The Hidden Gems of Africa (part 3)

Next to Sossusvlei is another landscape wonder, also part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park but off the beaten track - the Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park. 

It is nestled in the Naukluft mountain range and covers an area of approximately 4,000 square kilometres! Yes, everything in Namibia is vast and huge! 

The park was initially established in 1964 to provide a sanctuary for the Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra, which was facing a severe threat due to hunting and habitat loss. 

If you love hiking, there are many trails offering jaw-dropping views of the mountains and the colourful rocks, as well as the incredible vegetation and, of course, the tons of birds and the cute mountain zebras!

After two nights in the park, we continued our road trip towards the north to discover another face of the Namib Desert. 

We were starting to get tired of the sand since we had been driving along dusty gravel roads surrounded by desert sand and alien black rocks for more than a week! 

We made a short stop at Solitaire. It was hardly a village and more like the outpost of an old Western movie featuring two cafés, but still brought the "come back to civilization" feeling and filled our stomachs with delicious sandwiches and apple strudel! 

After driving kilometres and kilometres in the middle of nowhere, we crossed the Tropic of the Capricorn again after our first time many years ago in Australia. 

We were getting closer to the Atlantic Ocean and I guess that we were expecting to leave the desert behind us… Well, we were terribly wrong! 

The city of Swakopmund is surrounded by the Namib Desert on three sides and the Atlantic waters to the west! 

The collision between the warm desert air and the cold Benguela Current is the culprit for the cold climate all year round (summer months are even colder), as well as for the thick fog that is present for more than 180 days each year. 

Even though Swakopmund is closer to the equator than Miami, the summer in the Namibian city is colder than winter in Southern Florida! Do not expect a beach resort or a nice dip in the ocean - it will never happen!

However, if you are here for the landscape, the jetty has some of the most beautiful sunset views in Namibia, but you need warm clothes - it will be freezing cold and windy! 

Also, falling asleep and waking up with the sight of the breathtaking dunes in front of our bungalow at the Desert Breeze Lodge was a real fairytale… 

Swakopmund, the neighbouring Walvis Bay and their surroundings are also home to many salt pans with thousands of flamingos, as well as the highest dune in Namibia! Dune 7 has been measured at over 383 meters and is the seventh dune one encounters after crossing the Tsauchab River, hence the name. Many publications claim that it is the world’s largest sand dune but, whether it is the truth or not, it is still exceptionally large and it is made entirely from sand! 

After continuing further north from Swakopmund, we saw another of Namibia’s landscape gems - the mystical Skeleton Coast, which forms the northern portion of the Namib Desert. 

While the frequent thick fog rolling off the Atlantic Ocean is a vital source of moisture for the desert wildlife in the area, which includes the endemic resilient Welwitschia plant and the naras or bitterpips (also known as the wild melons), it has proved a major hazard to ships. More than one thousand wrecks are scattered along this treacherous stretch of the coast, making the area the world’s biggest gravesite for sailors and ships.

In addition, the wilderness of the Skeleton Coast is amongst the most remote and inaccessible areas in the world, so saving the rare castaway was close to zero… In the 1940s, discovered along with human skeletons was a slate written by a survivor which directed anyone who found it north. Unfortunately, the wreck had happened close to a century earlier…

If you want to drive across the Skeleton Coast, you need to do it on the beach at low tide, which already requires a lot of courage. Also, if you want to stay there overnight, the campsites are rare and expensive. Therefore, we opted for visiting one of the most accessible shipwrecks - the Zeila (2008), as well as Cape Cross a little bit further north. The landscape along the road was harsh and inhospitable, and the only living beings we could spot were a handful of adventurous fishermen on the beach!

After Cape Cross, we set forth east moving deeper into another natural wonder - the rocky desert of Damaraland. 

This is one of Namibia’s most dramatic landscapes - the desert sands are everywhere and are thinly populated by camel thorn trees and a little bit of brush here and there. 

Damaraland is home to the glorious rock formations of the Brandberg and Spitzkoppe. 

The Brandberg is a pink granite mountain. Its name means Burning Mountain or Fire Mountain in Afrikaans, Dutch and German, referring to its glowing color at the light of the setting sun. Its summit, Königstein, is Namibia’s highest peak at 2,573 metres. 

The mountain is also beautiful during the day and a hike in the early morning will be a blast! Do not follow our example of setting off for a walk around noon - it will be scorching hot!

The lonely giant volcanic rock formation of Spitzkoppe, which will probably remind you of Uluru in Australia, is one of Namibia’s most recognizable landmarks. 

Its dramatic shape and sharp peak rise like a mirage above the dusty plains of Damaraland and have inspired its nickname, the Matterhorn of Africa. There are no other common features between the two mountains though! 

The landscape is really impressive and the whole area will actually remind you of the Red Center in Australia! 

In comparison to the conditions in which the locals live, our rather basic Spitzkoppe campsite was a 5-star accommodation… We had our own dry toilets but the bathrooms were common and were so far away that we had to hop in our car and drive there, so we skipped shower time the following morning… 

Spitzkoppe was also the best camping experience we had in Namibia as each camping spot was rather secluded and some of them offered mind-blowing sunrise and sunset views over the surrounding mountains!

Besides its gorgeous rocks which turn orange and red at sunrise or sunset, Spitzkoppe is known for its gorgeous semi-precious stones! We encountered many tiny roadside stalls selling gemstones and crystals. Most of the time there was no human being in sight but a tin can or jar for donations if you decided to take one of them. 

When we entered the Spitzkoppe campsite through the Western gate, we were stopped by a sweet guy who asked whether he could fill his bottles with some of the drinkable water in our tank, and in exchange gave us a light green stone he had found in the mountains.

Damaraland was the place where we distributed the most water to the locals. It broke our heart knowing that, as foreigners staying at the campsites, we could benefit from the running water, while the locals needed to walk for hours under the killing hot sun to get some of this precious resource and carry the heavy load back on their heads, only because they could not pay for such luxury!

Some of the campsites in Damaraland like Madisa Camp even had a swimming pool! You can imagine how outrageous this looked to us after we learnt that the locals struggled to find enough drinking water… Even the 50-liter tank in our car was not enough as there were always people on the road asking to fill their bottles. We needed a cistern and not a water tank if we wanted to help everyone…

After Damaraland, we spent a couple of days in and around the Etosha National Park where we came across another natural gem - the vast Etosha pan. This immense blindingly white, flat, saline desert stretches into the horizon and, for a few days each year, is converted by rain into a shallow lagoon with flamingos and pelicans. 

Besides its pan, the Etosha National Park boasts a huge variety of vegetation which attracts different fauna, from grassveld and scrub to trees and even dolomite hills!

After more than two weeks driving through sandy, rocky and saline deserts, we finally headed northeast looking for some of Southern Africa’s most famous rivers. While we were driving towards the Caprivi Strip, the landscape changed drastically! Hills, trees with green leaves, gardens with fruits and veggies, and cute houses started popping up like mirages on both sides of the sealed road, which looked almost like a highway after the dusty gravel and salt roads of the Namib Desert and Damaraland. 

We stopped for a night in Rundu, a city next to the border between Namibia and Angola. From the lovely Kaisosi River Lodge where we had dinner and stayed for the night, we could see Angola on the other side of the Okavango River. 

The river, known as Okavango in Botswana, Cubango in Angola, and Kavango in Namibia, is the fourth-longest in Southern Africa. 

It does not have an outlet to the sea or the ocean, and, instead, discharges into the Okavango Delta - the largest inland delta (or river mouth) in the world, which reaches some 15,000 square kilometres at full flood. It has been named one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

In order to see this landscape gem, we crossed the border between Namibia and Botswana. The delta is an unexpected wonder as the broad Okavango River sinks into the dry sands of the Kalahari Desert, splits into five waterways reminding the shape of the five fingers of a hand, and creates a lush oasis of lagoons, channels and islands, including permanent water as well as seasonal wetlands. 

In order to experience the astonishing beauty and wilderness of the Okavango Delta, we spent two nights in the remote Guma Lagoon Camp next to a beautiful lagoon. 

It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere… 

The feeling got even stronger when we went for the traditional mokoro ride along the narrow waterways and tunnels dug by hippos and elephants. 

A mokoro is a shallow-draft dugout canoe, traditionally hewn from an ebony or a sausage-tree log. While it may appear precarious at first, it is very stable once you are on it. 

It can carry two passengers and a local boatman standing at the back and propelling the mokoro with a long pole called ngashi. 

Gliding on the shallow water amongst swamps, water lilies and papyrus reeds with our amazing, friendly and very knowledgeable guide was quite the experience!

We learnt loads of things about the delta and the local flora and fauna, and spotted a crocodile and tons of birds!

After having crossed the border back to Namibia, we continued driving eastwards and reached another important river. The Cuando (or Kwando) River flows through Angola, and Namibia’s Caprivi Strip, then forms the border with Botswana where it is called successively the Linyanti River, and then the Chobe River, and finally flows into the prominent Zambezi River. 

Along this continuous waterway, there are a number of parks including the Nkasa Rupara National Park in Namibia and the Chobe National Park in Botswana. 

We went for boat rides on each side of the border and watched the sun setting over the river, offering us some of the most magical sunsets ever!

We could not leave Africa without pushing a little bit further east to the iconic Victoria Falls at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. We simply had to follow the Zambezi - the fourth-longest river in Africa and the largest river flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. It rises in Zambia and flows through Angola, along the borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and finally through Mozambique. Along the way, it forms another landscape gem - the Victoria Falls. With a width of 1,708 metres, it is one of the world's largest waterfalls and Earth’s greatest spectacles. 

The falls were named in honour of Queen Victoria by David Livingstone. He was the first European recorded to have viewed them on 16 November 1855, from Livingstone Island - one of the two islands in the middle of the river. However, their original name in the Sotho language (one of the Bantu languages) - Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning Thundering smoke - is still used, and the World Heritage List recognises both names. 

If you want to see the full splendour of the falls, you should visit them during or immediately after the rainy season. However, since the best time to visit the neighbouring Namibia and Botswana for wildlife watching is the dry season, finding the best season for all places at the same time appeared tricky! 

Therefore, we did not have a choice but to visit the Victoria Falls in September, which is during the dry season. 

Even though there was not much water, it was still an impressive sight, but we should definitely come back during the rainy season for a different perspective! 

The sheer power and force of the falls can be viewed from a helicopter ride or from the edge of one of the viewpoints along the top of the gorge. On our first day, we walked on our own to each of the 16 viewpoints in the Victoria Falls National Park on the Zimbabwe side, which was quite easy and the sights were spectacular. 

Since we chose to visit in the early afternoon, we came across tons of gorgeous rainbows along the way! On our second day, we crossed the border to Zambia (which is a visa-free country for lots of countries, including EU ones, and we had previously bought the 45 USD double-entry visa to Zimbabwe while crossing the border from Botswana). From there, you can see better the impressive Victoria Falls Bridge built in 1905, as well as the Zambezi River itself. 

The Zambian views of the falls were less impressive during this time of the year but must be jaw-dropping at rainy season. 

The Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park on the Zambia side is close to the border but we still had to walk for a while under the heat. It was still nice and we saw people bungee jumping while we were crossing the bridge. 

The Victoria Falls are also one of the very few places on the planet where you can see lunar rainbows - the result of moonlight (instead of sunlight) reflecting through the water. They occur only at full moons, so you have to choose your timing wisely. 

Another beautiful sight was the hotel where we stayed in Zimbabwe - the colonial style Pioneers Lodge felt like heaven and featured lovely gardens with birds, small animals, fig trees and tropical flowers! 

Also, their staff saved our trip by calling Kenya Airlines when we received a last minute email that our flight had been cancelled! After an hour on the phone, it appeared that our flight from Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe was not cancelled anymore but rather moved to Livingston in Zambia, for the simple (and strange) reason that our plane arriving from Cape Town in South Africa was delayed and could not land in Zimbabwe before the (international) airport closed at 6pm…

So together with a hundred other passengers, we got on a bus to cross the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia with the hurdle that some passengers needed visas that they could not get at the border (luckily we did not need one)... We also discovered that another flight, this time from Livingston, was cancelled the day before due to technical issues with the plane, and the airline was trying to get the passengers stuck there on our plane as well.

We waited for more than 5 hours to get our handwritten boarding passes, which was a first…

And then - the "icing on the cake"! The "well-travelled" guys we thought we were missed the visa requirement for Kenya… So we requested our e-visas using the almost nonexistent Internet at the airport at the last minute before boarding, and got them only shortly before landing in Nairobi, while we were getting ready to either beg the immigration officials to let us in the country, wait inside the airport until our visas get approved, or take the next flight directly to Europe… Based on the website, it usually took 72 hours to obtain the visas - luckily it took us only 4 hours…

Reaching our 86th country - Kenya - at 2am happened to be harder than expected but we made it… Yes, travelling is seeing some amazing things together with LOTS of glitches on the road! There is always a price to pay for the beauty you witness and, even though we got a few grey hairs from this one, it was worth it and now we have a story to tell!

On top of their landscape gems, Namibia and Botswana also revealed their wildlife wonders, and, for a first trip to Africa, it was quite a treat!