There's a Bat In My Banda: Amphibious Namibia

If I were running the Namibian Tourist Board (and lucky for them, I’m not), my slogan would be Amphibious Namibia because there’s so much to do both on land and on the sea. (In fact, I think the people here should be called Namphibians, but given that they’ve only been Namibians – as opposed to South-West Africans – for 17 years now, it’s probably not the right time for a name change. I also think people in Botswana should be called “Botswanese,” but that’s another matter.)

After we left Laurel in Swakopmund, we headed back inland for what would turn out to be a very long (and kind of boring) day of driving. But we started with a few tourist attractions. First stop was just outside of town to see The Martin Luther, a strange relic from colonial days. It is a 14,000 kg. steam engine that was brought from Germany in 1896 and was intended to replace the ox wagons that were used to transport freight from the coast to the interior. However, given that it consumed massive amounts of water – a precious commodity in the desert – and moved incredibly slowly in sand (3 months to cover 30 km), it was not a great success, and after a short life simply ground to a halt. Apparently, it was then dubbed The Martin Luther in reference to Luther’s statement: “Here I stand. May God help me, I cannot do otherwise.”

Next stop was Cape Cross, a sanctuary for fur seals. During breeding season, as many as 200,000 seals come here; we saw probably close to 60,000, which was smelly enough, but fun to see playing in the waves and sunning themselves on the sand.

We then started driving in earnest. When the road crossed through an industrial diamond area, we had to stop so that guard could radio ahead to the next guard to let him know we were coming. Apparently, they time you, and you get 15 minutes to get through. (Although I’m not quite sure what happens if you take longer than 15 minutes.)

By late afternoon, we arrived at the Palmwag (pronounced pa-lem-vag, accent on the “pa”) Lodge, where we had to leave our vehicle (a mini-van) and transfer to a LandRover. Although we had only 30 more kilometers to cover, it took another two hours on rough terrain.

The Palmwag Rhino Camp, our home for the next two nights, was run by Wilderness Safaris, the same company that ran our camp in Soussevlei and the next three that we would stay at. Again, we were welcomed with cool towels and fruit juice – a custom that we were coming to expect and enjoy. The camp was more low-key than the first one, but still luxurious for camping. Although we had flush toilets in the tent, hot water was brought on request for bucket showers and thermoses with hot and cold water were left for washing up. Still, we had real beds, with fluffy comforters and turn-down service.

Before dinner, guests gathered around the fire for drinks and for stargazing. So close to the equator and with no lights for miles around, it seems the stars will practically touch the ground.

The next day, we get up early – this is starting to be a pattern, but we go to bed so early that it’s really not too bad. After breakfast at around 6:00, we set off for rhino tracking.

Three trackers who work for the Save the Rhino Trust started out ahead of us, but by the time we caught up to them, they had seen nothing. After a couple more hours in pursuit, the trackers finally got out of their vehicle and started on foot. We followed, up a small hill, and in the distance, not more than 100 yards away from us were a black rhino and her calf. Although we had been briefed on what do if the rhino charged, luckily we never needed to use that information. Instead, we watched them, while they watched us, and eventually, they wandered off behind the next hill.

We also learned some interesting facts about rhinos. First, the names “black” and “white” rhinos are misnomers; all rhinos are grey. The difference between the species is the size of the lips, with the white rhinos having wider ones. Apparently, the word for “wide” in Afrikaans was mistranslated to “white” in English and the name stuck. Second, if you can’t get close enough to the rhinos to inspect their lips, you can tell rhinos apart by the way they walk with their young: a black rhino calf walks behind its mother while a white rhino calf walks in front. This is because, at least according to some people, Africans carry their babies on their backs while white people push them in front in a stroller. On the way back to camp, as an extra treat, we saw our first (of many) desert adapted elephants. While these elephants do not differ biologically from other elephants, they have developed behaviors that allow them to survive in the harsh desert environment.

At dinner that night, it was just us, one other guest, and the camp staff. The other guest, Tanya, has my dream job. She lives in London and works for a high-end travel agency, specializing in Africa. She was visiting Namibia as part of her training, so that she could best advise her clients on where to go. Sure seems to beat grading papers.

Our next stop was the Damaraland Camp, for just one night. The highlight here was an al fresco dinner in the boma (corral). One of the best parts of the dinner hour in these camps is the recitation of the menu, first in English and then in the very animated “click” language of the Nama and Bushmen people.

After Damaraland, we went on to Ongava, a private game reserve directly outside Etosha National Park. After getting settled in, we went for a game drive on the property and within five minutes, we came up two male lions taking their afternoon naps. Seated in the open-sided vehicle, we were so close that we felt like we could almost reach out and pet them, and so close that when Ellen sneezed, they both woke up, glared at us, but then luckily went on snoozing. Our next activity was the ritual sundowner; this time it was set up in a small clearing where we could watch giraffes, zebra, springbok, and oryx as the sun set and the moon came up.

One of guests that night was Lisa, a middle-aged American woman who visited Namibia for the first time just a year ago and loved it so much that she quit her job “selling bananas to Wal-Mart” to work as a bush pilot shuttling guests from one lodge to the next.

After a yummy Italian dinner prepared by one of the guests who just happens to be chef, we were escorted back to our tents by an armed guard. Although we didn’t see any, apparently lions are known to roam the camp after dark, and while we signed all kinds of waivers, the management is taking any chances.

The next day, we spent the morning on a game drive in Etosha National Park. Because it is so dry here, most of the game viewing revolves around the watering holes in the park, which makes it relatively easy to find animals. We saw loads of elephants, including quite a few babies; all kinds of antelopes, my favorite being the springbok, which “prong,” or bounce up in the air – several feet- just because they can; and the usual jackals, ostriches, giraffes, and zebras.

We came back to camp for a hot lunch and then lounged on the verandah in front of the watering hole. While a bit decadent, it was quite nice to be able to relax with a cold drink, feet in the pool, and watch the bushbuck, kudus, and oryx wander up.

That afternoon, we went for a nature walk with Cameron, one of the camp managers. Originally from Zimbabwe, Cameron’s family moved to Namibia during the war, and he has made Namibia his home. He and his wife, Wendy, a former social worker who worked with abused children and prostitutes, decided to give up city life and move to the bush in retirement. While Cameron showed us many of the wonders of nature, it turns out that his specialty was poop, or as they say in the scientific world, “scat.” Not only could Cameron identify each animal by its poop, but he could tell us quite a bit about the animal’s eating habits, digestive track, and territorial behaviors. In addition, he seemed to revel in our reactions as he picked up the poop, broke up apart, held it up to his nose like a fine wine, and then offered us the chance to do the same.

The next morning, we left Andre, our guide, to fly up to the Skeleton Coast. Andre took us to the Ongava airstrip, where we met our pilot, Grant, who looked like he started shaving maybe last week. We piled into the 4-seater Cessna, said our good-byes to Andre, and set off for the 45 minute flight. While driving across Namibia, we had some sense of how vast and sparsely populated the country is (in fact, it is second-to-last only ahead of Mongolia in population density in the world), seeing it from the air drove the point home. Amazingly though, amid miles and miles of nothing, away from any roads or even rivers, we could see small homesteads dotted around the barren landscape.

We arrived at Purros airstrip, a field of sand and nothing more, that made Ongava airstrip, with its gate and two restrooms, look like a modern airport. In fact, as we landed, Grant pointed out two other airplanes to prove to us that this was actually where we were supposed to land.

We were met by Rambo (yes, that is really his name), our guide for the next three days. Wilderness owns two camps, right next to each other, on the Skeleton Coast: the main camp and the research center, where we stayed. While there is no research currently being done, the camp was originally established to house scientists studying lichen in the area. The camp was the most rustic of all – but still luxurious by any standard – and we were the only ones staying there. At first we were a bit nervous about being so isolated, but the staff there were so much fun that we were glad to have them all to ourselves.

Because we had been sitting so much lately, we decided to walk that afternoon. We wandered around with Rambo, looking for the “small five.” While on game drive in Africa, we look for the “big five” (elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, leopard, and lion), in the desert we look for things like the ant lion, the fog beetle, and other tiny creatures that have adapted to the inhospitable conditions. (The fog beetle, locally known as the tok tokkie, is my favorite of these. It is a medium-sized beetle that looks kind of like a big peanut, with a crease running down the middle of its back. It catches moisture from the fog in the crease, and then tilts forward, with its head in the sand so the water rolls towards its mouth and it can drink.) After walking for a short bit, we climbed a small hill to find our sundowner table already prepared and our arrival perfectly timed. We enjoyed our G & T’s in the stillness of the desert before wandering back to camp.

After yet another delicious meal, with not much else to do and with temperatures dropping to close to freezing, we climbed into bed at around 8:30. Here, to our great joy, turndown service included the strategic placement of hot water bottles in each of our beds.

The next day we awoke to heavy fog and, after breakfast, set off for the 30 km drive to the Atlantic coast.

Rather than driving directly, we spent hours driving up and down the dunes and getting out every now and again to take pictures and to hunt for rocks and minerals.

We stopped at a small oasis, where we collected pieces of an oryx skeleton before Rambo convinced us to play in the quicksand. Rambo, Ellen, and I lined up at the edge of the quicksand for a race. On your marks, get set, and after two steps of running we were up to our knees and literally stopped dead in our tracks, propelling us forward and falling on our faces in the sand. We tried to wriggle ourselves out but were laughing so hard that we kept falling back into the sand. Halfway across the quicksand field, Rambo started running on top of the sand and challenged us to “run like Jesus” to the other side. Although Rambo, at well over 200 pounds could do it, the two of us could not manage to take more than two steps without finding ourselves facedown in the sand.

Around noon, we reached the coast. The Skeleton Coast has been the site of many shipwrecks and takes its name from the bones of the many lost and stranded sailors that have been found on the coast and in the nearby desert. As we drove, we saw massive bones from the Southern Right whale; huge pieces of gnarled driftwood; and cormorants (locally known as the Skeleton Coast Air Force because they fly in formation along the coast), sea gulls, terns, and other shore birds. What we didn’t see much of was people. One other car passed while we were eating our picnic lunch, and later in the day we saw a convoy of five vehicles that we traveling around the perimeter of Africa distributing free mosquito nets in an anti-malaria campaign.

The next day, we took a drive inland, first visiting a Himba family. The Himba people are pastoralists, following their cows and goats to grazing land and leading a very traditional lifestyle. We met two grannies who still dress and adorn themselves in the customary way: they rub a paste of ochre powder mixed with milk fat all over their bodies, making their skin supple and tinged with red; they plait their hair in a way that shows that they are married women; and they dress in nothing but a skirt made of sheep skin that is dyed to match their skin color. The kids, however, were all in Western dress, mugging for the camera like every other African kid that we met.

We then drove around looking at the stunning scenery and searching for animals. Here, we saw more desert-adapted animals, some of which were walking side-by-side with the local livestock.

We also saw more oryx, springbok, giraffe, and chakma baboons. The oryx, otherwise known as the gemsbok, is particularly well-suited to desert environs: First, it does not need to drink water; it can extract moisture from air and plants. Second, it is able to regulate its own internal temperature up to 116 degrees during the day and 97 at night. However, the 116 degree blood would fry its brain, so it has a sort of cooling system in the nasal passage that cools the blood before it passes into the brain.

That evening, for dinner, Morne, the camp manager, told us we’d have a chance to watch the Cooking Channel on bush TV. We had a “braai” or traditional Namibian barbeque, which Chris, the cook, prepared it over the open fire in front of us. Namibians love their meat, so the main course was steak, pork chops, and sausage. For side dishes, butternut squash stuffed with pinto beans and topped with melted cheese; stir fry of vegetables; corn on the cob; and doughboy rolls cooked over the fire. And, after all that, chocolate mousse for dessert.

On Friday, sadly we had to return to Windhoek. We took a leisurely drive back to Purros airstrip, where we sat under a tree waiting for our plane.

As soon as he heard the plane, Rambo jumped up, backed the vehicle onto the airstrip, and jumped on the hood, unfurling a roll of toilet paper as a homemade windsock to guide our pilot in. Phillip, as young as Grant, flew us back to Windhoek and back to civilization. Although we were sad to end our safari, Rolf softened the blow, welcoming us back to Terra Africa like we were long lost relatives and preparing us a delicious home-cooked dinner.