I’ve nipped around the edges of the recent trip Thorsten and I took to southern Namibia. But I haven’t gotten to the real heart of the journey yet because I don’t know how to explain it. Namibia captured my imagination and then ran away with it, leaving me with insufficient words to describe my impressions. But let me do my best.
The reason for the trip itself is hard to explain. Thorsten, who is from Aus, Namibia, was invited there as an architect, investigating a possible tourism project, and I was invited to come along. So it wasn’t exactly work (not for me at least) but definitely not a holiday, either. We were out in the blistering hot desert every day, driving and walking long distances. Every hour brought multiple new wonders – a mountain, a rock, a weird building, a tree, a funny sign – that I had never experienced before.
I struggled to fathom how my boyfriend, a pale-skinned city dweller, sprung from this vast, bizarre, beautiful, yet inhospitable landscape. I struggled to fathom how any living thing can survive there at all.
I had been to Namibia once before, on a 10-day trip through the central part of the country, and I loved it. But nothing could have prepared me for southern Namibia. It felt like visiting another planet.
Here’s a summary of our journey, supplemented by lots of pictures.
We flew into Walvis Bay, which is 30 minutes from the town of Swakopmund, and immediately headed south to Sossusvlei by car (about five hours’ drive). We didn’t make a lot of stops along the way, as there is virtually nowhere to stop on this route. But we did visit the Tropic of Capricorn sign and the tiny town of Solitaire, known for its apple pie.
We didn’t have time to visit Sossusvlei, Namibia’s most famous dunes. (As discussed in a previous post, we went to the Koichab dunes instead.) We did, however, spend the night at a bizarre yet wonderful Sossusvlei hotel called Le Mirage.
Le Mirage is a luxury hotel serving up Game-of-Thrones-in-Namibia vibes. The outside is a fake castle and the inside is a fake Middle-Eastern-style courtyard oasis. I loved it because it was so random and weird, but our room was extremely hot and the internet was frustratingly terrible. (There were a few other minor annoyances, too.) I would recommend staying there, simply for the novelty of the place, but not during summer.
The next day we drove about four hours from Sossusvlei to Aus, where we stayed for the next three days.
We spent most of our time in Aus exploring Thorsten’s friend Andrew’s ginormous farm, the Eureka Farm, where Andrew is planning to build a lodge. The Eureka Farm is insanely beautiful and desolate. I spent a lot of time walking around in the blazing heat with my jaw hanging open, gasping and exclaiming, “What?!?!” at one spectacular vista after another.
While in Aus, Thorsten and I also paid a visit to the Klein-Aus Vista Lodge. Someday I need to write a much longer story about this, but Klein-Aus was once a working farm that belonged to Thorsten’s grandparents and he spent several years of his childhood there. It was really cool to go back and visit with him.
Thorsten and I slept in town at the Bahnhof Hotel. Thorsten also has fond memories of hanging out at this hotel as a child; his great aunt was once the manager there. The rooms are basic but nice, and I really enjoyed the German meals – particularly the spätzle – that we ate while sitting on the hotel terrace. (Namibia was once a German colony and there is still a lot of German cultural influence there.)
Luderitz is an Atlantic coastal town 125 kilometers due west of Aus – just a little more than an hour’s drive on the famous B4 highway.
Thorsten also spent time in Luderitz as a kid and wanted to show me the town, so we spent a night there before heading back to Swakopmund with Andrew. We stopped to visit Kolmanskop (which you’ve already read about), a few minutes outside Luderitz, then headed into town.
Luderitz is known for its stark gray coastline, which contrasts with its colorful German architecture, its windiness, its flamingos, and its oysters. We didn’t have any oysters and I didn’t get any good flamingo pictures, but we did manage to see quite a lot of Luderitz in the short time we were there.
We spent most of our full day in Luderitz driving around the larger peninsula west of town, stopping for tea at the picturesque Diaz Point and taking a long walk on a huge, deserted beach called Grosse Bucht. (I recommend a 4x4 for driving around the Luderitz Peninsula.)
After Luderitz, we made the long drive back to Swakopmund and flew out of Walvis Bay the next morning. We didn’t have time to see much of Swakopmund before leaving. But I do want to recommend the Swakopmund Museum, which has incredible taxidermy, the Vellie Valley shoe shop (which I mentioned in my recent post about veldskoens), and Raith Bakery, where I bought an insanely delicious pastry on our way out of town.
Thus concludes my rambling, photo-clogged description of the week we spent in Southern Namibia. I still can’t stop thinking about it and can’t wait to go back.
How have I never blogged about 44 Stanley Avenue, the coolest shopping and dining complex in Joburg, which is only five minutes from my house?
I guess it’s wrong to say I’ve never blogged about 44 Stanley; I’ve mentioned it countless times over the years (see here and here) when writing about specific restaurants or shops that are there. But I’ve never written a dedicated post about 44 Stanley as a destination and it’s about time I did – especially now, with the holidays upon us.
I’ve been dreadfully uninspired lately, struggling to think of anything I want to blog about despite having a long list of great ideas (many of which you, my readers, provided in September). I’m finding it hard to feel positive about life at the moment. But on Saturday Thorsten and I got the chance to visit Indwe Park, an indigenous garden and sculpture park in Braamfontein, and I knew I had my topic for today.
Given this week’s political nuclear bomb blast, it feels like a weird time to publish a light-hearted post about my recent (pre-election) jaunt through the United States. But I’m hoping you’ve have had enough of the U.S. election horror show – I know I have – and are ready (at least temporarily) for some wholesome American travel adventures. If so, please read on about my four-day visit to Maine, the northeastern-most state in the lower 48, with my sister, Susanna.
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It makes me smile, when I see it.