The Forgotten Country

Namibia was my favorite part of the trip. In fact, my longstanding fascination with it--with the fact that it's one of Africa's most sparsely populated countries, that much of it remains uninhabited and largely inaccessible, and that it has an extraordinarily forbidding climate and geography--provided the original impetus for the whole southern Africa trip.

The country did not disappoint. In Windhoek, Justin and I picked up our little rental car--a diminutive Hyundai hatchback with the delightfully superhero-esque model name of Atos Prime--and headed north to Etosha National Park. I was expecting the park to be somewhat like Kruger back in South Africa, and though they shared some characteristics, I actually liked Etosha more. The whole park is centered on the giant Etosha pan--a dry, highly salty lakebed that occasionally holds a little water but more often is just a vast plain of miles and miles of dry, cracked, salty mud. The pan's mineral content causes it to vary in color from shimmering white to light gray to sort of greenish (like the Statue of Liberty). And while the pan itself doesn't contain much life--it generally lacks both water and vegetation--the surrounding area is full of watering holes that support a prodigious variety of flora and (big, exciting, carnivorous) fauna.

We spent four days and nights in Etosha, camping at each of the park's three campgrounds (one night at the first two and two at the third) and driving slowly from east to west across the hundreds of miles contained within the park. As in Kruger, guests are strictly forbidden to step outside their cars anywhere besides inside the heavily gated campgounds, so we spent hours and hours driving each day. The pan itself was incredible: when it was in the distance, it reflected off the clouds above, giving them an eerily stormy look; when we came closer and looked out over it, it seemed like the ocean, stretching gray and flat out to the horizon at every point in front of us. The soil beside the pan was very sandy, furthering the coastal feel. At one spot, we were allowed to drive out onto the pan itself for about half a mile or so, until the land from which we came receded and the pan just swallowed us into a disorienting moonscape of sameness on all sides.

On our second and third mornings, we finally saw the lions that had somehow evaded us all throughout our South African national park trip. They weren't exceptionally close, but they weren't so far away that it wasn't noticeable how effortlessly they controlled the waterholes at which they lounged nonchalantly. We saw them in groups of two or three, and though they were always dozing, very catlike, after their nocturnal hunts, the dozens of other animals at the waterholes stood at complete attention, barely daring to drink and always keeping at least some members of their herd focused entirely on the lions. One lazy tail flick from the lions sent all others backing away. They were so impressive. They didn't even have to try.

Quite surprisingly, though, the highlight of Etosha was actually contained within each campground. All three campgrounds are contructed with a large (probably manmade) waterhole just to their west. A wall separates each waterhole from its respective campground, and the people-sides of the walls are raised up and lined with benches. From these spots, visitors can animal-watch all day and, as the areas are even dimly lit after dark, all night as well. On both the third and fourth nights, we witnessed one of the most amazing spectacles of the trip. A herd of 15 elephants, from enormous old bulls with broken tusks to babies so tiny they walked easily under the adults' bellies, came thundering out of the bush to drink. I could smell the dust they raised in their approach before I could see them, and when they came near, the dust was at first so thick as to be almost opaque. Then they all settled and stood around the watering hole, draining gallons from it with each plunge of their trunks. The males occasionally chased each other or charged an errant rhinocerous interloper, trumpeting and roaring--elephants roar!! SO loudly!!--with fantastic fearsomeness. The babies threw their adorable little trunks over each others' backs and nursed from their mothers. The giraffes observed them warily. The rhinos lumbered out of the way, looking grumpy. After half an hour or so of drinking, the herd would thunder away again, back the way it came, leaving a giant cloud of dust to slowly settle over the other animals that reappeared from the bushes, having backed away at the elephants' approach. We sat twenty yards away, close enough for the dust to sting our eyes too. Amazing.

From Etosha we went to the far northwest of the country, to a very sparsely inhabited region called the Kaokoveld. We drove for two straight days, and almost the only people we passed were Himba tribespeople living scattered villages of mud huts. The Himba are often photographed for (rather gratuitous) postcards due to their practice of wearing only loincloths (men and women). They paint their whole bodies with a deep reddish-brown paste as protection from the sun, and wear their hair in fantastic dreadlocks (also painted red) that they gather into spiky masses on top of their heads. They go barefoot and decorate their ankles with stacks of gold bangles. I tried not to stare, but I was admittedly fascinated by their appearance.

In the Kaokoveld, we bid farewell to paved roads and said hello to wild giraffes that grazed beside our car. (There were even "Caution: Elephants" signs by the more maintained parts of the road!) Justin drove the ill-equipped but spunky little Hyundai on roads that it was never intended to be forced over; we even crossed a narrow, rutted mountain pass so steep that we were both wide-eyed and silent for some minutes after we had safely come down the other side. I put my newfound stickshift-driving skills to the test on roads so full of boulders and furrows that they looked like riverbeds (and probably are, in the rainy season). Once I came upon a particularly imposing hill while Justin was napping. It went fine at first. I shifted into fourth, then third. But it wasn't enough, and the car began straining so hard it threatened to roll down backwards. And just when it seemed like it might, Justin sprang from his sleep with the words of the prophet on his lips:

"Downshift, DOWNSHIFT!!"

And I did, and the wheels spun, and gravel flew, and we lurched forward, up and over the top. And all was well for the moment.

A few minutes later, though, I hit a rock with the front wheel so hard that it dented the rim and stalled the car. By this point the accumulated nervousness from this and all the previous driving had made me so sweaty that dirty little rivulets were running off my palms and down the steering wheel, so I gladly forfeited the driver's seat. Thanks to Justin for shepherding Atos and me to safety.

The natural scenery was unbelievable. It varied from low brown hills with boulders and scrub bushes that reminded me of inland southern California to great red rock mountains reminiscent of Arizona and Nevada. We stopped once, in one of the only towns there was to stop in: a village called Sesfontein, comprising nothing but a few empty tin shacks and one large, fancy, overpriced German fort-hotel with disappointing food.

On the day we hit Sesfontein, we looked at our map over lunch and saw that there was nothing around for hundreds of kilometers. We began wondering if we'd be able to make it to any sort of town in which to spend the night.

We didn't. When the sun set we pulled off the road and set up our tent. As we ate tuna in the dark, a car passed and the driver told us he'd seen a leopard sitting on the side of the road about a mile back. We were both excited and a bit spooked, but never saw it, which may have been either a good or bad thing depending on the circumstances.

It was probably the most amazing night of the whole trip. I've never been somewhere so isolated. I felt like I'd fallen off the edge of the earth.

I was absolutely covered in dust. When I settled down in the tent I heard a maddening ringing in my ears from all the dust inside them. The dust was in my teeth and in our food. And when we finally rolled back into civilization the next night, we were like a spectre emerging from the desert, chalkly brown with cracked lips and knuckles and nostrils, a dented car, and a nearly speechless reverence for the place through which we'd come.

Two days later we'd go back. But this time, instead of Atos Prime, we took an Englishman.