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 ...