From Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, me and my newly found travel company Anna, a Spanish girl working in Mozambique and Tizian, a Swiss on his way back home from studies in Cape town took the minibus to the coast and Namibia’s premier holiday resort Swakopmund. Minibuses in Namibia are the main mean of transport between the towns of Namibia since there is no developed bus or train service. Swakopmund is however one of the few cities where the train is passing, but since it takes about 11 hours instead of 4 and is freezing cold (I know, I’ve done it) we decided to take the minibus.
Swakopmund can not be considered the most joyful place on earth during wintertime. While all the rest of Namibia is drowning in sun, you enter Swakopmund and you are situated in a constant greyish cloud. The streets are strangely wide and every corner has a stop sign, intriguing considering that there are no cars on the streets, nor any people and every street name or shop is German. We’d tried to book a hostel in advance during the opening hours, but since no one responded we went directly to the hostal, which was literally deserted. After a little while a man approached and told us it was full. Since it was clearly not full (not a single light, nor a single person and soon dark) we tried again but our friend insisted that it was full. After arguing some time we finally got to see the rooms, clearly empty, and had the opportunity to choose a room either with two beds and shower, three beds and toilet or 20 beds and both. We chose the second.
One the Monday we received our rented new and brilliantly white Toyota Corolla and were happy to drive out from Swakop to the north. We were about to follow the coast to Namibia’s highest mountain, Brandberg (2573m), which contains some of the world’s famous rock paintings, dated 6000-2000 years back. Our Damara guide, one of the local ethnical groups speaking the ‘click’ language, tried patiently to teach us the names of birds and trees on the way, but it was doomed since none of us could pronounce any of the clicks right, making them bad words instead. The next day we went on to the Twyfelfontain, a magical place covered with engravings, some dated over 6000 years old, and with a magnificent view over a vast typically Namibian landscape with high yellow grass and acacia bushes.
From Twyfelfontain we decided to take the chance/risk and take a D-road, maybe a little crazy considering that our car was fairly low underneath, still new and brilliantly white (well almost) and there is no mobile signal in that area thus we would be hours away from help if something went wrong. But said and done we were on our way. As we proceeded into the vast amazing and constantly shifting land our gravel road became worse and worse. Each time we passed a specifically difficult part where we almost buried ourselves in the sand holes we were inventing a happy song. On a specifically difficult part we encountered a 4x4, deep stuck into the sand. As there was nothing we could do to help them we promised to call for help when we reached the coast, which we finally did, four hours later. Finally at the coast we made it just in time to see the Cape Cross seal colony before sunset – just an amazing experience to see the life of the somewhat 80,000 seals so close and with the sun slowly setting over the sea.
Swakopmund can not be considered the most joyful place on earth during wintertime. While all the rest of Namibia is drowning in sun, you enter Swakopmund and you are situated in a constant greyish cloud. The streets are strangely wide and every corner has a stop sign, intriguing considering that there are no cars on the streets, nor any people and every street name or shop is German. We’d tried to book a hostel in advance during the opening hours, but since no one responded we went directly to the hostal, which was literally deserted. After a little while a man approached and told us it was full. Since it was clearly not full (not a single light, nor a single person and soon dark) we tried again but our friend insisted that it was full. After arguing some time we finally got to see the rooms, clearly empty, and had the opportunity to choose a room either with two beds and shower, three beds and toilet or 20 beds and both. We chose the second.
One the Monday we received our rented new and brilliantly white Toyota Corolla and were happy to drive out from Swakop to the north. We were about to follow the coast to Namibia’s highest mountain, Brandberg (2573m), which contains some of the world’s famous rock paintings, dated 6000-2000 years back. Our Damara guide, one of the local ethnical groups speaking the ‘click’ language, tried patiently to teach us the names of birds and trees on the way, but it was doomed since none of us could pronounce any of the clicks right, making them bad words instead. The next day we went on to the Twyfelfontain, a magical place covered with engravings, some dated over 6000 years old, and with a magnificent view over a vast typically Namibian landscape with high yellow grass and acacia bushes.
From Twyfelfontain we decided to take the chance/risk and take a D-road, maybe a little crazy considering that our car was fairly low underneath, still new and brilliantly white (well almost) and there is no mobile signal in that area thus we would be hours away from help if something went wrong. But said and done we were on our way. As we proceeded into the vast amazing and constantly shifting land our gravel road became worse and worse. Each time we passed a specifically difficult part where we almost buried ourselves in the sand holes we were inventing a happy song. On a specifically difficult part we encountered a 4x4, deep stuck into the sand. As there was nothing we could do to help them we promised to call for help when we reached the coast, which we finally did, four hours later. Finally at the coast we made it just in time to see the Cape Cross seal colony before sunset – just an amazing experience to see the life of the somewhat 80,000 seals so close and with the sun slowly setting over the sea.
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