Across Namibia by pickup truck. Part 1.

After 16 hours of two flights by Ethiopian Airlines with a two-hour break in Addis Ababa we finally landed at Windhoek airport. And now I am going down the ramp to the hot concrete coating. From the Moscow slush we got to the capital of Namibia, which is a state in the south of Africa. It greeted us by a heat up to +40°C, an unremarkable landscape and a faceless airport building.

So our fortnight trip across one of the most interesting countries in Africa has begun!

Having rented a big ISUZU pickup truck from the GONDWANA company in the morning, I went to the local MTS mobile operator office to buy a SIM card.

How long may such a purchase take, in your opinion? 10 minutes? Half an hour? Hour? You're still wrong. All in all, it took me 1 hour 20 min. I realized the fact that no one was in a hurry here last night, when a taxi, which had been called in advance, actually arrived half an hour later.

This is Africa...

For the first few hours I was getting used to left-hand traffic and right-hand drive. I turned on the wipers ten times instead of the turn indicators and drove into the oncoming lane five times. However, having overcome 500 km along the B1 highway, I had finally requalified myself by the evening.

Roads in Namibia are mostly unpaved, but there are also excellent highways covered with asphalt. The country is large, but the population density is almost the same as in Mongolia: 3 people per 1 km². That's "half a person" more than in Mongolia. Therefore, the roads have minimal traffic and you can keep driving a dozen kilometers without meeting a single car.

You can also drive 200 or 300 kilometers and finding not a single petrol station, not a single store and practically nothing at all! To the right and left of the straight-as-a-line highway there are only bushes, sand, rare trees and an endless wire fence.

That means, it is a private territory.

It is about +42°C outdoors and a strong side wind carries sand across the road, twists it into dust tornadoes that suddenly appear and disappear around the endless savannah.

A lonely monkey walks slowly along the roadside without even turning its head at a passing car...

Hello, Africa!

After driving 500 km along the beautiful B1 highway and a little more along a dusty grader road from the capital of Namibia to the south, we reached Quivertree Forest Rest Camp. (-26.481475, 18.237875)

This is a small family hotel of several rooms, which is located in the desert not far from the town Keetmanshoop.

We got to the hotel before sunset and at the entrance we were met by the hostess, a white woman in her 50s. Then her husband, who looked a little older, came up. He greeted us, asked how we had got there, offered us a beer and a coke from the refrigerator and, writing down our data in the register book, handed us the keys to a small house. Besides us there were staying four other people: they were two couples of English-speaking tourists.

Why did we drag ourselves here, driving half a thousand kilometers from north to south along a boring desert road?

The answer is here. It is a unique place and one of the most amazing and unusual in Namibia (and maybe even in the whole Africa). It is a hilly valley dotted with big rocks and strange trees, which trunks look like baobabs and crowns look like aloe cactus.

Maybe they are not even trees... I still haven't understood. But they look incredible and the landscape resembles a picture from the Avatar movie.

Fantastic!

Everything looks especially unusual at dawn, when the sun slowly rises from the horizon and floods the valley with orange light, being accompanied by the strange sounds of colorful birds, who live in their huge nests twisted in the crowns of those "cactus-trees".

For an hour and a half we were wandering through this fabulous forest and after breakfast we went to another unusual place a few kilometers from the previous location, which is the Giants Playground (-26.465753, 18.271797). It is a large plateau covered with another forest that came from a fairy tale, but this one was made of huge stones stacked in unbelievable pyramids.

It seems like some fictional Gulliver was having fun here, collecting bizarre templates from multi-ton stone cubes and plates. And if something didn't work out, he threw the stones away with his giant hand and they scattered for several kilometers around.

Namibia turned out to be an amazing country from a traveller's point of view.

First, it is very big. For example, its square equals twice the area of Germany and the population is smaller than in Berlin.

Second, the roads here are excellent. There are perfect highways and very decent gravel paths.

Third, it is a very civilized country. In comparison with other African countries, of course.

Fourth, there live very calm, smiling and friendly people. At least, that's what they seemed to me.

Fifth, there are so many wonderful things to see!

And I am going to develop this topic in my blog. Today we drove a couple hundred more kilometers further south, closer to the border with South Africa. There is one unique place that is called Fish River Canyon. It's the biggest in Africa, by the way! We stayed at the hotel of the same name, which we had reached following a nice ground road. (-27.527396, 17.537108) We made frequent stops because some wild animals would appear on the left and right of the road. They were antelopes, zebras, ostriches…

The hotel itself consisted of separate bungalows, which were placed on the edge of a canyon overlooking stunning views. Imagine, you are lying on your bed and watching this miracle of nature through the glass wall. What a fantastic experience!

The next day we went to the bottom of the canyon, where the Fish River flows. For millions of years it had formed a riverbed 0.5 km deep and 27 km wide.

The views are certainly amazing! We saw huge rocks of bright colors, green sand, black volcanic lava and swam in crystal clear water of the river, scaring away flocks of fish that were similar to a large trout.

That was just great! Another day to add to our collection of vivid impressions.

And today we got to the Atlantic Ocean.

The small port town named Luderitz, which is compactly situated on the rocky shore around the bay, greeted us with half-empty streets, low houses, a pointed temple spire and a beautiful Lüderitz Nest Hotel offering seaview. (-26.65317, 15.149539 )

In the morning we had a catamaran excursion to the rocks and islands inhabited by large colonies of penguins and flamingos.

Yeah, penguins do live in Africa. Could you think they may live in Antarctica only?

After a boat trip we got to Dias Point (-26.635379, 15.088283). This is a very picturesque place. On the top of the rock there is an inactive lighthouse, half-abandoned buildings around, some ruins of an ancient wooden ship, a colorful coffee shop and many other interesting things. If happen to be in Luderica, you should visit it!

And if you follow highway B4 to the east, there will be a very interesting place 10 km from Luderitz, which you won't regret seeing as well. It is the abandoned Kolmanskop town. (-26.701925, 15.231918)

The history of this ghost town is very interesting. More than a hundred years ago, at the beginning of the last century, a diamond deposit was accidentally discovered in this area. And quite soon a big town with excellent infrastructure, various enterprises, good houses, restaurants and clubs appeared right in the desert. But the diamond rush did not last long (not more than for 50 years). And as soon as the deposit was depleted, people left the city and it turned into a ghost, devoured by the desert.

Now sand covers buildings from the outside and delves into them. When I was walking along the streets of Kolmanskop, I recalled Kadykchan, the similar abandoned town on the Kolyma river and Vorkuta (or rather the abandoned mining villages around it, to be more precise).

But there the houses were covered with snow instead of sand.

Frankly speaking, that is a really sad sight!

Today we covered another 500 kilometers along the roads of Namibia. And this country never ceased to amaze us!

When driving, I was thinking of which of the countries I could compare Namibia to? All the European countries are out at once. Latin America does not match either. May be South Africa then? No, they are quite different. Iran? Morocco? They have deserts too... Well, no, still not the same.

Maybe Mongolia? Yes, there are few people either and you can drive 200 or 300 kilometers without meeting a single living soul. And the desert there is also vast, the sands and the dunes are huge. But that's all what they actually have in common.

So Namibia is a truly unique country!

Today I climbed to the top of the incredibly beautiful and huge dune number 45 in Sossusvlei. It is an enchanting national reserve located in the heart of the Namib desert. Not a single sensible monkey would dare to climb there!

The landscape of bright orange, yellow and white sands looks like a surface of some alien planet! Splendid!

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