a tour of Namibia's highlights

After a week to rest from my Botswana trip, I joined a tour group for a two-week tour of Namibia.  The Sossusvlei Dunes and the Skeleton Coast have been on my wish list for as long as I can remember, but this tour also included Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, the petroglyphs at Twyfelfontein, Epupa Falls, a visit to a Himba settlement, and a few days at Etosha National Park.

& all of it was superb!  The Sossusvlei Dunes were probably the least exciting of the visits, although still worth seeing and the nearby DeadVlei (the photo above) was incredible; the information sign at the entrance explains that when the climate there dried up some 900 years ago, the trees died – but it was too dry for them to decompose, so they scorched black in the sun and still remain there, now more than one thousand years old.  I also enjoyed seeing a shipwreck on the Skeleton Coast.  & Twyfelfontein was very impressive, with a mixture of rock paintings and rock engravings believed to be around 6,000 years old.

Epupa Falls, on the northern Namibian border with Angola, were impressive, with the area around them a big palm-filled oasis in the middle of a very dry area.  Walvis Bay was a real highlight.  On the drive there from Swakopmund we passed large flocks of Greater Flamingoes along the shore, and then from Walvis Bay we took a boat trip to Pelican Point, with its enormous Cape Fur Seal colony (some 50-60,000 seals) as well as more flamingoes and the odd Great White Pelican.  We hung around hoping to see whales, but only a few on our boat got a brief glimpse of a small part of one – but I was not bothered, being far more interested in the pelican which flew onto our boat and the seal that came up the steps!!  Both were looking to be given fish, being clearly habituated to small boats filled with tourists.  We had been strictly told not to touch the seal (so tempting…), but I did get to stroke the pelican which made me very happy.  In this picture you can not only see the pelican on the captain's hand, but also the head of the seal watching them.

The highlight of the whole trip, however, was Etosha National Park, named after the large salt pan which dominates the area.  Oh my goodness, there was so much wildlife there, and none of it seeming to be very bothered by jeeps full of tourists stopping nearby to look at them – although there weren’t really all that many tourists.  We saw all of the ‘standard’ animals – zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, lion, both white and black rhino, ostriches, hyenas and various different kinds of antelopes – and after watching some lionesses walk past with blood around their mouths, we were happy to find their kill, the plentiful remains of a zebra being feasted upon by a very happy pack of jackals.  A still picture can’t capture their wagging tails, but look at the blood all over the face of the one just behind the zebra!


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