim. We set up planning stations and set out the itinerary for the week.

Sossusvlei

The Namib desert is about a 5 hour drive from Oanab and gave us our first real experience of Namibian roads. Whilst there are a couple of tarmacked areas, the majority of roads are wide gravel tracks with no markings and no real rules. Due to the lack of rain they are mostly pretty easy going, but you certainly have to keep your wits about you for the odd sand bank, dried river bed or roaming animals. After 4 hours on dirt roads, you enter the desert and bizarrely are met by an isolated, brand new tarmac road. It feels like something out of a film set.

We took a quick dip in the pool, grabbed a beer and headed into the sand dunes for sunset. We let our tyres down and experienced our first voyage into the sand. We passed wandering Oryx with their enormous, 40 inch straight black horns as we reached the foot of Dune Elim. We climbed the ridge, sinking knee deep into the sand and we found a spot for sunset. The dunes make the most perfect canvas to paint the evening sky, as wave like patterns form on virgin sand, interrupted only by the track of a wandering lizard or conspicuous track of a Namaqua Dwarf Adder.

We awoke at 04:30 the next morning, keen to see the sunrise. Beth leapt to action and within minutes our hotel room had been squashed into the roof box. After catching a brief, and bleary-eyed sunrise we made our way into the desert. Many parts of the Namib desert haven’t had a rain for hundreds of years, so the moisture makes its way in by other means. The deeper we drove into the dunes, the thicker the mist became. Within minutes we were enveloped in a dense, otherworldly fog. This is a bizarre phenomenon and is caused by the cool Benguela current from the sea crashing up against the hot air from the arid inland. Visibility was like that of skiing in a white out, and the temperature plummeted by several degrees. We slipped and slid our way through the deep desert pass, wondering if we got stuck how long it might be before a passing tribe might stumble upon us and bring help. Eventually we arrived at Sossusvlei. It was at this point that Beth asked me what Sossusvlei actually was, and why we had spent 7 hours driving through the desert. I had to admit to Beth that I wasn’t actually sure. Not wanting to ruin the surprise by looking at photographs, I didn’t actually know what there was to see here. I thought it would be obvious when we got there. I obviously hadn’t accounted for the 3 metre visibility. Another car arrived, a couple got out and quickly disappeared on foot into the fog (never to be seen again). Still unsure what Sossuvlei was meant to be, we doubled back on ourselves and headed to Deadvlei – something I had read up on.

Deadvlei is a 900 year old forest in the middle of the desert. Nearly a millenia ago it’s thought that the river providing a lifeline to the trees was suddenly cut off. Due to the fierce heat, the trees were almost immediately scorched by the sun, preserving them. On the short walk to the ancient forest the fog cleared. Beth, who had put on a pair of jeans and 3 tops due to the foggy chill, was suddenly caught, a kilometre away from the car, and in the full heat of the desert. We wandered around this mystifying landscape, lips chapped and bums sweaty, amazed at just how harsh the desert is.

We returned to Sossusvlei to try again. The insane couple we had seen an hour before were back, looking very smug indeed as they sat having a cuppa in the shade of a leadwood tree. After a few minutes walking in the heat of the day, we soon realised why, as the intense heat and dry sand made walking hard work. Still unsure what our reward would be, we hiked up a near vertical dune. With each step forward, the soft sand would be displaced, and you would slide three quarters of the way back to where your step had begun. Then suddenly it all made sense. We crested the peak of the dune and were rewarded with an arrestingly beautiful sight. Hundreds of miles of vast, unspoilt desert of a scale one can’t easily put into words. The Namib desert is thought to be the oldest in the world at 55 million years old. For comparison, the juvenile Sahara is only 12,000 years old. It is also one of the driest deserts with much of it receiving a rainfall of less than 2mm/year. Suddenly the walking was easy, and our breathing less heavy. We meandered along the sharp ridge feeling like the only people in the world.

Fun fact: In a secret location somewhere in the Namib desert, is an art installation by Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf. It consists of 6 speakers and an MP3 player which are powered by solar panels. For as long as it works, Toto’s 1982 hit song ‘Africa’ will play in the yet undiscovered location.

Swakupmond

The next stop was an old German colonial town on the west coast about another 5 hours from Sessriem. In Namibia, everything is vast – aside from the population of just 2.5 million. Despite being on one of the main roads, you could go hours without passing another car. Every few minutes you were met with another huge vista, you’d follow the road to the end of it, and do the same all over again. As we neared the coast, the cloudless sky was replaced by a thick ocean fog. Desert was abruptly replaced by a small town that wouldn’t be out of place in Bavaria. Tired from our early start, crispy from the air con and a little numb bummed

from our 8 hours of driving we decided to take shelter from the rain and get a hotel for the night. We nipped to a local restaurant where I discovered that it is indeed possible to put too much cheese on a pizza, and quickly feel asleep.

The following morning the fog ocean mist had lifted and we were cheered by a clement, clear day. Swakupmond is an enigma. People drove around in flashy cars, there was a big craft market, and a choir of locals sang Christmas songs. It felt like a little bit of Europe had been chipped off and somehow found itself here. Despite it’s charm and well appreciated amenities, we were keen to get back in to the wild, and so we made our way to the remote Spitzkoppe.

Part 2 coming soon...!