Return to Namibia's North-west

Dear all,

It's been a while, I know, since I've written. But it's been a while since I've had a deluge of words hit my brain, along with attempts at translating a sensory overload, or otherworld, into some semblance of language. A while in fact since I've had to seek other ways of describing the myriad colours and shades of brown and sand.

As you can see, it was time for me to return to Namibia, this time to the remote north-west of the country, often known as Kaokoveld, whence I had not been for some ten years. (And just a flight from Windhoek northwards can turn me Shakespearian it seems.) Once more into the land of many brown hues, of flat-topped mountains and light-feathery grass plains up from which lone trees stand out shockingly green, their shadows stark black in contrast to the blinding yellow beams of sun.

The fun thing about Wilderness Safaris' Namibian air circuits is that the ‘hub’ – i.e. the place that almost all flights must land and take off from – is at Doro !Nawas in Damaraland, the view from which has:
1. our camp in the distance,
2. some spectacular mountains, and
3. a donkey.

And then you land and there is a thriving airport, if you will – one small hut containing the flush loo with a view no less, an ‘arrivals hall’ – that is, four poles wrapped about and above with canvas to create shade – in which are some chairs and of course some drinks in a cooler box God forbid we should perish for want of Sprite.

After the requisite break in the hub, with a flurry of aircraft of all shapes and sizes landing and taking off, picking up guests and dropping them off, it’s our turn, taking to the skies and flying further north-west into literally the blue yonder. The landscape changes again, a richer brown mingles with the beige while the flat-topped hills disappear behind us, leaving us with sharp black rocks rearing into the hot sky. In between, from the air, it looks like a child’s sandpit, where water poured from a red plastic bucket to create rivers runs a little way along before disappearing into the sand, leaving dry dents that curve through a barren sandy landscape. In this case though, spots of green dot the riverbed: trees and bushes grow thanks to those hidden underground waters. Life is indeed stubborn in its attempts to be everywhere on Earth and here is a prime example.

In the distance to the left is a blue stripe – the Atlantic – with the famous fog hanging over it. I know, thanks to photos and stuff I’ve read, that the coast here is the last word in desolate, known and feared even recently as a shore that can wreck ships. Whale bones from another age have mouldered away here with only the raucous blaring of Cape fur seals left to bear witness: it’s the Skeleton Coast. And we are headed to one of the few places where you have access to it: Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp.

Hoanib (pronounced wa-nib) is named for the river. Or more correctly the dry riverbed that can be seen from the camp down the long valley. In this landscape, honed by lack of water, where every bit is used and horded (even springbok and giraffe dung is as dry as dust compared to that of their cousins inland – TMI?) – the word ‘river’ here as used by the locals is in fact bone dry, flowing only when enough rain falls many miles upstream. For the most part, the water seeps into the ground allowing some trees – acacia tortilla and ana – and the ubiquitous mustard bush to flourish (i.e. there’s more than one…) along the course that was carved out in wetter times. These plants attract animals in turn. But the herds are also smaller than those in the verdant waterlogged centre of southern Africa because the land cannot sustain more. Large numbers are a luxury that the land cannot afford; like the rock and sand that surrounds them all life is a sharpened, pared-down existence.

But this minimalist concept makes it beautiful, exciting, unexpected. Every bit of life has to really WANT to live, to overcome and triumph in this place of browns on our blue-green planet.

So we don’t call it a game drive, but rather, a nature drive. I would call it a “life drive” – to appreciate every bit of it that ekes a living out of the stone and rock. Every giraffe gets an ‘ooh’ and every springbok an ‘ah’.

But actually it does more than eke. As we found out on our first drive, which was sposed to be a sundowner drive – you know, find a scenic spot and sip alcohol. At teatime (God forbid you should starve before sundowners), our guide Papa G (or Gert depending on whether you can say the Afrikaans G) announced: “Sundowners are cancelled.” We raised multiple eyebrows. Cancelling sundowners on a safari is like skipping breakfast (the most important meal of the day).

The reason though was that the lions were in the riverbed, somewhere not far off, and that was fair enough. After all, in Hoanib, the lions have adapted to extremely arid conditions and one of their adaptations is their ability to be highly mobile, covering 50 km or more when they need to. Which means, they’re not always in the area to be seen on game drives. Now though, the word was that they were ‘in town’ so, duly cancelling sundowners, we scrambled into the vehicle and bounced off to the riverbed to see if we could see them.

But, along the way we were constantly stopped by most definitely un-eking life: springbok, gemsbok, a couple of ellies – a bull shaking an ana tree for the pods – and many more giraffe than you’d ever expect.

The search for the lions in the area they’d been last spotted was difficult and thus satisfying when we found them: we (obviously when I say ‘we’ I mean our intrepid guide, Papa G) found their tracks, lost them, cast up and down the riverbed, peering hopefully around the large bushes – called ‘leeubos’ for just this reason. Suddenly, there they were: two older females and three of their five sons known as the Five Musketeers for obscure reasons. No blasé Kruger cats here, they stopped the instant they saw us; not afraid, just very aware and alert, ears pricked and faces turned towards us. We in turn had to be quieter than we might have been in Kruger so as not to bother them.

They are all collared as they are part of a very important research project that has been taking place in the area – the Desert Lion Project run by Dr Flip Stander. In a place where everything and everyone needs to do whatever it takes to survive, where lions find killing goats much easier than chasing springbok, and goats are worth a lot of cash and represent the whole of a person’s financial value, and putting poison down for lion is really easy too… well, it’s what’s called a classic HLC – Human-Lion Conflict, also known as a ruddy mess.

We didn’t get our sundowners that night. We followed the cats for as long as the light held, watching their lithe bodies and alert ears; they were on the prowl – in fact, two nights later they killed a gemsbok. Finally, we left them to return for a highly delicious dinner, a sky that was pretty OTT in its display of stars and that overwhelming silence that is part of the Namibian experience. It sits beneath and above the sounds of the staff setting up for supper, the guests chatting over drinks around the fire. It is accentuated too by the bare-bones landscape; there is very little plant matter to soften or muffle the silence and so it roars through, around, beneath and above all ‘other’ sounds. Perfect for snuggling into bed and looking forward to the next day's adventure.