Climbing up the sand dunes on the way to Death Vlei, below, is hard
work and not as much fun as sliding back down
Out of Africa
Kirstin Innes goes desert trekking in Namibia, and gets the feeling that she isn’t in
Kansas any more. Photos by:
‘ T ropic of Capricorn”. It‘s just there. written clearly on a road sign in the
middle of nowhere. Dirty yellow
sand in the air. the track ahead glittering with fool‘s gold as though
Anne Pinniger
it had been chucked away. The . landscape had changed hugely in ; the four hours since the truck 7 picked us up from a functional little g backpackers‘ hostel in Windhoek,
the capital of Namibia. We’d driven through scrubby. bushy farmland punctuated by the occasional
baboon or family in a donkey can; red rocky mountains with huge
swathes of quartz cutting into the cliffside. craning our necks at distant shapes we were assured were mountain zebras. Now there’s this dry yellow dust, blue hills on the horizon — if there are trees. they‘re bending under the strain of what look like the corpses of huge Muppets: the immense township nests of the social weaver bird. Another three hours before we reach Sossusvlei, a salt pan in the Namib Desert, our eventual destination. and we’re standing exactly on the Tropic of Capricom. I’ve never felt quite so far from home.
We’re packed into a customised
truck which is all window. holds -
96 THE LIST 10—24 May 2007
twelve of us very neatly. and is stuffed with secret compartments for food. tents and tables. It‘s an organised tour. something I‘ve always been suspicious of in the past. but this doesn’t feel like a tour party as such — it's a well-known stop on the African backpacker network. nine of our group of 12 are under 30 and a laid—back. easy
rapport builds quickly. As the desert ;
slowly takes over the road and everything gets sandier. it‘s a surreal shock to pull up at the aptly— named Solitaire (a petrol station- cum-German bakery-cum-desert outpost) and face off with a busload of Afrikaaner tourists. Rusting tin signs and clean toilets; an airstrip.
the only one for hundreds of miles. I The shop sells cold drinks.{
‘AFTER A COUPLE OF NIGHTS IN THE DESERT IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO SLEEP WITH A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD'
applestrudel and jewellery. and we keep to ourselves. ignoring the other bus party because we‘d got used to thinking of ourselves as the only people in the landscape. It‘s not too far from here to our campsite. and suddenly we‘re completely enclosed by desert. Previously. l'd understood ‘sand dunes‘ as the tufty. pale humps you got changed behind on the beach as a child. These are slightly different: huge masses of brick-red sand. rising into precise. knife-edge ridges up to 380m off the ground. We were bussed hastily out to Allen Dune. where Raymond and Lombard. our guides. pointed us up a hill and abandoned us to the sunset. Walking in sand is very. very difficult. It pulls heavily at your ankles and it‘s too soft to get a proper grip. You flail. You stagger. You look like a drunk. ()ver every peak. just where you thought you’d stop. there‘s another hill. We chased the sunset for around half an hour. the ‘sundowner‘ beers we‘d opened optimistically at the foot of the first dune spilling stickily through fists. finally getting high enough tip for a perspective across what seemed to
be the whole desert. The sun ploughed down. greedin blazing -
FACT FILE
About Namibia
Namibia has been an independent country since 1990. The official languages are English, German and Afrikaans. Despite being a predominately dry country. it is also rich in minerals, and as such has a fairly healthy economy. The Namib Desert is in the south-west of Namibia. 450km outside the capital of Windhoek, and at 80 million years old is considered to be one of the oldest deserts in the world. There is no malaria risk in the desert; however, consult your GP a fortnight before travelling if you intend to move around the country. The currency is the Namibian dollar. which is tied to the South African Rand.
Getting there and around
Air Namibia flies weekly from Windhoek to Heathrow. or daily to Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. Globespan have recently opened a budget direct route between Manchester and Cape Town. Many travellers in Namibia are backpackers on part of a wider tour of Southern Africa — take a look at www.coastingafrica.com for the definitive backpackers guide. Touring in the desert
The Wild Dog and Crazy Kudu tour company offer all-inclusive budget safaris: three, six, and ten day tours of the Namib Desert and the Etosha Nature reserve. A three day tour of the Namib Desert costs 2000 Namibian dollars (approximately £140). See www.wilddog-safaris.com for more details.