Namibian Treats

On our way from CapeTown to Fish River Canyon we backtracked the equivalent of a few days of our cycling tour. I was overcome by lots of memories. The off-road days in Namibia were among the highlights of the whole TdA. And I had enjoyed and savoured them so much! Every turn and hill reminded me of something, some little detail I thought forgotten. It was quite emotional. Darn!

Standing on the rim of the Fish River Canyon at sunset until the darkness took over had the same deep effect on me as it did the first time. Here it was this grand work of art chiseled over hundreds of millions of years that will most likely survive us by some more millions of years. I cannot feel other than dwarfed, tiny and insignificant, in awe and inspired, aware that all my personal questions and issues are irrelevant and negligible in the cycle of nature...

From Fish River Canyon we continued toward the Namib-Naukluft National Park and the famous dunes at Sossusvlei on the scenic route. We were in for a series of treats.

The Namibian dusty dirt roads in this area take you through some of the most stunning scenery I've seen in Africa so far. "Why didn't TdA go this way?" we kept asking ourselves. But in spite of this frustration we had to admit we were lucky. Had we not come this way now we would have missed this again and most likely forever.

From the chromatic point of view the scenery was fantastic: the honey-yellow grassy plains dotted by springboks interrupted and bordered only by so-called "inselbergs" -brown ridges of volcanic rock or fossilized dunes rising unexpectedly and abruptly from the flat plains. During a stormy afternoon the sky was lead-coloured with the compact clouds pierced only by lightnings from time to time. The red colour of the road cutting through the landscape added to the drama.

The fences on both sides of the roads provided countless opportunities for abstract or landscape compositions for us camera-freaks, Spiros and I.

The amount of wildlife we saw on this route was amazing: hundreds of springbok merely blinking when a car drove by, lots of oryxes and ostriches and some wild horses.

Our first stop was Aus where we arrived just in time to hike up a ridge and watch a spectacular sunset over the dramatic landscape. The orange glow of the ridges slowly lost brightness and the scenery turned into a magical monochromatic image. Landscape in sepia...

We went to see the wild horses nearby Aus without any clear expectation. And the surprise was immense. Hundreds of horses, wild and beautiful, were dotting the plain. They were resting, grazing, playing or galopping freely. What a show to experience!

The stunning landscape was clearly addictive for us. We felt compelled to stop every few hundred meters for more pictures. Would we ever make it to the dunes at this pace? A stretch that normally takes about 4-5 hours took us two full days :-)

When we finally reached Sesriem, entry gate to the Sossusvlei dunes, we quickly pitched up our tents and drove to the dunes. We were going to spend another couple of days here making daytrips into the surreal desert scenery. But more on this super-treat in a separate post.

After Sesriem we headed for Swakopmund merely a few hours drive away. Oh well, a few hours drive away for normal people. For camera-freaks like us the stretch of a few hundred kilometers required 2 days. And it took us 2 days ONLY just because we ended up wishing for a stretch of ugly, boring road that would not tempt us to stop. And indeed that happened as we approached Walvis Bay.
The road to Walvis Bay had more surprises for us. Although our guidebooks did not mention anything special about it, the scenery surprised us again. The plains eventually became hills and a sea of bumps. The erosion had created a unique landscape hard to describe in words. This bumpy terrain could easily turn into a labyrynth for anyone walking down and along the troughs. The vegetation was scarce, the same dry yellow grass on a hard rocky soil with some miniature trees randomly scattered on the slopes. These leafless trees had character and definitely beautiful silhouettes. The bark was deep golden in the afternoon sunlight. Slowly, as the sun went down the landscape started loosing depth and becoming more and more abstract. In the end it was only an abstract pattern of thin bright curves against a dark background. We had reached the record speed of 6km/hr here with more than two dozen stops over a few kilometers of road. Still away from any campground or settlement we chose to desert camp. We had all three missed that since TdA had come to an end ...

We were sitting on a tarp and chatting after dinner while looking up at the fantastic sky. "Where is the moon?" we asked ourselves at some point. We had watched the full moon rise over the dunes in Sossusvlei the day before and thus knew that it was still fairly "full". But right now it was nowhere to see - meaning that it was an incredible time to gaze at the stars. A while later the moon did peek out and it was like a switch had been turned on. It still looked almost full and so big and bright that the landscape around us was shimmering silvery. We could read at the moonlight. We felt happy and free, lucky and privileged.
We enjoyed the same views at dawn with the scenery catching contours as the sun rose on the other side. And it was the reverse phenomenon from the day before. The abstract image got more and more depth as the overlapping bumps were eventually touched by the sun.
A perfect sunset followed by a perfect sunrise in an incredible spot. How not to be in awe?

Back on the road we drove through some more breathtaking scenery. It seemed that the layers of volcanic rock were struggling to reach the surface. Sheer cliffs and oblique layers were sticking out of the terrain. There were canyons and hills all standing proof of a long history of twisting, folding and erosion. A wealth of surreal scenes formed by the curves and patterns of the terrain. Another treat...

Swakopmund was extremely humid. The fog settled over the town at night and never bothered to leave again. The tents were wet as if after rain. But Maria and I went sandboarding and - luckily - the dunes were a stretch away from town and in plain sunlight.

"No way! This looks scary going head-first on a plywood board down this steep slope." The baby run actually looked the scariest. That's also because it was the first one we tackled. But we discovered the fun of sandboarding as well as its secrets. One of them is to try and not laugh unless you like the crunchiness of sand.
Jealous, Pepe asked to be included in this fun activity and so he went sandboarding with us reaching speeds of over 70km/hr. He is quite a spoiled brat by now, used to benefit from all adult activities, have his own seat in a restaurant and - in general - to attract a lot of attention.

We had to give up the initial project of going to the Skeleton Coast. After talking to several knowledgeable locals it became obvious that we would have been disappointed. The stretch of desert along the Atlantic is notorious. Not only is it an arid desert but it is treacherous as well. The cold Benguela stream along the coast gives birth to a specific phenomenon: a dense fog covering the desert as far as 50km inland night after night. On top of that the shore is rocky and dangerous. Many shipwrecks dot the coast and the few survivors who may have made it to shore relieved to have survived from their sinking ships found themselves in the most unhospitable environment: there was absolutely no water or life around. They were doomed. Hence the name: Skeleton Coast. But the stretch of coast we had in mind with the spectacular Valley of the Thousand Dunes is farther North, close to the Angolan border, a restricted area accessible only via fly-in safaris. So much money we did not have to spend and so we headed inland again and North towards Etosha National Park. On the way we knew there were a few more things to see.

We were back on flat desert terrain but only made it as far as Spitzkoppe a little over 100km away from Swakopmund. Also nicknamed the Matterhorn of Namibia, the mountain rises 1759m above the desert, a beautiful rocky peak with an exquisite shape. The reddish colour of the rock only gains in saturation in warm sunlight and the show is not to be missed. We had to stop. The park was not big but a playground for climbers, boulderers and photographers. We camped in a beautiful and secluded spot on the Western side. It not only provided a great angle for the mountain but also the best spot to be at sunset. Perched up on the warm rocks we sat and watched the scenery transform as the light changed quality. Yet another perfect sunset.
Geologically Spitzkoppe is also an interesting phenomenon. Apparently it is the result of an underground volcanic eruption that happened hundreds of millions of years ago. Back then the lava never made it to the surface but due to the millions of years of erosion it eventually surfaced. A layer of 1700m of soil eroded? I cannot imagine that, but nevertheless I like and appreciate the result. Spitzkoppe is not the only "inselberg" - as these spectacular mountains rising abruptly from the flat desert are called - but it is definitely the most spectacular.

The next highlight was Brandberg, a big mountain with its own ecosystem. Although it is a great hiking/trekking destination it is more important for housing some prehistoric rock paintings which are up to 5000 years old. Guided by a local we walked around and saw the "White Lady" - the most famous painting. It is actually a misnomer as the scientific research proved that the figure that was thought to be a woman actually is a man painted and adorned according to the rituals of the time. The guide also explained us about the different plants and trees we saw there. It was an extremely interesting experience.

The World Heritage site at Twyfelfontein was next on our schedule. The site is organized excellently and the guides are very good. Seeing all these rock carvings depicting people and animals that have defied the passage of time is very impressive. How close they make you feel to those ancestors. And how similar we are to them, I thought. To this day humans are capturing information through images and drawings and passing it over to others.

We also saw the nearby petrified forest, another amazing thing. It is thought that the wood was drifted away by floods, soaked and eventually got buried underground. But the trees were buried so deep down that they were sealed and so couldn't rot. Instead, in combination with the minerals absorbed from the water they gradually turned into stone. The area is also dotted by welwitschia plants. Welwitschia is a unique plant only growing in the Namib desert. It can get as old as 2000 years and survives in the harshest conditions. Its root can grow up to meters deep and looks like a huge sponge absorbing moisture and thus allowing the plant to survive these very hot and dry conditions.

From Khorixas we chose again the scenic route to go farther North through Damaraland and to Etosha. Big towering rocks, table mountains and huge features marked the landscape on this route. The sweeping views from the high pass near Grootberg were breathtaking. On the way we also saw a few desert elephants near the road and even a few giraffes. The numerous springbok by now we took for granted.

Etosha National Park was incredible, unexpected and very rewarding. It deserves a separate post ...

From Etosha we drove back to CapeTown following the highways only. Nothing remarkable in terms of scenery in Namibia along the highway except for the encounter with a young French guy cycling by himself from CapeTown to Tanzania. Blissfully ignorant, without a map and food and with an extremely heavy and improperly balanced bike he had made it to Namibia and was definitely going to make it. What he lacked in knowledge he certainly didn't lack in determination. Good luck Alex! Enjoy the ride!

Cape Town welcomed us with its most beautiful smile - a chilly, sunny perfect day. It didn,t quite make up for the feeling of nostalgy and sadness induced by the fact that we knew our African adventure was soon to be over, but it was a very nice way of saying that we were welcome to come again :-)