On arrival in Windhoek, I made my way to the Chameleon backpackers' hostel and met up with a Dutch girl - Sandra - who I had met briefly in South Africa and had been in Namibia for a week already. Sandra and I decided to hire a 4x4 with camping gear and embark on a two week Namibian road trip.
Namibia is an incredibly beautiful country; probably the most beautiful country I have ever visited. It has mountains, canyons and desert and a huge blue sky with the odd little fluffy cloud in it. It is home to a relatively tiny number of humans - just over 2 million (there are 4 times that many in London alone) - which means that you can drive for hours without passing another car. It is also one of the few places left on earth where many large animals live outside reserves and alongside the local people - including lion, elephant, black rhino, leopard and giraffe.
Below - in words and pictures, but mostly pictures - is beautiful Namibia.
On the road
Driving in Namibia was so much fun. The roads ranged from smooth, fast tarmac ones (the minority) to very bumpy, very slow gravel ones (the majority!) Considering the road conditions, we were astonishingly lucky to not suffer from even one flat or burst tyre on our journey! Camping on the roof was also a great experience and surprisingly comfortable.
Arnhem bat caves, Fish River Canyon and the Orange River
On our first day of travelling, we headed to Arnhem to meet some bats. It was a very dark, very dusty and VERY smelly experience!
Kolmanskop is a deserted (in every sense of the word) diamond-mining town established by German settlers in the early 1900s. The last settlers left in 1954, after which the sand dunes, snakes and brown hyenas took over. Eerie and wonderful.
An incredibly beautiful and unique landscape and the place where I climbed my first sand dune (you can see my footprints in the second photo) - a disconcerting, disorientating, exhausting but exhilarating experience.
Swakopmund, Desert tour and Cape Cross
It was amazing to meet the creatures that make their homes in Namibia's varied and often apparently inhospitable environments.
Twyfelfontein Cave Engravings
Twyfelfontein is a World Heritage Site. The cave engravings there are at least 6,000 years old and were made by Stone Age hunter-gatherers as maps, teaching tools or part of Shamanic rituals.
The Himba people live in the North of the country. We managed to find a local guy who was happy to take us to a remote Himba village and introduce us to the villagers there. They were incredibly welcoming and it was a huge privilege to spend the afternoon in their village, finding out about their way of life and their traditions and receiving some wisdom from the chief!
Etosha National Park
Because you can never see too many animals...
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