Met heimwee het ek Bierpens se stuk gelees oor hoe hy die Afrikaner graag as een volk wil sien wat saamstaan en mekaar nie in die rug steek nie. Hier praat Bierpens dan natuurlik oor die Afrikaner in Suid Afrika. Suid Afrika wat as die laaste bastion van die Afrikaner beskou is, maar waar hierdie volk met sy stoere voorouers deesdae die twedehandse burgers is. Onwillekeurig dwaal my gedagtes dan na die Dorsland Trekkers. Hoe hulle weg gebreek het van die Suid Afrikaners en hoe hulle soos Moses en sy volk deur die woestyn getrek het om uiteindelik in hulle eie kanaan uit te kom. Oor hierdie mense wil ek graag skrywe.

Sonder die stories van my swear, Ferdie, sou ek dit nie in dieselfde humoristiese of hartseer sin kon oordra het nie. Ferdie is ‘n man wat in Tsumeb gebore is en daar getoë is. ‘n Man wat plat op die aarde loop en vir himself kan lag. Hierdie reeks kort kortverhale wil ek vir Bierpens en al sy lesers vertel sodat dit nie verlore kan gaan in die geskiedenis nie. In hierdie verhale beskryf die produkte van die Namib woestyn. Die mense met plooitjies om die oë wat ver kyk en altyd die horison met hulle oë sal soek.

Mense van die sand duine.

Deel 1:

Die spook van die Namib

Aan die onherbergsame kus van Namibia maak die duine plek vir die soutpanne waar die Kuiseb rivier een maal elke vyf tot tien jaar in die see in loop. Meeste van hierdie soutpanne was daar voor die mens sy voete hier deur die sand kom sleep het. Soos die aanvraag na sout toegeneem het en soos die panne kommersialiseer is, so is die panne dan met behulp van masjienerie uitgebrei tot die geordende damme water wat dit vandag is. Hier sal jy dan troppe flaminke kry wat die asem uit jou longe slaan van die skoonheid wat hierdie voëls in hul miljoene aan die natuur verleen.

In hierdie oop stuk grond tussen al die dreigende duine het die dorpie Walvisbaai dan ook ontsaan. Dit is werklik ‘n pragtige plek en Namibia se internasionale hawe waarop ons so trots is. Strate van teer in teenstelling met die soutpaaie van die res van die kus gebied. Geordende stadsplan met geordende strate waaroor die ruik van die visfabrieke maar altyd hang. Waar die oostewind soms die sand van die duine in die dorp kom neersif sodat dit op jou tande knerts as jy eet. Waar die soel aandluggie oor die meer jou verleidelik kom streel en haar sagte soene om jou wange plaas. Waar mense woon wat gehard geword het teen die halstarrige natuur van yin en yang. Van koel en van verterende hitte. Van see bries tot storm wind. Van stilte en van storms Van lief en van leed.Van goed en kwaad

Bo die SevenEleven Kafee was daar woonstelle waar dar mense gewoon het. In een van hierdie woonstelle het ‘n meise gewoon wat pas besluit het om haar kerel in Swakopmund te bel en hom te vertel dat sy swanger was. Dit was op Paasnaweek. In haar hart het ‘n koue windjie gewaai, maar buite het die oosweer voortgestorm met sand in die strate. Saggies het sy aan hom geprewel van die kind in haar buik. Droewig het sy gehuil en gewonder oor verwerping. Maar tog het die verwerping nie gekom soos wat sy verwag het nie. Absolute verbasing en heerlike verassing het in sy stem deur die telefoon gekom. Al wat sy kon uitmaak was. “Wag vir my. Ek kom gou oor.

Die pad tussen Swakopmund en Walvisbaai is maar nou en loop soos neffens die sand duine verby. Met die Oosweer wat gewaai het kon jy nie veel sien nie. Maar die klong het van blydskap gejubel en het sy voet swaar op die versneller laat rus om so gou as moontlik sy arms om haar skouertjie te gaan vou en om haar gerus te stel dat hy die vader vir haar ongebore kindtjie sou wees.

Soms sit die noodlot en grinnik vir die dinge van mense. Dan sal hy oorleun en groot fiasco veroorsaak om sy morbiede genot aan ongelukke te versadig. Hierdie dag het ‘n bakkie met twee ontevrede vissermanne vanaf Langstrand se uitdraai in die hoof pad ingedraai sonder om die voortsnellende motor te sien aankom. Hier het drie mense hulle lewens op ‘n afskuwelike wyse verloor en die Noodlot welbehaagd laat terugsit om die gevolge te bewonder. Tog was die noodlot nie tevrede nie. Van die eerste konstabeltjies wat op die toneel aangekom het het die jongman dadelik herken en die een is daar fort om sy meise te gaan vertel dat die man van haar drome sy met laaste asem aan hom gefluister het om vir haar te vertel hoe innig lief hy vir haar was en om haar te gaan troos.

Die meisie was redeloos van hartseer en wou opsluit na die toneel van die ongeluk gaan. Die konstabel het haar in sy bakkie soontoe geneem. Die oosweer het voortgestorm asof niks gebeur het nie. Droewig het sy velate in haar liefde in haar hoekie van die kajuit sit en hoop dat alles ‘n fout was en dan haar gliefde nog lewe.. ‘n Dronk bestuurder het uit die stofstorm aangejaag gekom en het die polisiebakkie tromp op getref en sy, die bestuurder en die konstabel na die hiernamaals gestuur.

Die brute hartseer van hierdie verhaal sal altyd vars in die geheue van die kusmense bly, want elke jaar oor paasnaweek staan hierdie miesie verlate langs die kuspad en soek ‘n geleendheid by verbygaande motors na die toneel van die noodlottige ongeluk van haar geliefde. Almal het dit eens dat sy nog in haar nagklere is soos wat sy die dag op die toneel oorlede is. Sommige menses al stop en haar ‘n geleendheid gee.

Sy klim dan woodeloos agter in die motor en kyk jou hartseer in die truspieël aan. As jy dan wegtrek en vir ‘n rukkie lank voortry kom jy skielik agter dan jy aleen in jou voertuig ry. Want die pragtige meisie het uit die motor verdwyn. Die polisie gaan nie meer uitina die toneel toe nie. Sommige mense sal stilhou en haar soek waar sy verdwyn het. Maar geen kusmens sal stop om haar ‘n geleendheid te gee nie. Want hulle weet. Vir haar is daar geen geleendhied meer nie. Sy is maar net ‘n verdwaalde gees wat nie kan rus nie. Soos die oostewind ook maar is. Sal jy ooit rus vind, meisie van die kuspad?

Soos geskryf deur Puru-puru.

Dankie vir die geleendhied Bier!

deur Harry

All over, my skin is parched and cracked. My hands feel as if their skin is one glove size too small. My lips chapped and peeling. I wear a crown of various colour dust each new day.

Tsumeb, apparently the very first mining town, is quaint but cold. Biting cold at night. This town a stepping stone for Etosha National Park. And once we pass the Von Lindquist gate we find the residents have adapted for this harsh climate Elephant, Lion, Oryx and Springbok, all desert adapted. Most large game here sport a distinct ashen colour from the dust that kicks up off Etosha Pan from it’s tornadoes white salty squall.

We move into the place that the Bushmen call “ the place that God made in anger”. For us it’s like hell without the heat. The Atlantic Ocean on this Skeleton Coast is colder than I can ever remember with wind like swords that numb the knuckles and dagger the ears. Nearby a Strandwolf searches in the sun-shimmer for carrion. A Cape Fur Seal’s bleats may be his last, I fear. Towns here are as stark and welcoming as Antarctic outposts. The mountains seem to float on the cold early morning fog like giant battleships ran aground.

Namibia is elemental. Its landscapes, more like Moon or Mars-scapes are, like no other in Africa. The wind on the Skeleton Coast like no other I’ve experienced on this trip. It’s not just the daytime heat here, it’s the dryness – instant evaporation. And at the end of it all are Namibia’s waters. A huge coastline and massive rivers, such as the Kavango, bringing it all back to life. And this is just the north – in Gods country.

muni

Mimetite, Quartzo e Calcite, Tsumeb, Namíbia. Foto de Dan Weinrich e colecção de Ricardo Pimentel

Fotos sind ganz am Ende des Artikels zu finden

9. August

Windhoek – Spitzkoppe (220 km Teer; 30 km Feldweg)

Übernachtung: Spitzkoppe Rest Camp

Nach unserem Test-Camping, dem – am 2. August gefeierten – 1. August und dem Kauf des Autos geht es nun endlich los mit unserer ersten Namibia-Rundreise. Frohgemut und mit einem vollgestopften Auto fahren wir über Okahandja und Usakos zur Spitzkoppe. Dieser Granitberg ragt einsam und sehr fotogen aus dem umgebenden flachen Land. Das Restcamp befindet sich direkt am Fuss des Berges, ohne Wasser und Strom, aber einmalig schön. 

Froh, dass die Kinder die dreistündige Fahrt problemlos mitgemacht haben, stellen wir unser Zelt selbstbewusst ohne Blick auf die Gebrauchsanweisung auf. Es sieht zwar ein bisschen schräg aus, aber was will man von einem chinesischen Billigzelt schon erwarten. Zudem hoffen wir, dass sich der leichte Wind in der Nacht schon legen wird.

Vor dem Abendessen steigen wir noch ein wenig auf der Spitzkoppe herum. Der rote Granit und der Sonnenuntergang ergänzen sich bestens.

Kurz nachdem wir Leon und Lou ins Bett gebracht haben, bricht das Zelt das erste Mal teilweise zusammen. Wir stellen wieder auf, spannen die Sturmleinen, fluchen über die schlechten Heringe, beschweren diese, und gehen mit einem mulmigen Gefühl in die Schlafsäcke. Der Wind wird immer stärker und böiger. Nach drei weiteren Zeltzusammenbrüchen geben wir um 22.00 auf. Unsere zweite Zeltnacht endet somit im Auto. Die Kinder schlafen auf der Rückbank, wir versuchen dasselbe auf den Vordersitzen. Immerhin ist es nicht so kalt wie bei unserem ersten Camping-Versuch…

10. August

Spitzkoppe – Brandberg (120 km Feldweg)

Übernachtung: Brandberg White Lady Lodge Camping

Auch die Nacht im Auto geht vorbei und nachdem wir das Gepäck- und Zeltchaos an einem windstillen Ort geregelt haben, beschliessen wir unsere Reise fortzuführen, in der Hoffnung, dass es in Zukunft weniger windet. Wir fahren zum Brandberg, der höchsten Erhebung Namibias (2574 müM). Die Lodge wurde uns als sehr kinderfreundlich empfohlen und ist es auch: Dank zahmen Erdmännchen, Springbock, Hühnern, Pfau etc. kommen Leon und Lou auf ihre Kosten. Der Zeltplatz ist zudem schön schattig und sandig. Beim Aufstellen des Zelts kommt uns die Gebrauchsanweisung in die Hände und wir stellen fest, dass wir bei den Stäben letzte Nacht etwas verwechselt haben…

Die Nacht verläuft ruhig und windstill, es ist angenehm warm! Zelten kann also doch funktionieren.

11. August

Brandberg – Uis – Brandberg (90 km Feldweg)

Um uns und die Kinder zu schonen ein Ruhetag. Wir gehen Glacé kaufen. Der nächste Laden, der solches verkauft ist in Uis: 35 km entfernt. Aber die Kinder sind zufrieden und drum die Eltern auch.

Beim abschliessenden Abendessen im Restaurant warnt der Kellner davor, dass in der Nacht voraussichtlich die seltenen Wüstenelefanten in der Gegend sein werden. Der Campingplatz ist nicht eingezäunt, bei unserem Camping-Glück schwant uns böses…

12. August

Brandberg – Outjo (177 km Teer, 141 km Feldweg)

Unterkunft: Buschberg Guest Farm

… doch die Elefanten verschonen unser Zelt. Heute steht ein Härtetest für die Kinder an: 4 Stunden Autofahren. Sie halten sich grossartig und geniessen wie wir die herzige kleine Stadt Outjo mit der deutschen Bäckerei (einziger Meisterbäcker in Namibia!). Etwas irritiert sind wir durch die Himba-Frauen, die sich den Touristen als Fotosujet andienen. Der Stamm der Himbas lebt auch heute noch vergleichsweise unberührt von der westlichen Zivilisation im äusseren Nordwesten Namibias. “Himba-Safaris” sind bei Touristen wegen ihrer Exotik beleibt, weil die Himbas Haut und Haare mit roter Erde einfärben und die Frauen noch oben ohne rumlaufen. Outjo liegt an einer der beiden Zufahrtsstrassen zum Etosha-Nationalpark – dem Pflichtziel jedes Namibia-Besuchers, ist aber relativ weit weg von Wohngebieten der Himbas.

Wir wohnen in der Buschberg Guest Farm, einer 6000 ha grossen Farm, die von Hannes und Anita betrieben wird. Abends sitzen alle Gäste und die Familie erst zu einem “Sundowner” zusammen, anschliessend wird zusammen an einem grossen Tisch gegessen. So ergeben sich leicht spannende Gespräche!

13. August

Buschberg – Etosha – Buschberg (90 km Teer; 100 km Feldweg)

Unser erster Tag in Namibias wichtigster Touristenattraktion. Wilde Tiere in schöner Landschaft. Am Eingang beschäftigen wir uns jedoch vorerst mal mit uns selbst, besser gesagt mit unserem Autos, das zum Motor hinaus räuchelt. Die nächste Garage ist gut 100 km entfernt, so entschliessen wir uns doch eine kleine Runde im Park zu drehen und werden u.a. mit Oryx-Antilopen, Kudus, Straussen, Zebras, und Elefanten belohnt. 

Das Auto hält. Am Abend stellt Farmer Hannes mit geübtem Blick fest, dass der Rauch durch das Auslaufen von Servo-Lenkungsöl verursacht wird. Nun wissen wir auch, warum der Verkäufer des Autos eine Flasche mit selbigem beim beim Werkzeug im Kofferraum gelassen hat. 

14. August

Buschberg – Etosha – Tsumeb (150 km Teer; 175 km Feldweg)

Unterkunft: Pension OMEG-Allee

Eine ziemlich lange Etappe, wenn man bedenkt, dass im Park maximal 60, in der Regel jedoch eher 40 gefahren wird. Da wir beim Ausgang des Parks keinen Camping-Platz finden konnten und weil wir unser Auto einer Garage zeigen wollen, machen wir zudem einen Umweg von über 100 km und übernachten in Tsumeb. Die Kinder machen die fast sechsstündige Autofahrt klaglos mit! Unterwegs werden wir dafür mit einer für Etosha nicht selbstverständlichen Löwen-Sichtung belohnt (+/- 300 Löwen auf einer Fläche halb so gross wie die Schweiz…). Wir sind zudem fast die ersten die das Pärchen in der Nähe eines Wasserlochs direkt an der Strasse sehen. Bald bildet sich hinter, vor und neben uns ein Pulk von Fahrzeugen, die teilweise den Löwen fast über den Schwanz fahren… Löwin und Löwe machen sich bald darauf gemächlich auf in Richtung Wasserloch, ohne jedoch die zahlreichen dort trinkenden Tiere zu jagen.

15. August

Tsumeb (20 km Teer)

Den Umweg nach Tsumeb bereuen wir nicht. Im Städtchen gedeihen dank hohem Grundwasser viele Bäume und sie ist für namibische Verhältnisse sehr grün. Wir waschen, lassen das Auto begutachten (wirklich Servo-Öl, ist aber nicht weiter schlimm), kaufen ordentliche Heringe für unser Zelt (falls es mal wieder winden sollte) und geniessen einen ruhigen Tag.

16. August

Tsumeb – Oshikuku (217 km Teer)

Unterkunft: M

Namibia ist durch einen Veterinärzaum zweigeteilt: Nördlich des Etosha-Parks ist die Maul- und Klauenseuche recht verbreitet, südlich davon nicht. Uns scheint jedoch, dass die Veterinärgrenze etwas überspitzt auch als Grenze zwischen Afrika und dem der westlichen Welt betrachtet werden kann:

• Südlich des Zauns ist die Landschaft durch Grossfarmen geprägt, die Städte sind recht gepflegt und sauber (Windhoek gilt als sauberste Stadt Afrikas und könnte diesbezüglich mit jeder Schweizer Stadt mithalten); die Armut ist zwar vorhanden, aber doch nicht omnipräsent. 
• Nördlich des Zauns liegt mehrheitlich sogenanntes Community-Land (Dieses wird durch die lokalen Stammesältesten den einzelnen Bauern zugewiesen. Das Land gehört jedoch der Allgemeinheit). Die Bevölkerungsdichte ist spürbar höher (80 % der Namibier wohnen an den beiden Flüssen Kunene und Okawango, die die Grenze zu Angola im Norden bilden), die Armut deutlich sichtbar. Viele Leute leben in traditionellen, einfachen Rundhütten.

In Oshikuku besuchen wir Renate und Ruedi, die beide auch für Interteam arbeiten. Renate war mit uns im Ausreisekurs, wir fliegen gemeinsam nach Namibia und sie arbeitet auch für den CHS. Wir werden herzlich empfangen und geniessen ein riesiges, gegrilltes Kudu-Steak. Natürlich wird auch Lous Geburtstagskuchen angeschnitten! Aus Platzgründen hatten wir uns jedoch bei den Geschenken einschränken müssen. Diese warten noch in Windhoek auf Lou.

Bis vor kurzem war eine weitere Interteam-Familie in Oshikuku. Da deren Haus immer noch durch Interteam gemietet ist, können wir dieses benutzen. 

17. August

Oshikuku (10 km Feldweg)

Renate hat zum Frühstück eine feine Züpfe gebacken, da kriegt man gleich ein wenig Heimweh!

Ein weiterer fauler Ruhetag, den die Kinder mit “sandele” verbringen und wir uns an Makalani-Nüssen versuchen. Diese sind nicht zu essen sondern gelten als pflanzliches Elfenbein. Die Früchte wachsen an den Makalani-Palmen und sind ca. so gross wie eine Orange. Wer die äussere Hülle abschlägt, findet eine Nuss, die in etwa Feigen-gross und kaum zu knacken ist. Darin ist ein etwa Erdbeer-grosser, steinharter Kern enthalten (wir konnten trotz massiver Gewalt mit einem Hammer keinen zerbrechen). Der Kern ist weiss und wird von einer harten braunen Haut umgeben. Der Kern wird von Einheimischen mit Schnitzereien verziert und an Touristen verkauft. Selten gibt es auch Zwillingskerne, denen bei der einheimischen Bevölkerung (Ovambo) magische Kräfte nachgesagt werden. Aus ihnen werden Puppen hergestellt: Schenkt ein Mann einer Frau eine solche Puppe, gilt dies als Heiratsantrag. Schenkt die Frau dem Mann die Puppe, verkündet Sie ihm damit, dass Sie schwanger ist. 

18. August

Oshikuku – Opuwo (210 km Teer, 85 km Feldweg)

Unterkunft: Opuwo Country Hotel Camping

Auf ins Abenteuer: Wir beginnen unser Reise ins Damaraland. Der Nordwesten Namibias gilt als rau und wild. Tankstellen und Einkaufsmöglichkeiten sind sehr spärlich, unser Reiseführer hat fast eine Seite voller Vorsichtsmassnahmen vor einer Fahrt in dieses Gebiet… Deshalb haben wir den Umweg zur Garage nach Tsumeb gemacht. Wir halten uns jedoch an die “Hauptstrassen”, die währen der aktuell herrschenden Trockenzeit und Ferien-Hochsaison unproblematisch sind (ausser dass es wirklich kaum Infrastuktur gibt). Die wirklich einsamen Gegenden des Kaokeveldes (äusserster Nordwesten Namibias) lassen wir wegen den Kindern und dem Auto (nicht wirklich ein Geländewagen) aus.

Opuwo gilt als letzte Servicestation für einen grossen Teil des Nordwesten. Dementsprechend ist viel los in dem Städtchen.

19. August

Opuwo – Sessfontein – Warmquell (170 km Feldweg)

Unterkunft: Ongongo Rest Camp

Was für eine tolle Fahrt durch die Joubert-Berge! Die Landschaft ändert sich dauernd, ist wild, gebirgig, rau, einfach einmalig schön. Zum ersten Mal sind wir zudem froh um den 4×4 und die hohe Bodenfreiheit. Wir geniessen ein gutes Mittagessen in Sessfontein und fahren dann weiter nach Warmquell. Mit etwas Suchen finden wir den Campingplatz und stossen auf eine Oase! Eine kleine Quelle ergiesst sich über einen Wasserfall in einen wunderbaren Pool. Ein Paradies, an dem man gerne länger als eine Nacht bleiben würde!

20. August

Warmquell – Twyfelfontein (175 km Feldweg)

Unterkunft: Camp Xaragu

Noch einmal eine wunderschöne Strecke, man fährt um eine Kurve oder über einen Hügel und die Landschaft verändert sich schlagartig! Twyfelfontein ist dann schon wieder recht touristisch, da es nahe der Strecke Windhoek – Swakopmund liegt und über 3000jährige Felszeichnungen sowie einen versteinerten Wald verfügt. Das Camp Xaragu ist wieder was für die Kinder: Auch hier einen Haufen halbzahmer Wildtiere sowie hinter Glas einige Schlangen und Skorpione, die v.a. Leon sehr faszinieren. 

21. August

Twyfelfontein (100 km Feldweg)

Wir gehen die Felszeichnungen besichtigen und wissen kaum worüber wir erstaunter sein sollen: Dass unsere Kinder (ok, v.a. Leon) plötzlich mehr als eine Stunde klaglos mit uns wandert oder über die eindrücklichen Feldsbilder in einer wahnsinnigen Landschaft die wir zu sehen bekommen. Anschliessend gehts über Umwege auch noch zum versteinerten Wald, der ebenfalls eindrücklich ist. 

22. August

Twyfelfontein – Windhoek (442 km Teer; 90 km Feldweg)

Auf nach Hause! Zudem nochmal eine Monster-Etappe mit fast 6 Stunden Fahrt. Aber die Kinder machens wieder klaglos mit. Unsere zwei Stopps unterwegs sind auch gut eingeplant: Ein dickes Mittagessen in der ersten Pause, so dass sie anschliessend bis zum zweiten Stop durchschlafen. Diesen legen wir in Okahandja ein, eine Stadt, die für ihre Holzschnitzereien bekannt ist. Dementsprechend decken wir uns auf dem lokalen Markt mit Deko-Material ein. Nach einer weiteren Stunde sind wir glücklich, dreckig und etwas müde (nur die Eltern, die Kinder haben ja geschlafen…) zu Hause!

Total 1′540 km Teer und 1′300 km Feldweg

A imagem mostra um cristal de cerussite maclado segundo {110} . A sua repetição produz as maclas em forma de estrela, conjuntos reticulados e cristais pseudohexagonais.

Cristal maclado de cerussite, 4 cm, Mina de Tsumeb, Namíbia. Colecção de Ricardo Pimentel

Mr. Smith é aquilo que por cá é o Sr. Silva! Com todo o respeito é um apelido comum… que nos filmes de espionagem se assina para esconder verdadeiras identidades Mas na mineralogia Smithsonite é um nome tudo menos incógnito. Trata-se de um carbonato que honra James Smithson (1754-1829), um químico e mineralogista britânico que fundou o famoso Smithsonian Institution em  Washington… bem que gostava de conhecer esse Museu

Smithsonite, variedade cobaltífera. Mina de Tsumeb, Namíbia.

Colecção de Ricardo Pimentel   

Smithsonite, variedade cuprífera, Mina de Tsumeb, Namíbia. Colecção de Ricardo Pimentel

We pushed the little white Polo as fast as we dared across the dusty deserted Namibian plains, the radio fading in and out but always playing rubbish. The sky was beginning to bruise, the sun waning above the distant mountains to our west and sending stripes of orange and crimson glory shooting up like flames. We consulted the map, debated our options, calculated distances and times between the tiny settlements stretched sparsely along the highway. We argued, made up, filled up with petrol, fizzy pop and unhealthy pastry based snacks, but we kept on driving. The stars emerged with a moon in tow and still nowhere seemed inviting enough to overcome the urge to just carry on. Lights turned on, speed modified to a more cautious pace, we peeled our eyes for the oft repeated dangers of the African night.

Finally, nine pm, eleven hours and one thousand kilometres after we set off, we pulled into Keetmanshoop, the junction of three main highways leading north, south and east, a town composed mainly of petrol stations and truckers’ fleapit lodgings. A further half hour passed driving around searching for somewhere half decent to sleep that wasn’t already fully booked with holidaying South Africans and their enormous four wheel drives and camping trailers containing enough equipment to last several weeks in the most inhospitable of conditions. Room secured, we switched our quest to food and combed the desolate streets for a shop.

Faced with a stark lack of choice, I was dispatched into a mini-mart cum take away with an alarmingly poor selection, additionally hampered by Lee’s instructions – to just get her something to eat, she didn’t know what, just get food – a perilous mission at the best of times, but this late at night, after such a long drive, an almost concrete guarantee of getting it wrong. This, coupled with the complete lack of anything even vaguely appetising in stock, was a recipe for disaster. The best I could do was the classic African staple shortbread biscuits, delightfully named Eat Sum Mor, and a strange kind of sausage and chip bap that looked like it could be radioactive. They didn’t even sell beer.

I got various other bits and bobs and trundled back to the car. I proffered the gods optimistically and was met with the predictably negative response. Somehow I managed to remain in a zen like state of calm, ignored the urge to shout alot of very very rude words and got back into the driver’s seat. We pulled out of the car park and headed back towards the guesthouse. Moments later our luck changed as we passed a petrol station that appeared to be the only other place that was open in the entire town. Not only that, it was selling alcohol. I slammed on the breaks, Lee swore, I dashed out and back down the road and was soon the proud possessor of six bottles of Black Label.

Reinvigorated with the prospect of not having to go to bed sober, we made it back to the guesthouse and unpacked a few essentials from the car. The owner, a strangely unfriendly yet obsequious German in too brief denim shorts, met us at the gate and told us the room wasn’t ready – the man from next door in the shower. Somehow managing still to keep it together, we sat down in the garden to wait. I tackled one of the dayglo baps, managing to consume half in my doomed mission to show Lee that it really was edible before admitting defeat. Fortunately the beer was cold and unbelievable refreshing.

Presently the man appeared and looked at us quizzically, we explained we were waiting for our room, he apologised profusely for the intrusion and then warned us that the toilet wasn’t flushing properly. The landlady made her entrance clad in marigolds and clutching cleaning products. We informed her of the situation vis a vis the effluent disposal situation and she summoned Herr Hotpant to get the drain cover up and have a go at it with his rods. We had only to wait a further ten minutes, watching him ramming and rummaging, until we were finally allowed access to the room. Lee retired immediately to bed and left me to carry on drinking beer and reading in my usual lights off location astride the unreliable khazi.

Alas, the alarm went off at seven and we were straight back out onto the road. The wrong road, naturally, but, after an illegal U-turn and ten minutes, we were back on the B1 and heading for Windhoek, the capial. The sky was piercingly blue without a cloud in sight The sun, even at the early hour, was high and strong and the landscape, uniformly, was flat dusty plains with the odd shrub or bush, not a tree in sight. To our left, the west, distant mountains thrust craggy fingers up in protest at the heat. With the road virtually to ourselves and stretching off to the distant horizon in a perfect straight line, we put pedal to metal and made time.

There were brief stops for facsimiles of breakfast, undrinkable coffee and unhyigenic toilets, the escalating niggles of people who have been in a car too long, but, over all, a sense of the huge great nothingness we were passing through, the vast expanses of uninhabited, inhospitable country, the massive tracts of emptiness. Oh, and no radio reception. Around lunchtime we completed the five hundred kilometre drive and pulled in at the Carboard Box backpackers where we’d managed to secure a camping spot. The midday sun slowly cooked us as we unloaded our gear and made camp on the dusty baked-solid earth of the yard, endearing ourselves to the neighbours by repeatedly setting off the car alarm when opening the boot. Formalities concluded, irritability running high, we enquired of the staff where we might find a welcoming hostelry to enjoy a gut-busting Sunday lunch and watch the match – a reason for my tension, perhaps, Liverpool were entertaining Manchester United at Anfield. We were directed towards Joe’s Beer House, a taxi was summoned and we sped off for what I optimistically thought might be a pleasant afternoon.

Joe’s Beer House. Ah, the name conjurs all the right images, a house, beer, excellent roasted pieces of exotic meats, plasma screen televisions showing Liverpool pulling off a gutsy win against their biggest rivals.

We arrived at the rambling conglomeration of timber and detritus, an oasis of reclaimed wood and enough olde worlde bits of bric a brac to shame even the most Irish of theme pubs. We immediately made a series of school boy errors, dismissing the taxi and ordering a beer before ascertaining that they were showing the game. Extensive reconnoitring of the premises soon revealed a total absence of television screens, plasma or not, and a prolonged enquiry at the bar confirmed my worst fears, the game simply wasn’t on. My tension levels went through the roof, I started to descend into a state of ranting vulgarity, raging at the injustice, there were twenty minutes to kick off. Worse still, it was now mid-afternoon and we hadn’t had any lunch, Lee’s mood was definitely on the turn.

We summoned the taxi back to collect us and waited on the street corner for some sort of divine inspiration. At that moment a man walked past us, into the bar, wearing a Liverpool shirt. Without hesitation, I enquired as to the most likely venue to watch the game and was directed to a sports bar in a shopping centre a mile or so away. The taxi finally arrived and we gave the driver the directions. He seemed puzzled.

And with good reason. Ten minutes later, having scoured every inch of the building, I conceded defeat and asked to be taken back to the hostel.

The receptionist raised her eyebrows in surprise as we stomped inside. I was full of nervous tension coupled with extreme disappointment at being denied one of the biggest games of the season, Lee was in her normal state when deprived of food beyond standard mealtimes and dragged around a strange city in blistering heat trying to find somewhere to watch a football match – just bubbling under thermonuclear. I explained the situation and then stood in open mouthed disbelief as the woman told me we could watch the game in the bar, just next to the swimming pool, where they serve the meals, all day long.

Without any further hesitation we beelined for the bar, collared the barman and requested the game. He shrugged and pointed me in the direction of an incredibly fat man sitting on a stool at the far end of the counter among a group of friends. This, it transpired, was the owner and he was celebrating his birthday. I laid it on thick, particularly the aspect about being sent on a wild goose chase across town by his staff member and he finally relented, the television was switched on.

Just in time to see Manchester United score at the Kop end.

I spent the next hour sat in an increasing state of tense dejection, instinctively knowing we wouldn’t score yet unable to tear myself away from the misery. When the final whistle went I retired to the tent for a long lie down, only emerging for a quick recuperative dinner before drawing a line under the day’s events and catching an early night.

A suitably non-stressful start to the morning was achieved with a swift charge around Shoprite for supplies. Surprisingly, we managed to both spend far more than we expected and drive off in a state of only mild annoyance.

We left the dull sanitised streets of Windhoek behind and got back on the B1, heading north once more through the endless scrub covered plains. Making good time, we decided on a short detour to the hot springs at Gross Barmen but were disappointed to find merely an outdoor swimming pool and a 1960’s concrete leisure complex. Naturally we didn’t discover this until we’d paid our entrance fee and so half heartedly swam about for ten minutes before calling it a day and getting back on our way.

A further five hundred or so kilometres passed, this time with the constant rotation of a CD purchased by Lee to keep our spirits up, a compilation of Grammy Award nominees. As we rolled into Tsumeb, the repeated hearings of the Black Eyed Peas’ My Humps had driven me almost to the point of embarking on a homicidal killing spree but I restricted myself to merely criticising Lee’s driving. The wrong strategy as it turned out, two thousand kilometres in three days had left Lee with a hair trigger. My insistence on stopping for a latte was the final straw and we both said a few things we later regretted. I took over the driving and we proceeded in silence the final few k’s to the eastern gate of the Etosha National Park.

We checked in just in time before the gate closed, a massive relief, this deadline had heaped further tension upon us along with everything else. We were directed to the office at Namatoni and were soon approaching the whitewashed walls of this old German fort dating back to 1899, passing springbok, gemsbok and hyena along the way. A few minutes later we’d been directed to the campsite and were driving around searching for a suitable spot to pitch the tent. We were both exhausted and a little raw from the day’s squabbles and so I set about making camp as quickly as possible while Lee began preparing food for the brai. I soon had the charcoal lit and John and Jacqui’s fantastic portable brai in position over the glowing coals when Lee screamed an agonised howl and started running around in circles clawing at her shorts.

I stood and watched, desperately trying to stifle my mirth, as Lee managed to pull her shorts and knickers down and indicated she’d been stung by something. I inspected the patch of skin in question, the top of the left thigh, just below the primary buttock curve, and spotted a small black wasp sting. I pulled it out with finger and thumb and Lee calmed down a bit. We smothered the area in various creams and balms and then got on with the brai.

The tension seemed to have lifted a little so I poured some Sea Breeze sundowners and we settled down to a dinner of steak and baked potatoes while watching the blue of the sky turning pink, red and then purple. The camp was a hive of activity now, the, mainly South African, holidaymakers totally outdid us. All around us the trailers had been opened up to form extensively equipped field kitchens, bar areas and flaming brais that put our little number to shame. Yet there was something wonderfully simple about our little car and dome tent, our mess tins and folding camp chairs and I wouldn’t have swapped them for anything.

The evening concluded with a trip to the nearby floodlit water hole accompanied by a thermos of Sea Breeze and other essential supplies. We sat on the wooden viewing platform in complete silence along with half a dozen other night watchers. A springbok or two and some warthogs drank in the artificial light, oblivious to our presence. Some zebra wandered up and a couple of jackals skulked around the edge of the pool. Somehow, we contrived to have a whispered argument. I stumbled back to the tent alone and collapsed into much needed sleep.

As the sun rose, the camp sprang into life. In the tent I tried to block out the evidence that it was time to get up but had to admit defeat, throw on some clothes and get up. We brewed coffee for the thermos and joined the exodus out of the camp and into the 20,000 square kilometres of the park.

Etosha has a network of gravel roads leading between many water holes which attract the wildlife towards them, primarily in the earlier and later parts of the day when it’s cooler. We began our safari by driving a circuit of the drinking pools in closest proximity to the camp, seeing large numbers of zebra, springbok, black faced impala, kudu and giraffe. We stopped for coffee and put the tension of the previous few days behind us as the excitement of being back out on safari, especially one we were driving ourselves, took its grip on us once more.

It was an unspectacular morning’s drive in the sense that we didn’t see any Big Five, but by the time we returned to camp around eleven o’clock we still had an expansive list of sightings. We took a siesta, grateful for the little shade afforded by our camping spot, had a wander around the fort and an ice cream, laughed at some fat South African men in homoerotic camouflage gear and then got back into the car to investigate the water holes to the north. We drove all the way to furthest one first and were rewarded by the sight of hundreds of zebra dotted around the vicinity, together with gemsbok, or oryx, wildebeest and springbok. A group of young male zebra were engaged in a competition for dominance, chasing each other around the pool, biting and kicking out with back legs in order to show their strength.

We took a more minor road back towards the camp and were bouncing along the dusty road at about sixty kilometres an hour when we rounded a corner and saw a white rhinoceros laying in our path in a small patch of shade created by a roadside tree. I slammed on the brakes and we slid to a standstill in the gravel a few metres away. The rhino didn’t even open an eye. Lee began frantically snapping pictures and, just as frantically, snapping at me to maneuver into various better positions. The huge beast just lay there so that we were unsure if it was even alive until, finally, we had brought the car close enough to warrant a twitch of the ear and the raising of the head to see what all the fuss was about. Having ascertained we were no threat, the head went down again and we were back to being ignored.

Having said that, it was still a nervous moment as I squeezed the car through the narrow gap at the side of the road, within inches of the brute’s enormous horn, and got us back on our way.

It was only a few more minutes down the road that we came across a Land Cruiser full of tourists parked at the side of some bushes. I inched the car forward and back until we reached just the right vantage point to catch a glimpse of a mother lioness and four or five cubs feeding on a wildebeest carcass. We rounded off the day at the Klein Namatoni water hole, closest to camp, supping warm brackish beer and watching a family group of giraffes stooping elegantly to drink.

Back at camp we stoked up the brai once more and sipped more ice cold Sea Breezes, waiting the inordinately long time necessary to ensure our chops, spuds and corn was fully cooked, then inevitably discovering them to be overdone, at least on the outside. It didn’t matter a jot and we polished off the meal enthusiastically. At this point Lee screamed in terror as she noticed a fox skulking around, nosing our rubbish bag and looking like he might make an attempt on one of the plates. I took on the roll of protector and got up repeatedly to chase it away until it finally got the message and went off to try its luck elsewhere.

Dinner completed, once more we paid a visit to the camp’s floodlit waterhole and were rewarded with sightings of spotted hyena, porcupine, giraffe and even a lion padding his way silently in from the wilderness.

The following morning’s drive commenced with the majestic sight of a group of eland, the largest of the antelopes, about the size of racehorses. Further highlights included our first Etosha elephants and an amazing sighting of a lone black rhino striding through the brush alongside the road and then crossing only metres in front of us. We set ourselves a punishing schedule as this was our last drive in the eastern section of the park and only made it back to the camp around 12.30, more than six hours after we’d left.

We then had the task of breaking camp and packing the car before heading back out again, retracing much of the morning’s route and then carrying on further west until we reached the Halali rest camp where we were to stay for the next two nights. The tent went up with the minimum of fuss and we finally got a little rest. Around five o’clock it was time to head out again for another rewarding drive. This one culminated with more warm beer at a waterhole as we watched a male and female lion take turns to drink. The female was obviously in playful mood, repeatedly nuzzling up to the male, pawing his muzzle and then walking off a few paces to lie on the ground, roll over and lie legs suggestively akimbo. The male was having none of it and steadfastly refused to pay her any attention. The female’s attempts grew more and more insistent until finally the male decided he’d had enough and strolled imperiously off into the bush.

We caught sunset at the magnificent rock amphitheatre adjoining the camp and overlooking another waterhole and then had a braied Boerewors supper and then it was time for our first night drive. This was something we’d been wanting to do on each of our previous safaris as we’d heard amazing tales of the animal activity observed after dark but the option had never been available. We clambered into the tiered seating on the rear of the park Land Cruiser and set off in high anticipation.

The guide drove at a snail’s pace, lighting the area to each side of the road with sweeps of a hand help red spotlight, but we caught sight of a group of hyenas but little else. When we finally made it to the spot where we’d seen the lions earlier we managed a quick glimpse of the male before he walked off into the darkness. It seemed our luck wasn’t in and it was soon time to head back to camp with only the cold comfort of complimentary beer to keep our spirits up. Upon arrival one or two of our companions started kicking off at the guide about the lack of game sightings, unable to grasp the fact that it’s all down to luck. We sighed and made for the tent.

By now we were into a familiar routine of ludicrously early mornings, ready to leave camp by 6am, a thermos of coffee at a water hole, enjoying the peacefulness of the park as animals went about their business. A siesta would follow a late breakfast at the end of the drive before we would head back out for a couple of hours before sunset, the brai and bed. Our third day was no different but was enriched with the sight of a pride of five female and three male lions making their measured way from one section of bush to another, crossing the plain in front of us.

Back at camp we took a container of Sea Breeze back up to the viewing platform to watch the sun disappear and the wildlife emerge, taking it in turns to nip back and tend to dinner. Later, with postprandial beers, we sat in rapt silent attention and watched a huge bull elephant come to drink. He was followed by a white rhino, three hyenas and a pair of jackals. After a while the rhino plodded off to the bushes where he disappeared, only to reemerge a few minutes later followed by another. There appeared to be some mock challenging going on and a standoff developed before a truce was called and the pair returned to the pool to drink.

Our final day in the park dawned even earlier than usual, it was still dark as we broke camp and packed the car to leave. Our last game drive to the few water holes that we had not yet seen was fruitful and included the amazing sight of three male lions taking turns at devouring a carcass. In the area surrounding them was a huge mixed herd of zebra, springbok, gemsbok and wildebeest. Scattered amongst and around this group were over twenty side striped jackals hungrily eying the lions’ meat.

By mid-morning it was time to go and we pulled the car into Okaukuejo rest camp to pick up some cold drinks for the journey and freshen up before making for the southern park exit. There was time enough to visit one last water hole at the park’s very edge, where we caught a group of elephants drinking, before we presented ourselves at the barrier and handed over our paperwork, which was, inevitably, not in order. It appeared that in all our dealings with the various camp offices none of them had ever taken payment of our park fees. I grinned through gritted teeth, turned the car around and roared off in a cloud of dust, back towards Okaukuejo in flagrant breach of the speed limit.

We quickly sorted the payment out and screeched back to the gate, were greeted with a cheery smile and waved on our way. The reason for our haste was the need to reach the entrance to the Skeleton Coast Park before it closed for the evening at 5pm. We’d booked ourselves into expensive accommodation at the Terrace Bay settlement and were looking forward to a bit of luxury – a bath, who knows, even satellite TV – after a hard few days of camping. A couple of hours saw us reach Outjo where we stopped for more meaty pastry snacks and Lee took over behind the wheel.

About two kilometres later the tarmac ran out and we hit an undulating road of deep gravel. Lee motored on determinedly but my nerves simply couldn’t take it. My deep inhalations of breath and repetitive flinching were too much and she exploded in anger. I offered no excuse but simply begged to be allowed to drive. She concurred reluctantly and we swapped over. I took the extra precaution of letting a little more air out of the tyres for some better grip.

For two more hours I drove on, stranded between the rock of the gate deadline and the hard place of not wanting to die horribly, rolling the car into a ditch having taken a corner too quickly. Finally the gate was in view, we’d made it with minutes to spare. I was physically and emotionally shattered and could do little else but allow Lee to get back in the driver’s seat for the final stretch to our lodgings. Naturally, she roared off at speed and I was forced to spend another two hours in a constant state of self-induced terror. We passed through enormous sand dunes, Martian landscapes with jagged red mountains poking through, the dust worse than ever. Out of this desolation, we eventually reached the coast and turned northwards to follow its curve. We passed the tented settlement at Torra Bay, packed full of holidaying four by fourers up for the world class fishing, a forest of rods swaying with each gust of wind in front of the raging foam of the angry sea.

Some seven hours after we left Etosha we pulled into Terrace Bay, our hearts sank, it seemed to be nothing more than a few old wooden sheds and some pre-fab Butlins chalets circa 1947. I reported to the park office, collected the keys and we drove to our appointed hovel. As we unloaded our bags into the room our disappointment was palpable, I felt cheated, robbed, it just wasn’t fair, there wasn’t even a bath. There wasn’t even a double bed. I proclaimed it the worst value accommodation, pound for pound, we’d stayed in all year.

Having said that, the scenery was spectacular and so we strolled down to the water’s edge to take in a dramatic sunset, the coast spartan and deserted, free of all life, living up to its name. The Portugese sailors, who were the first to sail these waters, called this stretch the Sands of Hell as they knew that if they were wrecked and washed ashore there was little prospect of survival. There was simply nothing for as far as the eye could see.

Having seen it, we took turns to shower the accumulated dust of our marathon journey from us, downed a quick cold beer and trudged up the hill for dinner, ate a mediocre meal washed down with a bottle of red and called it a night.

After a breakfast containing strange mutant frankenfurter sausages and weird sweet scrambled eggs, it was time to take leave of the most remote holiday camp in the world type thing and head south. Thankfully, it was my turn to drive again and we made good time heading back down the gravel road, past the fishing mecca of Torra Bay and on beyond the junction for the road we’d come in on. As usual, the sun was like a blast furnace in the clear azure of the sky. All around us was a blanket of massive sand dunes stretching away into the distance where they drifted up the foothills of rocky outcrops and escarpments. We got the occasional glimpse of the sea, stopping once to park up and examine one of the many ship wrecks dotted along the coast, now little more than timber ribs and a pile of rusting metal components.

By mid-morning we’d reached the gate, which was cheerfully adorned with a pair of six foot high skull and crossbones. We signed ourselves out and carried on until we reached Cape Cross and decided to take a look at the seal reserve. An entrance fee was paid and then we drove the final stretch to a car park. The moment we exited the car a wave of smell washed over us, an appalling rank stench that had us gagging in moments. My first thought was the complete lack of warning given at the office – surely there should be some kind of notice advising visitors of the extreme nasal experience they were letting themselves in for.

The urge to hurl subsided and we advanced, noses covered with sleeves, towards the sea. As far as the eye could see there were the black bodies of seals perched on rocks on the shore. As we got closer their honking calls got louder until it reached ear splitting volume. We made our way to the wooden viewing platform and took in the whole panorama. The sea was solid with them for the first twenty metres or so, diving around in the surf for fish. The numbers basking on the rocks were incomprehensible, a black carpet of flesh, there must have been millions. And there must recently have been a birthing season as there were babies everywhere. Even worse, dotted about all over the place were the bodies of dead babies in various stages of dessication and decomposition. Seagulls pranced around tearing strips of flesh from the newer carcasses, the older ones having already been reduced to strange, dried out, furry pancakes, like roadkill.

It was actually quite depressing to be confronted with so much death. We took some pictures and video and legged it away from this hellish place, yet, for days, the stench was in our clothes, hair and nostrils, a constant aromatic reminder of grimness. We tried to forget the experience by stopping at a nearby restaurant for lunch but I mistakenly ordered a mixed seafood pasta bake. The taste of the shellfish combined with the remnants of the seal stench to such a degree I was forced to leave it barely touched or risk vomiting onto the plate.

By now we were flagging. The relentless days in the car – by now we’d covered the best part of three and a half thousand kilometres in eight days, nearly half of it on dirt roads – the remorseless being stuck in the car with each other, the interminable heat and dust, had all taken their toll. We rolled into Swakopmund, found our hostel and slumped in the bar in the hope that some cold beer would revive us.

It did. As did Liverpool hammering Portsmouth 4-1 on the TV.

And so we went out for dinner at an amazing traditional restaurant which opens as a museum during the day. We sat amongst antique furniture, old pictures, a man in a terrible toupee and a lot of chintz, surveying a menu containing a good number of the animals we’d been observing in Etosha. Lee plumped for the crocodile while I chose the gemsbok steak. The food was delicious, especially washed down with a full bodied red, and we strolled back through the deserted streets of this strange German desert town fully satiated and ready to sleep the uninterrupted slumber of the righteous.

And so, adequately refreshed, I took leave of my beloved next morning and was driven out to the edge of town where I joined up with a group of holidaymakers from Pretoria to go quad biking in the sand dunes. We were led in single file out amongst the enormous dusty hills and took it in turns to spend an hour roaring up steep inclines to the limit of our momentum, before turning our noses downwards and speeding back into the valleys. We took great arcing zig zags in this fashion, cutting up and down the almost sheer faces of the dunes at breakneck speed, the adrenaline coursing through our veins, whooping in delight. All too soon though, it was over and time to return to the hostel to meet Lee.

Because we were going skydiving.

A minibus picked us up and we drove out, with a few other nervous punters, to the airfield for a briefing. This lasted all of four or five minutes and then we were introduced to our tandem masters and cameramen and told to wait our turn. An hour or so later we were driven by them out into the desert, to a flat plain of compacted sand used as an ad hoc airstrip. All too soon, the six of us were crammed into the back of a tiny Cessna, there was a bumpy take off and then we spent twenty minutes ascending to ten thousand feet.

At the appointed altitude, having been strapped tightly to a tandem master each and joined in the requisite show of radical hand signals, the door was rolled open and Lee was inched first towards the door. The cameraman jumped and then Lee and her instructor rolled forwards into space and disappeared.

I felt strangely calm as I was maneuvered towards the abyss, smiling for the camera and managing to follow my pre-flight resolution – on no account to look down. The instructor counted down from three and then, ladies and gentlemen, we were floating in space.

For thirty seconds that seemed like a lifetime we seemed to be suspended in the air, the wind noise deafening. I’d fallen legs akimbo and in completely the wrong position. My teacher grappled me into the correct flight pose and I managed to focus on the cameraman who was zooming in towards us. His flight suit had wings, why didn’t I get any wings? The tandem master and I buffeted him with a shower of standard adrenaline sport gestures, hang ten and the like, and I shouted “I’m really scared”, which was odd because I actually wasn’t.

And then, like when you’ve been sticking your head out of a car window at speed and then pull it back inside, I was told to brace, the rip chord was pulled and, all of a sudden, the wind noise stopped and we were just gliding in silence. For the first time I could properly take in my surroundings, on one side desert as far as the eye could see, the mammoth mountainous dunes I’d ridden that morning now tiny pimples. On the other side the sea, the sun reflecting off it, glistening, stretching off in the purest blue to meet the curve of the horizon. Below, the town of Swakopmund, a toy town grid of tarmac and matchbox buildings.

The instructor decided to liven things up and began a series of stomach churningly sharp turns, swinging us horizontally in steep swoops towards the ground. Below, the airstrip and clubhouse got rapidly larger, I could make out figures waiting to assist in the landing, we came in at speed, my legs were drawn up tightly to my chest and then, at the last possible moment, a pull of the chords and we gently touched down like conjoined angels.

I was unstrapped, expressed my thanks for the safe landing and threw a final couple of thumbs ups towards the camera. Lee was still airborne, spared the white knuckle ride of steep turns I’d been treated to. She floated down elegantly, touching down perfectly and unstrapped the harness, all the time excitedly declaring that she’d loved it. We hugged ecstatically and then made a beeline to the club house in order to purchase our personalised DVD sets. Our jumps were replayed on big screens for all to laugh at our expressions as we left the aeroplane and plummeted through space, we said our thank you’s with a round of cold beers and then jumped in the minibus to be taken back to our hostel.

By this time it was two in the afternoon and we had another mammoth drive to our evening’s destination. The Grammy CD went on full blast – by now my rendition of My Humps had become word perfect – and we left Swakopmund behind, passing through Walvis Bay and then turning in from the coast and through huge clouds of sand driven across our path by the high winds. More and more arid, featureless desert passed by and then we reached an area of mountains, massive sandstone barriers which the road wound through in treacherous curves.

Having negotiated several passes, we reached the tiny town of Solitaire but had no time to sample its famous apple tart. We left the tarmac and drove on upon the gravel, into the dazzling setting sun, towards Sesriem. The altered light of the lowering sun threw amazing shades of colour onto the rocky outcrops bordering the track, alternating deep reds and fiery oranges with menacing black shadows. Finally, once more with only moments to spare, we pulled into the gate of the Sesriem camp site and breathed yet another sigh of relief – not only was the office still open, so was the shop and it was selling ice cold Black Label. The tent was quickly up, the brai lit, the bottles opened. We savoured the last of the sunset, enjoyed another tasty steak/baked potato/corn on the cob combo and collapsed into the tent to sleep.

Only to rise again at 4.30 and get ourselves back into the car, flash a pass and motor into the dramatically named Sand Dune Sea beneath an almost full moon. Forty five minutes later we reached Dune 45, the most accessible of the giant dunes in the area. We then set off at a brisk trudge up the side ridge of the dune, the sand dragging our feet below the surface and making each step an echo of that same laboured dawn traipse up Kilimanjaro I pushed on, leaving Lee to her own pace, and joined a small group of German tourists sitting at the summit and facing east.

Slowly, the clouds became illuminated, purples turned to red. The quality of the light on the surrounding dunes was mesmeric, each different plane emanating its own haunting shade of vermillion as the first rays started to break. Lee was at my side now and we stared rapt at the morningly magic, silent save for the chatter of the camera shutter click. It was a majestic sunrise, possibly the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Suddenly the landscape became illuminated, reached its daytime hue, we’d made the transition from night to day worlds and wondered why we ever stayed in bed when this was going on outside every single morning.

We returned to the car in quiet contemplation, no need for words until the familiar dusty interior of our craft broke the spell. An overland truck pulled up and disgorged its passengers, a motley crew of older travellers. One, Japanese naturally, made for the dune wearing a bizarre body scaffold, some sort of amateur steadicam brace, we laughed and I started the engine.

Next stop was the two wheel drive car park, we brewed coffee at a concrete table inundated with tiny inquisitive birds and then caught a 4×4 shuttle to Dead Vlei. Along the way we had an even closer view of the amazing dunes, the world’s highest and oldest, towering 200 metres above the valley floor, their pristine flanks sometimes fouled with the tell tale trail of footprints. The Dead Vlei pan was surrounded by enormous picturesque sand hills, but we felt we’d done enough climbing and opted to walk to the more famous Sossusvlei and back as the heat was already beginning to have an effect on us. Atmosphere sampled and photographs taken, we had a minor row and then flagged down another shuttle to take us back to the car.

Back at camp we fixed a quick cooked breakfast and broke camp ready for another massive drive. It was Christmas Eve and we had to get to Luderitz. The original plan had been to spend Christmas in Swakopmund as it’s a backpacker party town – big boozy, sociable Christmas lunch descending into an alcoholic stupor. Alas, everywhere was fully booked when we were planning and the only place Lee could find was a self-catering farmhouse described as being in Luderitz, Swakopmund. By the time we came to examine the map and realise there was approximately 1000 km of road between the two, much of it gravel of course, we’d already paid. We didn’t mind though, the prospect of a quiet sea side farmhouse all to ourselves appealed. We’d loaded up with food and generous helpings of drink and were looking forward to putting our feet up, hopefully in front of satellite TV. Lee took the first shift behind the wheel and off we sped.

My nervousness as a passenger over the preceeding days had become a real issue by this time and had caused a number of arguments. If it had been up to me, I would have done all the driving but the distances were simply too great. My involuntary flinching had to be kept under control so I buried my head in a book and studiously refused to tell Lee that I thought she was going a bit too fast.

An hour into the drive my instincts told me something was wrong, I looked up just in time to see a sharp left hand corner rapidly approaching. I wanted to shout a warning but it was just too late. All I could do was hold on tight as we entered the bend and the g-forces swung me over towards Lee. The car felt as if it was up on two wheels for a moment, righted itself and the back end began to swing round. Then the wheels dug in and gripped and we were flung back in the opposite direction in the car equivalent to the dreaded motorcycle high-side. We were now racing towards the right hand edge of the road. Lee swerved again, we slid and careered off the road to the left, mounted a pile of rocks and launched into the air, landing at a standstill on a fence post and only a foot or so in front of a tree.

We sat in disbelieving silence. After a while I got out to take a look at the situation. We were a good twenty metres from the road, wheels buried in several inches of dust, the front bumper lay behind the car where it had caught on the pile of rocks, the front underskirt was dented and some sort of large metal bracket had sheared off the underside of the engine compartment. I walked up the road, checking the mobile phone for the inevitable no signal, then returned, rummaged in the boot and erected the reflective hazard triangle. For once, Lee was speechless. Perhaps it was the shock. When she eventually did speak she sounded like she was going to dissolve into hysterics. I managed to restrict my reaction to a muttered “Stupid girl” and then sat down to wait, amazed only that we hadn’t rolled and were not seriously injured.

The Lonely Planet guide book devotes a special section to the gravel roads of Namibia, warning against high speeds and complacency. The high number of inexperienced people rolling hire cars is the reason for the prohibitively high rental prices in the country, and the reason why we’d hired our car in South Africa – though, even there, we had to agree that any damage incurred off tarmac would not be covered by the insurance. It was not an ideal state of affairs but it could certainly have been a lot worse.

A mere forty five minutes later a minibus pulled up. It was carrying a dozen staff members back from one of the guest resorts to their families to celebrate Christmas. The driver immediately pulled over and came to inspect the car. He pronounced us amazingly lucky, there seemed to be no mechanical damage, no leaks, the engine fired into life at the turn of the key. He barked some orders and the crowd that had gathered around to watch sprang into action. Four ladies rolled up their sleeves and started digging around the wheels. Just at that moment a 4×4 came up the road, slowed and the white couple inside stared at us. Then they simply sped up and left us, despite our frantic waving for help. I’d thought they could tow us back onto the road but it seemed that they’d seen the crowd of black faces and hadn’t fancied it.

Instead everyone took up a position around the vehicle and, on the count of three, we simply picked the car up and, little by little, carried it back to the road. We couldn’t believe our luck, gushed huge thanks to everyone, gathered the various bits of car up from the ground, threw them into the back, wished them all a merry Christmas and continued gingerly on our way with the minibus shadowing.

I drove.

We proceeded at a sedate pace, inwardly replaying the events, hardly talking – Lee seemed most concerned about the fact that she had actually now given me solid reason to be nervous with her driving, the prospect of me dragging up the crash whenever I felt like it was quite traumatic for her to consider. After twenty or thirty kilometres, with the car evidently safe to drive, our helpers overtook and waved us goodbye. I gradually nudged the speed up until we were going at a reasonable, but safe, rate and then, just to make things a little more interesting, it started to rain. The gravel was deep and rutted and all I could do was try to stick in the furrows already ploughed and peer through the downpour as it got heavier and harder. In the distance, forks of lightning bombarded the horizon like angry wizards.

A couple of hours later there was no alternative, I had to let Lee drive again, I was simply exhausted. I gave her solemn instructions on speed and technique, which even then she refused to listen to, got into the passenger seat and immediately went to sleep – it was just less stressful that way. We reached tarmac again after another hour and stopped in a village to pick up a few final supplies for Christmas – red wine, beer and vodka. The car, by this time, was absolutely covered in mud and looked in a terrible state, as did I. All around people stared, I could almost hear the words “You’re not from around here are you boy?”.

The tarmac was a blessed relief. The sun came out and the rain stopped and it was almost possible to believe that the accident had been a bad dream. While Lee drove on, I studied the insurance paperwork and began concocting a cover story that wouldn’t leave us liable for the damage. We stopped for petrol in the tiny town of Aus, the garage’s owner wandered over and declared he’d heard about us from other people passing through earlier that day. We pressed for details and ascertained that it wasn’t us that people had been talking about, but another poor couple, in an identical car, who’d come a cropper in the rain. I silently sent out heartfelt feelings of sympathy, at the same time glad that we weren’t the only ones to suffer such embarrassment.

As we rolled towards Luderitz our excitement grew. We were so flagrantly fatigued by now that our Christmas farm house, and the chance to spend two nights and one whole uninterrupted day not driving, had taken on mythical proportions and we played games with each other, fantasising about how fantastic it would be. We reached the outskirts, passing the deserted ghost town of Kolmanskop, a reminder of the area’s glorious diamond mining past. Just before Luderitz we took a turn off to the left and carefully followed a gravel road the final few kilometres to our destination, Diaz point, named after one of the earliest Portuguese explorers, the first to navigate successfully around the southernmost tip of Africa.

We passed through another grey desolate landscape, lunar in its bleakness other than the signs of heavy industry dotting the terrain. We were passing through Diamond Area 1 and large signs warned us that it was prohibited to exit the car of deviate from the road at the risk of being shot. Slightly unsettling.

Finally, we rounded a bend, a lighthouse came into view and we were at Diaz Point. It was awful. Ugly. Dreary. Grim. Driving around, all there seemed to be was a couple of large dilapidated houses, a small cafe and the ubiquitous rods of the camping sea fishermen we’d seen everywhere. Lee went into the cafe to make some enquiries and the owner, Gunter, as camp as the row of tents outside, wandered out with a key to show us our lodgings.

The house was in a terrible state. The kitchen equipped with nothing more than a pair of gas burners connected to a large orange bottle, the bedrooms dowdy, twin bedded, no lounge at all and one of those avocado bathroom suites it’s difficult to believe looked good even in the 1970’s, but which, no doubt, will become highly ironically fashionable again any day now. Satellite television? I think not.

We managed to express our disappointment to Gunther in fairly understated and reasonable terms. Sympathetically, and with eyes that revealed he absolutely concurred with our judgement, he agreed to phone the owners and see if there was any room at the hotel they owned in town. After tortuous minutes spent roaming the vicinity for signal, he got through and, finally, our luck was in. There was one room left, a double with ensuite, huzzah.

We motored back through the prohibited area as fast as we dared and were soon checked in. The owner asked what the problem was with the farm house – quite what was farmed there, or exactly where, was a mystery, there’d been absolutely no evidence of any plant or animal life – and we replied that it was a little too basic, we’d wanted to treat ourselves to a little more luxury over Christmas and it hadn’t matched our expectations. Her reply was simply that it had been advertised on a backpackers’ website and so what did we expect. I took an instant dislike to her.

The room was basic but comfortable and, even better, equipped with four channels of satellite TV. We surreptitiously carried in our supplies, the huge laundry bag of booze clinking tale-tellingly as I laboured with it through reception. Once ensconced, a cold buffet arranged on the sideboard, impressive bar in the corner, there was only one thing for it, a long, luxurious hot bath with a, warmish, beer. Then we curled up on the bed, switched on some tacky American Christmas film and called it a night.

And that’s pretty much how we spent the next twenty four hours. Christmas Day arrived, we made phone calls, opened a couple of presents, pulled crackers and wore paper hats, drank continuously and sat in front of the TV watching a marathon medley of cheesy American Christmas films, which were, somehow, exactly what we needed. We left the room only for an evening meal. No turkey or suchlike on offer, we opted for seafood and it was delicious. Afterwards, overcome with tiredness, we stumbled back to the room and passed out.

Our final day in Namibia dawned. The hotel owner managed to contact the owners of a local garage and persuade them to take a look at the car. They gave it a mechanical thumbs up and agreed to provide an estimate of the damage if required. Once more we were told how lucky we’d been, the locals seemed to regard anyone driving the gravel roads in a two wheel drive as just asking for trouble.

We took our leave of Luderitz and drove back eastwards, before turning south off the tarmac and ending up at Fish River Canyon, one of the deepest in the world at 550 metres. We reached the viewing platform, got out, had a look, took some pictures and got back in the car. It was beautiful and impressive indeed, but, already, the driving had taken its toll and there were many more kilometres to navigate that day.

There was one final stretch of gravel to conquer and then we hit tarmac once more at Grunau, filled up with petrol, bad coffee and sausage rolls and then floored it to reach the border as quickly as possible. There was one final hurdle to overcome, the inevitable good natured banter of the border guards as our filthy, damaged car rolled over the frontier and then we were back in South Africa with the land of dust, gravel and enormous distances, thankfully, behind us.

“Entra um português extremamente cansado e nervoso. Tem olhos encovados, a barba por fazer e está sujo, uma verdadeira personificação de impotência e abandono. Chama-se Humberto dos Anjos de Freitas Quental. É daqui, nasceu aqui – há mais ou menos cinquenta anos, calculo eu. Há uma semana, escapou para a Namíbia com a família. Deixou a mulher e os quatro filhos num acampamento para portugueses em Windhoek e decidiu voltar sozinho. Queria regressar porque a sua mãe tinha ficado em Pereira d’Eça [1]. A mãe dele tem oitenta e um anos e é dona de uma padaria há tantos anos quantos tem de vida o seu filho Humberto, que está aqui de pé, à nossa frente. Disse ao seu filho que não se ia embora e que continuaria a fazer pão, que é sempre necessário.

- E vocês próprios sabem – diz-nos Humberto – que em Pereira d’Eça têm pão fresco.

Sim, toda a unidade o sabe, vivendo como vivem do pão que faz aquela mulher e, além disso, não o pagando, porque este exército de libertação é de voluntários sem dinheiro. Quando ele partiu para ir levar a sua família para a Namíbia, a reserva de farinha estava a chegar ao fim e a sua mãe – que é surda e não compreende que se está em guerra e que, devido à idade avançada, já não compreende nada, a não ser que, enquanto o mundo for mundo as pessoas precisarão de pão – ordenou ao seu filho que voltasse com a farinha. Ficou ali sozinha; por isso, ele decidiu regressar e trazer-lhe farinha, que foi confiscada na fronteira, mas ele sabe que um camião com um carregamento de farinha chegou hoje de Lubango, o que significa que a sua mãe pode voltar a cozer pão e haverá de novo algo que comer de graça, porque ela não leva dinheiro.

- Nós todos adoramos aquela senhora, – diz Farrusco [2] – embora ela não esteja a nosso favor, mas é a favor da vida e do pão, o que basta. Os nossos trazem-lhe a água de que precisa. E trazem-lhe a lenha. E ela vai viver por tanto tempo quanto nós, ou talvez mais. Mas eu quero que tu contes a esta gente que veio de Lubango o que ouviste dizer em Windhoek e o que te disseram na estrada naquele lugar que se chama o quê?

- Chama-se Tsumeb – disse-lhe o filho da padeira – e fica a cerca de duzentos e cinquenta quilómetros daqui. Os portugueses que fugiram para lá dizem que brevemente o exército da África do Sul avançará sobre Angola e expulsará o MPLA. Diziam a mesma coisa em Windhoek. Diziam que o exército iniciaria a operação hoje, talvez amanhã. Têm veículos blindados e força aérea e ocuparão Luanda.

- Como o sabes? – perguntou Farrusco.

- É o que todos os portugueses dizem, – respondeu Humberto – embora seja segredo. Em Windhoek, vieram oficiais do exército sul-africano ao nosso acampamento perguntar quem tinha servido no exército e se alguém queria juntar-se às forças que iam atacar Angola. E em Tsumeb, no posto de gasolina, um branco disse-me que a cidade estava cheia de veículos blindados, que avançariam sobre Angola amanhã ou depois para acabar com os comunistas.

Farrusco disse ao filho da padeira que podia ir para casa. […]“

Kapuściński, Ryszard. 2007. Mais um dia de vida : Angola 1975. 2.ª edição ed. Porto: Campo de Letras. Pp. 54-55.

[1] Pereira d’Eça era uma pequena cidade situada no sul de Angola, no distrito de Cunene, a 31 quilómetros da Namíbia (na década de 1970 era o Sudoeste Africano). Tem actualmente o nome de Ondjiva ou N’Giva.

[2] Farrusco, filho de lavradores portugueses, foi, em 1975, comandante da única unidade do MPLA (com 120 elementos) “na frente do sul entre Lubango e a fronteira (450 quilómetros) e entre o Atlântico e a Zâmbia (1200 quilómetros)”.

With Jimmy today for the Hoba meteorite. Corrie isn’t joining us till lunch, and Mark not at all, so the bus seems half empty when we leave Otuvi. We cross the new extension towards Angola, then cross the line the train will take to Tsumeb. The meteorite is in the middle of an amphitheatre (must have taken some aiming ) and you get a resonant echo if you climb on it and speak. There isn’t much else at the site -(some barbecue places. But despite all the Aussies no one has anything to cook…) and Olivier manages to find Namibia’s national bird. We leave there to go to Grootfontein museum, sited in an old German fort . Then on to Tsumeb, where Corrie is waiting for us – fortunately Jimmy discovers this before he & Roger go to fetch her.

Lunch is the typical relaxed Namibian affair with everyone reporting to the till to say what they had. The itinerary has another museum and there is some thought that maybe visiting the shops, or the copper festival might be a more attractive option – however everywhere shuts at 1 PM on Saturday (the museum is open by special arrangement!) and the copper festival doesn’t actually start until the end of the month. The museum is probably the best organised one we have seen so far.

The final stop is lake Otjikoto (which means something like ‘lake where cattle can’t drink’) Jimmy sells it on the basis of it’s ice creams though the lake itself is unusual in being an underground lake whose roof has caved in! – there are also some animals around including peacocks and crocodile.
Early to bed for another early start tomorrow