I guarantee that Nah-mib-ee-ah 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 place names like ‘The Skeleton Coast’, ‘salt pans of Mah-gah-dee-gah-dee’, ‘Mountains of the Moon’, and ‘Deadvlei’. 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 many 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, with 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.
The country’s 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. I remember the date was 2 April 2005 because it was the day Pope John Paul II died.
We arrived in Vint-hook and camped at a farm in the Auas Mountains, immediately north of the city. The farms of Nah-mib-ee-ah are huge and these enormous ranches 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 have learnt to successfully breed cattle, horses, and sheep, not to mention game, all of which have little choice but to adapt or die of everything from droughts, heat, storms, baboons, and leopards, and the abundance of reptiles they have had to share the land with.
The renowned hospitality of Namibians is something that has endured forever. In this instance, the farmer invited us to jump into the back of his old 4x4 truck before taking 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 Nah-mib Naukluft Park, which lies inside the desert, south of Vahl-fiss Bay, that we should definitely stop at Sesriem to refuel and enjoy their world-famous apple pie. He also 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 Vahl-fiss Bay shortly after an extravagant week in the little German enclave of Swa-kop-mund, 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 our 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 hearing the crunch 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.
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 to 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 by my English rose. You pompous, arrogant git! she cried out. You are just like your mother! and we burst into laughter.
We were well inside the park by now and surrounded by the highest dunes in the world, with some of them reaching as high as three hundred metres into the clear blue sky towards the sweltering sun. The outside temperature reached forty-one degrees as we cleared a ridge on the sandy roadway and saw a lonely, rickety outcrop of buildings about 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 cafe. A curtain of multi-coloured plastic strips hung from the top of the double entrance doors, moving in response to the intermittent breeze that blew across the forecourt. Directly in front of us stood a small blackboard on trestle legs marked with the words, ‘News today!’ handwritten in white chalk. Below this were the words ‘Pope John Paul II has died’. The date was 28 May 2005!
We filled up and parked the truck to one side before making our way into the cafe and choosing 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 the cream we had brought along made it taste even better.
Sixty kilometres further on from Sesriem lies Sossusvlei and Deadvlei, a site made famous by the many photographs of the enchantingly desolate clay pan, 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 before pulling into a ‘camp site’ of sorts that had been established by a local farmer in the dry riverbed of the Tsauchab and next to a large baobab tree.
At first glance we appeared to be parked off on a not so spectacular sandy patch between a rustic stone fireplace-cum-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 well-appointed shower and toilet ablution with lots of 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 on 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. It is simply not fitting language for an English lady of leisure!