Namibia Crazy Kudu Tour Days 5-10

Day Five
Okaukuejo camp-Aba Huab Desert Camp, Damaraland (350 km) (Camping) (BLD)
Leaving Etosha we are en-route for the desert and the most scenic campsite of our safari. We make a stop at a small town called Outjo where we can get coffee, sticky cakes and make use of the Internet Cafe. We then drive west to Khorixas, the capital of the Damaraland region. A short break here and then, leaving the sealed roads far behind us, we drive into the desert. We stop for lunch at the Petrified Forest geological site, where a local guide will take us around and explain about the pre-historic trees, before continuing on to our campsite on the banks of the Aba Huab riverbed, in the vicinity of Twyfelfontein. Damaraland scenery is some of the best in Namibia; open grasslands studded with massive granite koppies create the feeling of being surrounded by mountains.
We are well into desert elephant and black rhino country and other game such as springbok, ostrich and gemsbok are often seen. Aba Huab Desert Camp is right in the middle of this wilderness providing basic facilities with star lit showers and a small bar. We aim to arrive in the early afternoon and have time to relax in the shade before making a late afternoon excursion to Twyfelfontein itself. Here, again, a local guide will introduce us to the ancient Bushman rock engravings or petroglyphs. We also make a visit to another geological site in the area called the Organ Pipes.

Damaraland. We stopped and ate German pastries in the little town of Outjo and then drove and drove. We did stop at a craft market, and a guy started talking to me. I told him my real name and Laura's real name, and then he came back with these keychains carved with our names on them. A good scam because you feel obligated to buy, and he also pointed at his holy shoes and bloody, wounded arms. I bought them, but I bargained him down to a good price. India had done wonders for my empathy, but I did have to appreciate the scam. We then saw trees 260 million years old, now stone, washed down in Namibia during a great flood. We zipped through the Organ Pipes to see the last rays of sunlight hit the Bushmen rock engravings. We all agreed that we could have spent a day wandering around the art on the rocks, thinking about our place in the world, and how old the rocks were under our feet. The Bushmen, or the San, as they are known, are a disappearing people. Desert hunters and gatherers have no place in the modern world. Their art will be all that remains and even that will fade. That night we camped in a nice spot and we took a shower under a tree, literally. I was writing in my journal when a group of donkeys, from somewhere, wandered into our camp to drink up our dishwater. I listened to them wandering around behind our tent, and at times I woke up and thought that they were people and that we would be robbed, sleeping in our tent. More Larium fears (anti-malaria medication). Funny, if no one were poor, would we have to worry about thieves?

Day Six
Aba Huab-Swakopmund (400 km) (Chalet Accommodation) (BLD)
More beautiful Damaraland scenery this morning. We pass Namibia's highest mountain, the Brandberg (2573 m) and make our first stop of the morning in the small town of Uis. Uis, an old mining town, is one of the best places to buy semi-precious stones, for which Namibia is famous. Here, rough Amethyst, Tourmaline etc can be found at bargain prices. From here we turn directly west and cross the gravel plains on our way to the Atlantic Ocean and the Skeleton Coast. Meeting the ocean at Henties Bay, we first head north along the coast to visit the seal colony at Cape Cross. Here at certain times of the year there can be as many as 100,000 Cape Fur seals in attendance. The next destination is Swakopmund, stopping for lunch en-route and following the Skeleton Coast into Namibia's premier seaside town. There is no suitable campsite available in Swakopmund, so we really make the most of being back in civilization by staying in holiday chalets.
The Swakopmund section of the trip is designed to allow people to relax either with the group, or on their own. Only breakfast is provided. This is to allow you to plan your time here with as much flexibility as possible and not to be tied to group meal times. It also gives you the chance to sample some of the excellent local cafes and restaurants. The seafood in Swakopmund is superb. Your guide will offer to organise a group meal in a local restaurant for this evening. Participation is recommended but by no means required.

More driving! Ugh. We had to get up at 4:30 in order to make it into Swakopmud in time for an afternoon plane ride. Laura was on it, I opted to read and rest in our little chalet. We saved some money that way, but the plane ride was worth the money. She said it was spectacular, the huge desert sand-dunes, the ocean, the skeletons of shipwrecks on the sand. We stopped off at a seal colony and it was huge and stinky, but it was nice to see seals in the wild, doing what seals do. There was a fence of course, but Laura assured me that the seals wouldn't want to cross it. The ocean frothed up onto the sand. We took pictures in an old graveyard, made by shipwrecked sailors who thought that they were saved when they found land, but soon realized that the land was desert and they were stuck in the middle of it. Swakopmund is German and quaint, a little piece of Deutchland in the middle of Africa (Namibia had been a German colony way back when). Laura loved it! I was more ambivalent. It was like Miami, but smaller and planned by Germans. We ate dinner at a German restaurant that night and then got plenty of rest for the coming day when, of course, we planned too much!

Day Seven
Swakopmund (Chalet accommodation) (BLD)
Today is a free day. The idea is to allow time for everybody to do their own thing. Swakopmund is a very pleasant seaside town with lots of shops, a good stretch of beach (although the Atlantic here is quite cold) and an open-air curio market. There is also a very good museum and the Namibian National Marine Aquarium is located in Swakopmund.
Alternatively, there are various optional activities that can be arranged. These include aeroplane and microlight flights over the desert, scenic drives, fishing trips (both from the beach or in a boat), four-wheel motorcycle (quad bike) trips into the desert and over the sand dunes around Swakopmund, sand boarding trips (also in the dunes), skydiving, surfing, bird-watching and many other activities are available. Your tour guide will discuss all the possible options with you before you reach Swakopmund and will offer to make bookings in advance of your arrival. N.B. All extra activities and excursions in Swakopmund are subject to availability and are made at the clients' own risk and expense.

Our day had to be re-arranged because in the morning there was a strong east wind coming out of the east. Huh. Yeah. So in the morning I did email and did some online banking and then in the afternoon, I went quad-biking in the dunes and sand-boarding. The quad-biking just kid of happened. Pete and Lutz were going, and I decided to join them, kind of a male bonding thing. The quad-bikes were the four wheelers with big tires, and we zoomed around the dunes, jumping ridges, revving up the sides of dunes and then soaring down them until at the bottom there was the jar of leveling off. I had a great time. From quad-biking we went to sandboarding. I thought that this would be a breeze, as I am an experienced snowboarded. It wasn't. Laura went, to my surprise, and she went down the huge dunes on the lay-down boards. The hike up the dunes turned out to be good practice for the Fish River Canyon hike (no chair lifts), but on my first time down, I fell and tumbled and I felt new! There was one guy, an Aussie, who had never snowboarded before and he went down perfectly! I was ashamed! Laura and Miriam dashed down on their stomachs, and that was a lot more fun. I tried it after the stand-up boards proved to be too much work. Laura and I even went together on one ride down the dunes. I must say, my last ride down I stood-up, after waxing up my board (you wax before each ride), and I did well, but it wsan't as much fun as I would have thought. The lie down boards were much more fun and the speeds were exhilarting, 80 kilometers an hour!

That night we ate out and Sherri, my eating buddy, and I ordered jalepeno poppers. Yum. Lutz then had us all screaming with laughter as he went through the story of Heidi. Alas, Skippy had no one to party with from our group, but he found some wild women to hoop it up with and got home a little after four that morning.

Day Eight
Swakopmund-Sesriem (300 km) (Camping) (BLD)
Away by 09:00 and a little further down the coast to the port town of Walvis Bay. South of the town there is a large marine lagoon which is home to a vast array of marine bird life, in particular flamingos. We will make a short visit to the lagoon to see the birds and a short visit to Walvis Bay to collect any last minute supplies before once again heading out into the desert. The first part of our journey today takes us across more of the seemingly endless Namib gravel plains. Then the landscape suddenly changes and we are into the mountain desert. We traverse both the Kuiseb and Gaub passes, driving both times to the river beds at the bottom of the canyons and then climbing the long steep road to the top and the spectacular panoramas the mountains give us. Again the scenery changes as we make our way down to the dune fields at Sesriem. We cross some open grass savannah and farmlands before the terrain begins to give way to the immense red sand dune desert of the Namib. We stop for lunch in the desert en-route and arrive in Sesriem during the late afternoon. We have time to relax and watch the sunset over the dunes from our campsite.

Mostly driving today, though at Solitaire, this little town/gas station, we had the best apple crumb this side of Bavaria. We also bought a loaf of bread there, amazing. I took a walk on the veldt as the sun fell from the sky.

Day Nine
Sesriem-Sossusvlei-Sesriem (150 km) (Camping) (BLD)
A pre-dawn start to see the sunrise in the dunes. From our campsite we drive a further 60-km into the desert and have our breakfast as the colours change and grow across the landscape. To reach Sossusvlei itself we must then walk for the last five-km through the dunes. The walk is like nothing else, in the cool of the morning, with soft sunlight just beginning to play over the dunes creating a sharp light and shadow contrast across the whole desert. Ancient mineral pans, stunted Camel thorn trees and the chance of seeing a gemsbok or maybe an ostrich make the photo opportunities perfect. We spend the morning in and around Sossusvlei (there is a good chance of getting a lift in a four-wheel drive vehicle for the return 5-km walk and there is often a four-wheel drive shuttle service available in both directions for a small extra charge), but as the day wears on we return to our camp for lunch and to escape the heat of the day. Back into the usual rhythm of relaxing in the shade and eating ice cream beside the swimming pool or, having a siesta, or both. As the day cools off in the late afternoon we will take a short excursion to the Sesriem Canyon.

After being in the car for days, this was our big day of training for the Fish River Canyon hike. And I must say, this was the best day of the tour. We got up early and were the first ones out of the gate to dune 45. We then started the climb in the early morning light. Up the sand, up the ridge, our feet digging into the powder, the flecks of dust falling away down the slope, each step became harder and harder, and this was the little dune. We got to the top and watched the sunrise over the desert and then we ran down the side, upon the recommendation of Flossy. Yes, at each camp, we saw Flossy, and I started to worry that Laura would leave me for him. He had such nice teeth.

After dune 45 we ate lunch and then drove on to Big Daddy. We could have taken a 4x4 up the canyon a little way, but we walked it, slugging our way through the deep sand. At 285 meters tall, Big Daddy isn't the highest dune in the world, but it's close. The highest dunes are in Sossosvlei, and the second highest are in Colorado! Little known fact, but true. We were tired when we got to the big dunes, but we still had to climb up. We crossed a dry, cracked lake bed, with only one end of the lake still with water, and then started the climb. It took an hour to creep along the ridge, and we stopped to take short breaks and look out about us, the dunes stretching out in all directions, cut by the white dryness of valleys. At the top, we could see the dead forest down in the valley in front of us, a forest that had been fed with summer water for centuries until the river was cut off and the trees slowly died with their roots still in the white, thirsty soil. An hour up the dune and then five minutes running down. Running down through the sand was in a way like being free from gravity, and we bounded down, onto the ancient river bed where the trees stuck out of the cracked land like dragon bones.

Day Ten
Sesriem-Windhoek (380 km) (BLD)
A fairly leisurely start to our last day. After breakfast we begin our journey, along scenic roads, back to Windhoek. We stop for a last lunch en-route and rejoin the sealed road at Rehoboth, about 100 km south of Windhoek. We are due back into the city around 15:00 and you will be dropped off at your accommodation on our return.

The trip back was made short by a Mad Magazine that Louise bought. Driving was dusty and we were all covered with a fine silt. We all got together that night, June 18, for a last dinner, and we went to a great place called Joe's Biergarten in Windhoek. The food, very German, was very good. Sherri and I talked movies all night. And that was the end of the tour.

Aaron learning how to count in Damra, taught by some 3 year old Damra speaking locals

Bushmen rock art, wished we could have spent a whole day here, there was lots to look at

The huge desert sand-dunes,
the ocean shore seal colony,
the skeletons of shipwrecks all from a six-seater plane

Aaron sandboarding, right on dude!

Laura shooting down a sand-dune at 80kph, how cool is that!

Take me to Windhoek