Next stop Namibia

The second part of our holidays led us to beautiful Namibia with its deserts, mountains and small German influenced cities. Arriving in the capital Windhoek we could directly see and hear many of these influences: Not only the city’s architecture reminded me of German towns but also many signs were written both in German and English. Also when we went into shops it often happened that people would start to talk German with us as soon as they recognized our accent.

In Windhoek we also had the chance to try a selection of local game meet. In a “typically German” arranged restaurant we all had to test the Bushmen’s Sosatie, a kebab with meat of springbok, kudu, zebra, crocodile and oryx, and they all tasted very good especially the kudu.

After Windhoek we went on to the Spitzkoppe, a strikingly shaped group of granite peaks standing out from the flat surrounding plains. Here we spent the night at the campsite that’s directly at the foot of the Spitzkoppe and for me it was the best camping location of the entire holidays. We were almost the only people camping there and as the campsites were quite spread we were completely undisturbed and could enjoy a beautiful sunset and sunrise behind the mountains. Furthermore as we were far away from any city and there were no clouds the starry sky was more beautiful than I’ve ever seen before. We could easily see the Milky Way and after the sunset we just lay around outside and watched the stars.

Then our way led us to the coast, to Swakopmund. On our way the landscape slowly but surely turned into dry desert until we reached Swakopmund where the desert’s sand dunes meet the Atlantic Ocean. In the city we could also recognize a lot of German influence and if we ignored the desert visible behind the last houses it almost looked like a small coastal town at the North Sea.

The day after we did a little detour to the north to explore the Skeleton Coast, an extremely dry section of the Namibian coast, which is known for its dense ocean fogs and its extremely inhospitable climate. The coast is characterised by lots of wrecks that stranded due to the feared Benguela current and many animal skeletons, especially those of whales. We also stopped at Cape Cross with its gigantic seal colony.

After that it was finally time to drive deep into the Namib! We pitched our tent close to the popular Sossusvlei, meaning as much as dead-end-marsh and being a combination of the Nama word Sossus (dead end) and the Afrikaans word Vlei (marsh), which is a salt and clay pan surrounded by some of the highest dunes in the world. Then of course it was time for our first desert hike. We had already climbed some smaller dunes in the days before, but for this day we had big plans: Dune 45 for sunrise, then Big Daddy and finally Elim Dune for sunset. Dune 45 was still comparably easy to climb and we reached the top perfectly on time for sunrise that bathed the red dunes into warm light. Then we went on to Big Daddy that is one of the world’s highest dunes with its 380 metres. Standing at the foot of the dune we couldn’t even believe that it should actually be 380 metres high but arriving at the top it felt like at least 1000 metres! Even though it was before eight o’clock when we started climbing Big Daddy it soon became unbearably hot (about 40°C), the top didn’t want to come closer and unfortunately we had left our water behind because we thought that it wouldn’t take too long. Foolishly we had also decided to go without shoes and the sand became hotter and hotter under our feet. But arriving at the top - even though we felt like just having run a marathon because climbing in the sand is a lot more exhausting than you can imagine - it was worth all the effort and we enjoyed a beautiful view over never-ending red dunes.

When we had made our way down - definitely the best part because running down the steep dunes feels almost like running in absence of gravity - with a little detour through the Deadvlei with its dead camel thorn trees we went back to our camp and allowed ourselves to rest a little bit at the pool because it was much too hot to move in any way. Then it was already time to climb the next and luckily last dune for sunset. To our great relief Elim Dune was not too high and after Big Daddy it seemed to be just a small sandy hill.

Then we went on southward, making a little stop in the Kokerboom forest near Keetmanshoop, which is a forest consisting of the quite rare quiver trees. After a short walk in the forest we continued to our last stop the Fish River Canyon. The canyon is the second largest in the world after the Grand Canyon and the viewpoint offered us a great view over the cragged canyon landscape.

The Fish River Canyon was already in the very south of Namibia what we unfortunately got to feel at night. Even the nights before it had often been quite cold compared to the high temperatures during the day, but this night I almost froze to death even though I had put on all of my warmest clothes since my sleeping bag was very thin and especially the ground was very cold - regrettably we didn’t have camping mats.

After a hot shower the next morning we made our long way back home to Johannesburg. And what we had already feared after the cold night at the canyon proved to be true: winter has come to Joburg! As long as the sun is shining the weather is still nice, but in the evenings it’s quickly getting cold now.

Even though we were all a little bit sad, that our holidays were over so quickly we all were relieved not to have to put up a tent before sleeping and to have real beds after sleeping on the plain floor for so long what our backs weren't really grateful for. It was also quite nice to have closed and illuminated rooms again because before we couldn’t do too much after the sunset as we often only had our little torches. But all in all I really enjoyed being almost isolated from everything without Wi-Fi and any luxury, especially in the Okavango Delta where we felt like on a survival camp. Also the very diverse nature that we saw was stunning and I can only recommend Botswana and Namibia as holiday destinations for everyone that likes the nature!


» part 1 of my holiday report - Being in Botswana