Tale guide

Pompous git!

I guarantee that Namibia will take your breath away.

It is probably the most spectacular country on the planet by virtue of its vast, spectacular and ancient ruggedness as much as its small population of equally ancient, multi-cultural peoples who continue to protect and care for it.

Wonderfully romantic images are conjured up by ancient and potentially dangerous placenames like ‘The Skeleton Coast’, ‘Salt pans of Makgadikgadi’, ‘Mountains of the Moon’ and ‘Dead vlei’.

The country creeps into one’s soul and never leaves. The Bushmen roamed the rolling plains in perfect harmony with the graceful Gemsbok and the herds of African animals that over centuries have evolved and successfully adapted to the harsh conditions.

They lived high in the safety of the sandstone mountain crags where their art reflects the events of those long-ago times and there is evidence that early Egyptian sailors tried to cross the desert in a failed attempt to get home after being shipwrecked on the Skeleton coast centuries before the first Portuguese explorers stopped over at Cape Cross before continuing to sail around the tip of Africa.

Its West coast boasts a cold Atlantic and a strong Benguela current that flows northwards. It brings millions of fish, mammal, and bird to its inhospitable desert shores of ever shifting dunes that burn in the blistering heat. The conflict is the very essence of this land of beautiful and violent contrasts.

It was into this imposing spectacle that I finally convinced my Ann of Africa to trust me on the first long journey to all of the far reaches of the land. We left on our journey on the 2nd of April 2005. I remember this as it was on this day that the world was notified that Pope John-Paul II had died.

In Windhoek we camped on a farm in the Auas Mountains immediately north of the city. The farms of Namibia are not really farms as we understand them; they are enormous ranches that often stretch across high mountains and deep valleys for hundreds of square kilometres. Many farmers are fourth and fifth generation sons of German settlers who learnt to successfully breed cattle, horses and sheep not to mention game, all of which had little choice but adapt or die of everything from droughts, heat, storms, baboons and leopards and an abundance of reptiles they have had to share the land with.

The hospitality of Namibians is also an attribute that has endured forever and the farmer in this instance, had us jump onto the back of his old 4x4 truck and take us on a trip high into the mountains so that he could firstly establish where his cattle were and secondly to see how they were doing.

It was the very same farmer who recommended that once we enter the Namib Naukluft Park, that lies inside the desert, south of Walvis Bay, we should definitely stop at Sesriem to refuel and enjoy their world-famous apple pie. He suggested that we should take a half pint of fresh cream with us because the old roadhouse would unfortunately not have it on tap.

We left Walvis Bay shortly after an extravagant week in the little German enclave of Swakopmund where we had succeeded in washing off the many layers of yellow sand dust that we had gathered on our travels from the far north, from off the trailer tent and equipment.

About an hour into the desert, we came across hundreds and thousands of overly large, armoured bush crickets walking across the sand road. Before we knew it we were riding over them and we could hear the crunching of their hardened exoskeletons under the truck’s tyres as we moved slowly through them. We didn’t have a clue what they were at the time and were both amazed and somewhat afraid of their terrifying alien appearance and size.

“Marry me and I’ll show you the world!” Ann suddenly exclaimed sarcastically. “If I had only known!”

I jumped to my defence, “Hang on there! This is just the start my beloved. Wait till I take you to Spain and Portugal. You will definitely want to settle in Spain, I promise!”

We were still crawling over the never-ending sea of crickets, watching in disbelief. “You never stop talking about bloody Spain. You only want to go there because you love the food,” responded Ann, now sounding a tad irritable. “If you love Spain so much, you should pack your bags and go there and find yourself a Spanish number to shack up with.”

“Listen sweetheart,” I said, tongue in cheek, “I have not invested all this money and emotional energy into this marriage to discard……”

I was rudely and abruptly silenced, “You pompous, arrogant git!” she cried out, “you are just like your mother!” and we burst out laughing. 

We were well inside the park by now and surrounded by the highest dunes in the world that reach as high as 300 meters into the clear blue sky and the sweltering sun.

The outside temperature reached 41 degrees as we cleared a ridge on the sandy roadway and saw a lonely, rickety outcrop of buildings a kilometre in front of us.

As we approached, the outline of a petrol station forecourt under a corrugated iron roof became clearer through the haze of the heat. I pulled up next to a rusty pump and switched the truck off. “Welcome to Sesriem,” I announced.

We sat for a moment taking in the scene. The building in front of us housed the shop and café. A curtain of multi coloured plastic strips hung from the top of the double entrance doors. They moved in response to the intermittent breeze that blew across the forecourt.

Directly in front of us stood a small backboard on trestle legs marked with the words “News today!” Handwritten in white chalk below, proclaimed, “Pope John Paul II has died.” The date was the 28th of May 2005! Almost seven weeks after the fact.

We filled up and parked the truck to one side and made our way into the café where we chose a table next to a window protected by embroidered net curtaining that had faded from years of exposure to the sunlight.

The apple pie was to die for and as we hadn’t forgotten the cream, it was even that much better!

Sixty kilometres further on from Sesriem lies Sussusvlei and deadvlei. A site made famous by the many photographs of the enchantingly desolate clay pans, adorned by a couple of dead tree stumps and surrounded by gigantic red sand dunes.

We followed the Tsauchab River for a couple of hours until just before sunset when we pulled into a ‘camp site’ of sorts established by a local farmer in the dry riverbed of the Tsauchab and next to a large Baobab tree.

At first glans we appeared to be parked off on a not so spectacular sandy patch between a rustic stone fireplace come braai, with its small, tiled worktop and the Baobab. But on closer inspection, we discovered a door in the side of the Baobab that opened into a beautifully tiled and appointed shower and toilet ablution with tons of boiling hot water.

As we settled down around the comfort of a blazing log fire, under the clear night sky of a million twinkling stars, a couple of armoured bush crickets approached the fire and climbed up onto the top of the fireplace.

At close quarters they looked much more ominous than from a distance.

Ann stared in fearful apprehension at the monster crickets.

“What if we try Spain my love?” I asked mischievously.

You don’t want to know her reply. I am of the considered opinion that it is simply not fitting language for an English lady of leisure!