This post about Namibia will definitely be one of the most unique, because although Namibia was probably my favorite country that I visited throughout this trip, it was also the most challenging.
On February 18, we left early from our campsite in Maun, Botswana because we were crossing the border into Namibia, and border crossings were known to take awhile. Unfortunately, the others were a cake walk compared to this one.
Without boring you with too much unnecessary detail, our fearless tour guide Eva got stopped at the Namibian border because her work permit hadn't been approved. Without a work permit, she wouldn't be allowed into the country as a tour guide. We spent several hours lingering at the border while Eva tried every trick in the book to solve the problem--to no avail. We ended up having to leave her behind in Botswana while we traveled on to Gobabis without her. She found a place to stay near the border, and promised us she would do everything in her power to get approved and meet up with us again. In the meantime, we still had Gladman, our truck driver, so it's not like we were left to fend for ourselves. And Gladman, as it turns out, was a good cook, so we were able to have a nice dinner that night despite Eva's absence.
We were only spending one night in Gobabis before moving on to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Before we left that morning, we went for a guided walk with some local Bushmen, a native hunter-gatherer group that is among the oldest cultures on Earth. Unfortunately, that culture and especially their language is dying out, so I feel really fortunate that we got to experience a small bit of it.
All of these photos are my friend Kate Wilson's, in case it's not obvious since they are both beautiful photos and higher quality than anything I could take on my iPhone.
The Bushmen showed us animal prints and how to identify them, a poisonous onion, and showed us some of the things they eat, which included a type of grass they use as a seasoning salt, tiny bush potatoes where you have to gather a few dozen to get enough to make something, and caterpillars, which are apparently a great source of protein--once you remove their intestines, that is. They also showed us the very prickly bushes they use to escape an animal chasing them, and warned us to keep a wide berth from anteater dens, because warthogs also use them and they can be aggressive.
After our walk through the bush, we returned to our campsite and ate breakfast before moving on to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia and by far the most westernized city we'd seen on the tour so far. A few of us decided to do some souvenir shopping (Kate and I actually spent the entire afternoon shopping in different craft markets and I bought gifts for basically everyone I know) while some of our other tour companions visited art galleries, museums, and the most famous church in the city, Christkirche. But our whole group had dinner that night at Joe's Beer House, a world-renowned restaurant. I shared appetizers of smoked kudu and escargot with Katarina, and my main course was kingklip, a delectable flaky white fish. Every bite of that meal was to die for.
We got a move on early in the morning because we turned north toward Etosha National Park, a vast reserve of 20,000km that is supposed to be one of the best places to see the elusive black rhino in all of Africa, so we climbed back on the truck with our fingers crossed. That night, much to our general delight, a black rhino and her baby drank at the watering hole at our campsite, less than 100 feet from where we were standing, which was a magical experience.
Mama and baby rhino drinking at the watering hole (Sorry for the bad quality but I figured it's better than nothing!)
Most of our group paid to do an upgraded game drive the following day, with local guides in 4x4s instead of with Gladman in our truck. After a painfully slow start in the morning where we saw little other than a few birds, animal sightings picked up considerably after lunch: we saw a black rhino, two lions, and best yet, a leopard hunting a rabbit that ran directly in front of our truck! We couldn't believe our luck (especially since our tour guide told us he'd never seen a leopard in Etosha before). The game drive in Etosha was, hard as it was to believe, the last one of our trip, so it was such a treat to end on such a high note. It was also Kate's birthday, which we celebrated by drinking wine throughout the game drive, so even the slow parts were still fun.
Again, all of the animal photos are Kate's, in case it's not obvious from the quality.
Our guide was a bit inexperienced, so he clearly didn't know the name of this bird but assured us it was "very beautiful." It's a male black bustard, for the record.
Love birds on Kate's birthday!
I do love a stupid pose
This and the photo above are from the Etosha salt pan, after which the national park is named
Giraffe family!
We were farther away than this photo looks, thank God, because ostriches are terrifying
The lion was considerably less interested in us than we were in him
A giraffe running. They are so adorably ungainly
Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the rhino, but seeing it was a gift. And I do have a video of the hunting leopard that I took, as well as an actually gorgeous photo from another guy on the trip.
The money shot
Rob is the photographer of the amazing, National Geographic quality photo above. Rob, if you see this, I'm sorry that I don't know your last name, but this photo is incredible and so are you.
Sunset at the watering hole near our campsite
We left early the following day to reach our next destination: Spitzkoppe, a land of red rocks and ancient Bushman paintings in the desert. We camped that night right among the rocks, with some people opting to sleep under the stars. I stayed alone in my tent that night, and it was so quiet that my breath was echoing.
Spitzkoppe
An animal definitely lived in this gap between the rocks and I didn't realize there was dried poo everywhere until I already crawled halfway in. Anything for the photo, right?
There are many ancient Bushman paintings in this area and they are believed to be 2,000-4,000 years old
The dream team: Kate, me, and Alex
Louise was kind enough to sit next to me on the truck every day for two weeks
The view of our truck from the rocks
The whole group
The next day, we continued on to Swakopmund, a beach town on the Atlantic yet also on the edge of the desert. We arrived at our hostel around lunchtime, had some seafood, and immediately headed into the desert on quad bikes. I'd never ridden a quad before and I didn't know what to expect--but boy, was it one of the highlights of Namibia for me. My truck buddy Louise, who was right behind me, made jokes about following "Tokyo drift," and I almost overtook Kate once or twice because I was going pedal to the metal the whole time.
In my element (Who knew?)
View from the quad
Later that evening, we went out for Italian food and to a karaoke bar, where we screamed songs off-key for hours, much to the dismay of the locals. In the morning, a big group of us went sand boarding. To do so, you have to climb to the top of a pretty high sand dune, which was pretty daunting for me, since I'm not exactly the picture of fitness. It took me an hour (and I almost gave up at one point and I did in fact cry a little) but I did make it, and the ride down the sand dune was totally worth it. They used a speed gun on us and I clocked 37 miles per hour. There was also an option for people to try a standing version of sandboarding, like snowboarding, so I included a video of Alex's run for your viewing pleasure. They also gave us a professional 15-minute video of the whole day, of which I clipped the 10 seconds of my 37mph run. You're welcome.
Ready for sand boarding!
View atop the dunes
See those three black squares in the middle of the photo? Those are the 4x4s that we came from, in case you wondered why I cried trying to get up here
Alex killing it at sandboarding
Unfortunately, I didn't do much else that day because we went back to the hostel to rest and when I woke up from a nap, I was really sick to my stomach, so the rest of the day was a wash for me.
But I woke up in the morning feeling better, so I took a casual stroll through town and down to the beach to put my toes in the chilly Atlantic before wandering back to the hostel. We left the hostel in the late morning, headed further into the desert heat.
On the stroll to the beach
I think you can still see the German influences in Namibia (Or at least I can!)
This guinea fowl was not perturbed that I was so close by
At the water's edge
Kate's photo of flamingos
Our next stop was an area they call the Moon Landscape, and the name is self explanatory. The vastness of the desert and the Moon Landscape were kind of insane, because Namibia's population is only 2.5 million, and Windhoek is the largest city, despite only having 300,000. For comparison, Namibia is technically slightly larger than Turkey by square mileage, but Turkey's population is 82 million. I actually looked it up, and it's the second-least densely populated country in the world, losing out to only Mongolia.
Crossing into the Moon Landscape
Moon Landscape
That day, we also crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, the southernmost point in Africa where the sun passes over directly, and camped in the desert at a campsite that thankfully had a pool, small though it was. The desert wind was so strong there that two tents nearly blew away into the desert.
The following morning, we got up early and headed to Dune 45, a famous dune that tourists are allowed to climb (climbing the dunes will damage them over time, so Dune 45 is the sacrificial lamb for the pristine Namib Desert). We had a time crunch that morning, and based on how long it took me to climb the dune to go sandboarding, I didn't think I'd be able to make it up and back in time, so I opted not to climb it, and just pose with it from the bottom.
Dune 45
There we were also reunited with Eva, who'd been stuck in Botswana for a week due to the visa issue I mentioned pages and pages ago. We had initially set off with Gladman, our driver, and I'm very grateful to him for doing two jobs in one. The tour company couldn't guarantee that Eva's visa would come through and we'd be reunited, so they'd sent us another tour leader, Joe, in case Eva couldn't get into Namibia. Joe was a great tour leader, and between him and Gladman, we were able to continue on with barely a hiccup in our travels--but I literally almost cried when I saw Eva because I'd missed her so much. The first thing she did was bemoan the state of the storage area of the truck, which she normally kept absolutely pristine and categorized, before ripping everything out and starting over. God, I missed her.
Our next stop, now having Eva with us, was Sossusvlei and Deadvlei. Sossusvlei, which literally translates to "dead-end marsh," is a salt pan surrounded by dunes in the Namib desert. Eva explained to us that water from the Tsauchab River once flowed there, but the dunes now keep the river from flowing any farther, which is how Sossusvlei was formed (and how it got its name). Deadvlei, which means dead marsh, farther into the desert, is a white clay pan full of dead trees. I thought they were petrified but it turns out they're not; they just don't decompose because the desert is so dry. In this case as well, the trees originally grew there because of water from the river, but that too has been cut off by the dunes, and it's estimated that the trees have been dead for 700 years. Deadvlei is also at the foot of the highest sand dune in the world, aka Big Daddy, which was quite a sight. Getting out and back from Deadvlei was about a 3 mile round trip through the scorching heat of the desert with not a patch of shade in sight, so that was an adventure for me, to say the least.
It's not that I expected the desert to be ugly, but boy, was I blown away
Walking out to Deadvlei
Deadvlei is surrounded by dunes
These acacia trees are estimated to have been dead for 700 years
This photo makes me lol. My arms are reflecting the sun (Also, all that is written on this red baseball hat is "Cape May," in case you were shocked)
Of course anything this beautiful must be a Kate Wilson photo
The oryx is the national animal of Namibia!
Our desert campsite that night also had a pool, and we were lucky enough that a wildebeest and two babies came to graze at the grass surrounding the pool.
Wildebeest just wanted to chill with us, clearly
The next day was a long drive to get us to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking to watch the sunset there.
I had a stain on my shirt that I wanted to hide. Good thing I can pose so naturally!
Second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon
Sunset at Fish River Canyon
On Friday, we traveled to the edge of the Namibian/South African border and camped at Orange River, which splits the two countries. We were grateful that this campsite also had a pool, and somehow we got into a game of Refrigerator, which I probably haven't played in at least 15 years. Ending our time in Namibia by racing to the other side of the pool and tackling each other in the water (as a group of twenty- and thirty-somethings) was a highlight I didn't even know I needed.
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