Sunday, 26 July 2009
I had long admired photos of the world's largest sand dunes in Namibia and so when I heard about the workshop being run there by our friend Nicole Palmer just a few days after we were due to leave South Africa, I thought it would be worth the wait. I had nine days before the workshop started and so decided to see some other parts of Namibia. I flew from Cape Town to the capital of Namibia,Windhoek, and picked up a 4X4 SUV.
Namib Diary - Day Five
Up with the sun and away by 7:30, direction Twyfelfontein. It will take 2 1/2 hours to go 100 kms there and the same to get back.
Khorixas was the end of the paved road and now it's gravel that has not been treated kindly by the rains. The worst conditions I've ever seen on something that can still be called a road (apart from Ontario in the winter). Pot holes, washed out gullies, creeks running across, mud, sand,you name it. There'll be a flat bit for a few hundred meters and all of a sudden a gully so one is constantly braking, and gearing up and down, mostly from 2nd to third and back. Luckily there hadn't been any rain very recently so the worst muddy parts had dried out some. There were graders at work but it's a slow process and they can't do it all at once.
Arrived at the site to find I must go with a guide, N$30 plus N$10 for parking. She was not very communicative. Although English is the official language of Namibia, it's not everyone's first, and some are better with it than others. Then I don't speak Afrikaans or German or Damara either.
She showed me around seven sites with engravings (not paintings), all in an impressive cathedral-like natural setting. Quite rough ground and much scrambling up and over rocks. Now very hot and not for the faint hearted or infirm. Twyfelfontein means doubtful fountain and there are the remains of a small house where some fool lived who tried to run a sheep farm here back in the fifties.
After an hour of that I decided I didn't need the second part of the tour and headed off to the
Twyfelfontein Country Lodge just down the road. This is a large, luxurious resort with a huge restaurant/bar area and several guest cottages. It is either on the verge of bankruptcy or the front for drug money as I saw no-one other than staff in the hour and a half I was there. I had a Tafel at the bar while waiting for the resto to open then had beef and kudu stir fry and a 'Dinky' of Cape white wine. It turns out to be a 187 ml bottle, a reasonable glass. This was followed by the most intense, moistest chocolate layer cake I've ever had. All quite astonishing in the middle of a desert.
Up with the sun and away by 7:30, direction Twyfelfontein. It will take 2 1/2 hours to go 100 kms there and the same to get back.
Khorixas was the end of the paved road and now it's gravel that has not been treated kindly by the rains. The worst conditions I've ever seen on something that can still be called a road (apart from Ontario in the winter). Pot holes, washed out gullies, creeks running across, mud, sand,you name it. There'll be a flat bit for a few hundred meters and all of a sudden a gully so one is constantly braking, and gearing up and down, mostly from 2nd to third and back. Luckily there hadn't been any rain very recently so the worst muddy parts had dried out some. There were graders at work but it's a slow process and they can't do it all at once.
Arrived at the site to find I must go with a guide, N$30 plus N$10 for parking. She was not very communicative. Although English is the official language of Namibia, it's not everyone's first, and some are better with it than others. Then I don't speak Afrikaans or German or Damara either.
She showed me around seven sites with engravings (not paintings), all in an impressive cathedral-like natural setting. Quite rough ground and much scrambling up and over rocks. Now very hot and not for the faint hearted or infirm. Twyfelfontein means doubtful fountain and there are the remains of a small house where some fool lived who tried to run a sheep farm here back in the fifties.
After an hour of that I decided I didn't need the second part of the tour and headed off to the
Twyfelfontein Country Lodge just down the road. This is a large, luxurious resort with a huge restaurant/bar area and several guest cottages. It is either on the verge of bankruptcy or the front for drug money as I saw no-one other than staff in the hour and a half I was there. I had a Tafel at the bar while waiting for the resto to open then had beef and kudu stir fry and a 'Dinky' of Cape white wine. It turns out to be a 187 ml bottle, a reasonable glass. This was followed by the most intense, moistest chocolate layer cake I've ever had. All quite astonishing in the middle of a desert.
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