Namibia

As we speak, we are waiting for the first of our three-stage flight taking us home. Walvis Bay airport lies in the middle of the desert. Few umbrellas provide some shade and the southwestern Atlantic wind brings a cool breeze. Besides that, it is burning hot. As was the whole of Namibia.

As soon as we started driving northwards from Capetown, the rainy weather of the last months seemed to disappear. Our very last tourist stop in South-Africa would be the Richtersveld. The exact origin of the name of this ‘field’ is still unknown to us, but the park was one of the most stunning we visited. Sandy tracks and rocky paths led us through the mountainous region, sometimes so narrow and steep that we weren’t sure if we would make it. From the viewpoint we saw the dunes of the Namib-Naukluft desert in the far distance, which was the way we were heading.

From Richtersveld we took a tiny pond across the Orange river, which could just transport two cars, dropping us into the last country of our trip; Namibia. The good gravel road led us via river beds to Ai-Ais, a hot spring resort where we relaxed for a bit.  From there we headed directly towards Sossuvlei, a salt pan amidst sandy dunes, some of them as high as 360 meters. The weather had been a bit rough the night before, so right before we hit the tarmac road, our gravel road was crossed by a pretty impressive river. The river of course was a seasonal one. We went back and forth through the river a couple of times by foot, discussing whether we should go through or not. The alternative was a 100 km detour over gravel and with our car still not too fond of gravel roads, we decided to take the chance and check the river-crossing-box off from our list. We turned on the 4x4 mode and our green friend proved very successful, without a sweat, crossing this knee-deep river.

Even though Namibia boosts the best gravel roads in Africa, it also holds a couple of typical wash-board type stretches, which our car just isn’t fond of. We probably pushed it a bit too far, so some 200 km before Sossuvlei, the bolts of the shock absorber support bar came loose, ripping of the exhaust in the process. Namibia is one of the most scarcely populated areas, which meant that, of course, nobody was around. We were surrounded by thunderclouds and it would be dark in two hours and there we were in the middle of the desert, with a loose support bar and damaged exhaust. We quickly discussed what to do, driving like this was not really an option, as it would probably damage the car more. Fortunately the car is a spare-parts-kit in itself, so we started looking for an African solution. This meant finding a bolt that didn’t appear to serve a too important purpose, but was also long enough to re-attach the support bar to the frame. We found it in the clips holding the leaf springs together, tie-wrapped whatever was still loose and right before the storm started and dusk came upon us, we were on the road again, arriving at the Sossusvlei campsite around 11 pm.

It was worth it, sunrise in the desert remains (in our opinion) one of the prettiest in the world. The dunes changed from bluish to purple to pink to red to orange to yellow. We climbed dune number 45, had breakfast and drove to Dead Vlei, a salt pan with dead trees at the foot of the biggest dune around, the Big Daddy. The view was beautifully surreal. We climbed the shoulder of Big Daddy and around eleven the sand started to become so hot that we quickly descended and looked for some shade. We headed back to the campsite and ran into Thomas, the German man on tour who we’d met in Kenya and Malawi. He was heading south, we were heading north.

After Sossusvlei we slowly made our way to Walvis Bay to fix our car. We found the right nuts and bolts and a welder for the exhaust. Now the car was in a good enough shape for its last trip, the Skeleton Coast. The saltroad which goes up all the way to Angola is very good. The fog which rises every morning, covering the bare coastline, gives the area a sinister appearance. The name ‘Skeleton Coast’ is derived from the many ship wrecks that can be found all along the coast. They were trapped in the current, unable to get back to open sea, thus stranding on the beach. At Cape Cross, some 75 miles north of Swakopmund, a very large population of seals (females with pups) have claimed a few acres of land and sea. Wherever the eye could see, seals are present, both on the rocks as in the water. The stench is also incredible. We decided not to spend too much time here and headed for the Messum Crater. As soon as we moved landinwards the fog went and the sun became burning hot. The road to the crater was beautiful, through a dry river bed where the Whitiwatcha plants (probably not the correct name), one of the rarest and oldest plants living on our planet. They can become up to 2000 years old and they look prehistoric. We found some bushpaintings and had a beautiful view over the crater.

The road back to Swakopmund was easy, we were happy to be back in the living world. We only had a week left and we had to bring our car to the harbor in the weekend, so we didn’t want to damage our car any further. Then came a surprise, our contact in England told us the vessel was delayed, so we had to wait until he could confirm the new time of arrival. So there we were, one week before our flight with the car still in our possession. We used the extra time with our car to clean it thoroughly, trying to make it as salt and sand free as possible. We had a two nice evenings with our two German neighbors and we explored the nightlife in Swakopmund on Saturday night. That was about it.

Last Wednesday we decided to move from Swakopmund to Walvis Bay. Our vessel still hadn’t arrived so we got a bit worried. After talking to our contacts’ agent in Walvis Bay, some 48 hours prior to our flight home we decided to change plans and ship our car with a different company. This way, we would be sure our carnet would be stamped and the car is actually going to Europe. This morning we delivered the car, after spending two very pleasant evenings in Walvis Bay at the Lagoon Loge. We had a cute room at the back of the house, lay at the pool, had lovely dinners at the Raft and the Lyon des Sables restaurants and got drunk with four very friendly locals. Yeah, good times.  

And that was it. We’ve reached our final destination exactly 5 months from the day we left Utrecht, covering some 24.500 km and spending 4 months on the African continent on which we crossed 15 countries. We’ve met great people along the way, seen stunning scenery, had a lot of fun and a lot of despair, and managed to spend a total of 3 cookies, 2 tomatoes, 4 beers and 50 USD on police bribes. The total number of repairs to the car adds up to well over ten and we’ve overshot our budget quite a bit due to all the trouble of getting the car actually on African soil.

And yes, we would happily do it all again!