We are back in London, slotting back into the rest of our lives. I haven’t seen Katana in a whole week – which is quite a change after spending 24 hours a day in each other’s company for 6 months. But we are off out for an Ethiopian dinner and a catch-up this evening and hope to be booking our return to Africa soon – there is the small matter of getting to Cape Town to deal with!

But first we should wrap up the last part of our journey, having left you in Tsumeb on our way South towards Windhoek. We set off into the Namibian wilds again aiming to find some traces of extremely old wildlife. On the way we passed the Waterburg Plateau, and were almost tempted to stop a night on a private game reserve there, but the campsite pool wasn’t quite enough to stop for since it was only just lunchtime. Instead we carried on, admiring the ever grand scenery from some good gravel roads. The maps were a little vague on the subject of exactly where we were to find what we were looking for, but Katana’s usual navigational magic worked again and we rolled up to the Dinosaur’s Tracks campsite in time for tea. Our host told us all about the dinosaur’s tracks and the history (short term and geological) of the place, whilst firing up the hot water. We were again the only people on the camp site, and enjoyed another special evening in the bush…aware that these were coming to an end so soon and making the most of them.

In the morning, we walked to the tracks – 190 million years ago some dinosaurs walked through the muddy remains of a pool, which was then covered by the encroaching sand as the climate dried out. Just like the pans and dunes of the present day Namib desert. Perhaps we should have left some footprints while we were there for whatever species there is to find in another 200 million years?

But we had to move on – when we first looked at what to see in Namibia, Katana was keen to check out the work of other artists in the area. At Phillipps Caves, there are some impressive examples of 3500 year old rock paintings. We followed the roads marked on our maps into the mountains, and they were rough and stony tracks, until they stopped. It seems that someone has drawn a road through the mountains from their imagination, since it has never existed in reality. There was plenty of wildlife and scenery to make the detour entertaining though, and we were in no particular hurry. Again we considered camping early, having driven off the track into a fold of the hills, but again it was just a bit too early and we headed on. This was to be our last night in the wild areas of Namibia, and we spent it at the Ameib Ranch campsite – a wildlife reserve which also provides access to Phillipps Cave, and a swimming pool for our private use since there were no other guests. This was not a bad way to sign off!

In the morning we visited the cave and admired the rock art – Katana making the hike/climb without too much trouble to her injured leg. After some lunch at the strange rock formations called ‘Bulls Party’ and ‘Elephant Head’, we turned towards Windhoek and began our journey home.

OK, we spent a few days in Windhoek before flying out, but it was all about preparing Troopy for storage and ourselves for the cold weather of Europe.

Whilst in Windhoek, we had intended to go to an Ethiopian restaurant we had heard good things about – already pining for the tastes from earlier in the trip – but it turned out to be permanently closed. Home cooking in Troopy was a good solution anyway – after a second lunchtime visit to La Marmite Royale for some African specialities. So we tidied and cleaned, threw away worn out clothes, agreed to come back in the Spring and then headed for the airport, leaving Troopy behind. I hope he doesn’t mind too much.

We were 30km up a rough, 2-wheel-track, rocky hill and sandy riverbed alternating ‘road’ leading off the main gravel run between Opuwo and Epupa Falls into the wilderness of Namibia’s North West. Then there was an excruciating metal grinding noise as we crawled up a boulder slope. We stopped. Oil flowed down the rear left wheel again – the infamous driveshaft oil seal had gone again…only this time it looked a lot worse.

This was the moment our plans changed again. We were heading for Van Zyl’s pass – touted as one of the most beautiful, yet harsh and steep routes there is. Instead, we found ourselves some 30 minutes later being assisted in a strip-down and rebuild of the wheel bearings by a Himba guy who happened to be walking that way, watched by his wife and buzzed by hundreds of little flies whose sole intent appeared to be to commit suicide by flying into any available orifices. These are the things that make a trip memorable.

We had already gone North to the Angolan border and teetered on the edge of the thundering Epupa Falls as the river Kunene slices its way down a jagged stairwell towards the distant Atlantic. The base for this launch into the wilds of the North West was Opuwo – a frontier town far from the national border where the colourful Herero and Himba people mix with a few intrepid tourists and a lot of locals. It’s a dusty, chaotic town of supermarkets, petrol stations, bars and tin shacks….and one luxury lodge – on the way up we stayed there in the attached campsite and made good use of the infinity pool.

As we took the hub apart it became clear that the damaged lock-screws had once again come out, only this time the whole retaining mechanism had completely unscrewed itself and shaved bits of metal into a nice greasy-oily-paste which was then deposited into the brake drums and onto the desert sand. The good news? The bearings seemed to be still functional, if only we could get the whole lot back together over squashed screw-threads and tighten it all up again. And thankfully I had had the foresight back in Botswana to get an extra spare oil seal! It was messy, hot and frustrating work, but we did the necessary road-side repair and turned back to limp towards Opuwo again. Having paid off our helper with cash and apples, we were sadly not able to give him, his wife and 2 dogs a lift as Troopy was full of firewood.

The return to town was uneventful, and the repairs held out well – even though we only had 1 (badly bent) lock screw left, and that wasn’t in fact doing anything helpful, and the oil seal failed again! Over the next 2 days I discovered the intricate details of how the whole thing works. I also found that we are no longer in a part of the world where every corner shop sells Troopy spares. The oil seal had to be sent for from another town. The lock-screws were just unobtainable so I had to make my own – walking for hours around town finding tools and bolts, then cutting bolts to length and shaping the ends to match what was left of the mangled originals. It was nearly a perfect repair…except for a couple of sheared off bolts!

During this time we stayed at the Ameny Rest Camp in town – it was cheaper that the original lodge and walking distance to the spares and food shops. It did however come with shouted arguments between customers and the owner at 2am, and was basically a dust-bath…soft but bad on the lungs when crawling around under the car. So, by the time Troopy was fitted out with new bearings and put together as well as possible given the limited resources, we were definitely ready to leave! Where to though? In the circumstances, with less time and less confidence in Troopy, we decided to abandon the extremely remote North West, and simply head into the remote North West along the border with Angola. It is still a wild place with beautiful and varied scenery, but the odds of being stuck for a couple of weeks with a breakdown looked a little lower.

After following the river Kunene and staying on its banks (where we were robbed of our spaghetti from inside a cupboard by a cheeky and swift raiding monkey) we dropped in at the border post at the Ruacana Falls to see if we could get our visit permits extended to cover the extra time before our flights, but despite a lot of sympathy from the immigration guy, it seems this can only be done in Windhoek. I’m sure this won’t be a problem. The falls themselves are a little dry now, since the water is nearly all diverted for a hydro power station, but they must have been impressive once!

So onward towards Etosha, where we hoped to see some Rhino at one of the park’s waterhole camps. First though we had another night of wild camping, tucked away amongst the rocky outcrops off a sandy track. It was a really nice wild camping spot despite the tiny flies, but not without consequences – after an evening of playing cards (with gin) we had both managed to accrue forfeits which required us each to wear clothes chosen by the other for the following day. Entering the National Park and obtaining the permits in the morning was therefore a little entertaining, but I did find the skirt more comfortable than my usual trousers in the heat.

As to the park – it was remeniscent of the Central Kalahari in Botswana, but with more visible wildlife – elephants, zebra and all sorts of antelope gathered at and around the natural and man-assisted waterholes. In the evening we sat by a floodlit waterhole and waited…and just when I was thinking we were going to see little more than the birds hoovering up the flying insects in the floodlights, along came some giraffe, followed by a rhino…then another, and a family of 3. A sole male lion also turned up for a drink to complete the evening’s viewing before bedtime, though this didn’t seem so popular with the other animals!

In the morning, with a sick Katana suffering from a cold, and Troopy showing small signs of oil around the rear hub, we set off for a leisurely tour of the eastern end of the park. As usual we found our way into the less-travelled parts! Here we found lots of elephants, Kudu, Gemsbok, herds and herds of Zebra, Springbok etc. We did have to crawl along for a while behind a group of giraffes that were well aware they had right of way and looked slightly  disapproving of the car using their track, but in the end they were nice enough to step to one side and let us pass. Then as we were heading towards the exit…a pride of lions dozing under the shade of a bush! This pretty much completed all our aspirations for wildlife in Africa…though a Cheetah would have been nice!

We rolled out of the park and onto tarmac, turning South again onto the last leg of this trip in the direction of Windhoek. Thunderstorms were gathering and dropping curtains of dark rain to the West and North. In Tsumeb we stopped at a backpackers campsite, on a nice clean gravel and grass area, where the infamous driveshaft came out again and the seal was replaced after a morning trip to the local (genuine) Toyota garage. The bearing is all holding out well, but it looks like a new driveshaft may be required to put an end to the leak…however, that and the annoying lock-screws are not in stock even here! In any case…its going to be a bit tricky to disassemble on the road as I first need to contrive a way of extracting the decapitated home-made lock screw which is still firmly doing its job! Oh well, we must leave some things for the next chapter!

We crossed into Namibia without much hassle, the Trans-Kalahari border post was empty and relaxed. It was a bit of a drive to Windhoek, so we decided to stay the night at a midpoint – in Gobabis. We found a nice enough looking “restcamp” but from the first moment of being there I felt uneasy. The attitude of the staff and the manager, the strange tiny camp plot, the “park” with various antelopes fenced in, probably getting fat to be put on someone’s plate later for dinner, and the lonely ostriches hanging out by the fence, probably longing to escape. They had internet, they had a bar, and they had a restaurant, but when we decided we wanted some dinner, the service was absolutely appalling, trying to find out what stuffed tomatoes were stuffed with or whether we can get the salad without cheese – all of this was met with an annoyed shrug. We settled for fries, potato wedges and salad – the salad dressing was creamy-looking, and when I asked for simple oil, the lad went and “hid” and kept looking at me across the room to see whether I had forgotten about him yet. Needless to say, we didn’t pay much attention how well we cleaned our camping spot when we left.

We planned on only staying in Windhoek one night, but then we realized it was the beginning of the weekend and the South African embassy would not be opened until Monday. We plopped ourselves at the Cardboard Box – a backpackers’ place with tiny camping spots, but it was good enough and they had draught beer. In the meantime, we managed to explore the center of the city, even with me still limping and walking with a stick. The city is clean, very empty and has nice little parks and German churches. We had lunch at a place called La Marmite, and they had pretty good West African vegan dishes. Afterwards we even allowed ourselves to be swept up by the touristic vibe and we bought a pillowcase with a cheetah face on it from a souvenir shop. At the end of our walk we got heavily rained on, and because of my bad knee, we couldn’t exactly run home either.

The embassy visit was disastrous, and you can read about it in the previous blog post. After discussing our new plans, we made our way lazily to the coast, to the city Swakopmund. The journey there was amazing, and here Namibia was finally opening up its infamous landscapes to us. First the gravel road became mountainous, with dead, dry and scarce vegetation, the sun beating upon us as we stopped for lunch. Then the scenery slowly flattened out until it became huge expanses of flat plains with zebra and gemsbok grazing in the heat haze. Eventually we came upon Swakopmund and saw sandy dunes in the distance just south of our campsite, which was right on the beach. The temperature drop was unbelievable, as the sun was still blazing but the cold Atlantic winds made us shiver.

We finally made it to the other side of the African continent, the other ocean! The waves were huge, covered in seaweed and other debris, and the water very cold. We couldn’t resist going for a dip, although the other campers looked at us as if we were mad. With my bad leg I couldn’t exactly walk in – I had to rely on Jonathan for balance and support (and breaking the waves with his back!).

The center of Swakopmund looks like a quaint little German holiday town. The next morning we visited the Namibian Wildlife office, stocked up on food for the fridge, and then took a leisurely walk up to the pier, from where we saw huge red jellyfish, most of them dead, with bits torn off and floating on their own together with seaweed. We also saw a dead baby seal on the beach, so of course I got excited and took many pictures.

Waking up in the morning was impossible, the outside temperature was freezing, the wind was strong, and the sun hadn’t come out yet, but we powered through and drove out to Walvis Bay, where we saw a lot of flamingoes in the lagoon. Then we took the road into the Namib sector of the Namib-Naukluft National Park. We didn’t end up seeing the sand dunes in Egypt, but we saw them right here, bordering the ocean. Huge mountains of yellow sand, especially seen in the heat haze, is everything you imagine about desert mirages. The first part of our trek through the park was just that – dunes, desert landscapes, no life. But as we drove further inland, the flat desert gave way to lonely rocks and rock formations, not quite mountains but big enough to be in awe of when we stopped for lunch at one of them and sat under the overhanging rock, almost like in a cave. The desert became more populated by antelope-type animals, as the ground became more covered in thistles and dry grass. Eventually we came upon our camping spot – official camping but with very few facilities – a picnic table, and a toilet that we were only too happy to ignore – the stench was nauseating. While we set up camp, I noticed there were a few black birds being nosy about our stuff, and as soon as I got out an apple, the birds became overly excited, I thought this was going to turn into a scene out of Hitchcock’s “Birds”! I gave them the core of the apple and they spent the next few hours eating it. Then we encountered another rock-dwelling creature – a rock hyrax. We didn’t know exactly what it was – a fat mole-like creature with big front teeth and grey/brown fur, eager to find out whether we were going to be friendly, and sure enough Jonathan fed the hyraxes some pieces of cabbage. One of them was so brave, he actually took pieces of cabbage out of Jonathan’s hand!

The next day we drove through even more mountainous areas, in some parts the hard rocky trail reminded us of the lava field in the Danakil Depression. We came out of the official “park” area, and drove through the Gaub pass – a very intense curvy mountain pass, the hills looked like fillo dough, layered pastry eroding away, and the road felt like a roller-coaster. We camped at Agama River Camp and made a camp fire, where we barbecued mushrooms, carrots (only for Jonathan – I hate cooked carrots!), tomatoes, onions, and made nice potatoes in the hot sand. There were warthogs walking around, and we believe a jackal visited our bin in the night.

We drove out early in the morning to Sossusvlei via Seskriem to see the famous red dunes. The scenery really did not disappoint, and no matter how amazing the pictures, I don’t think they could ever do justice to the eerie landscape in this part of Namibia. We even climbed a dune, me with my wonky bad leg. There were so many colors everywhere, the sand sea is all colors between blue, yellow, white, grey, orange and red, and in some places you can just spot the outlines of the mountains in the intense heat haze, as if the mountains are actually floating in the air, like flying islands.

We had to drive all the way back to Swakopmund, it was long, tedious and uneventful, mostly because we hate driving back on the same roads, but in this part of Namibia there aren’t really many other roads one can take without making a huge detour. We camped in the same place again on the beach, and the next day headed out to the Skeleton Coast park. We knew that to gain passage for overnight, we had to have reservations at the only place open at this time of the year – a rather expensive lodge with no camping. We decided to get a transit pass instead and be out of the park before the gates close. Before we actually went to the park, we drove through the coast, visiting Cape Cross with the seal colony, and went to look at the seals.

In some ways it is amazing – there are thousands of seals here in a small cramped space, and you get up close and personal with them (the smell! I will never forget the smell), but the seals are loud, they fight all the time, they are violent, and they are all in this small rocky space by the water, with dead baby seals everywhere. The scene was not for me, I got sad and grossed out and had to wait in the car. We camped for the night just 45 km south of the park gate, at Mile 108 campsite, which was huge, completely deserted, and the only facilities were flushing toilets and tiny sinks with salt water. The coast was particularly cold that day, I sat wrapped up in my warmest “Panda” jacket, whereas Jonathan even attempted a swim! Attempted – among jellyfish debris, huge foaming waves and dead seals on the beach.

We drove to the Skeleton Coast Park the next morning and spent the morning and part of the afternoon there – and it was truly magical. The road is isolated, we saw only a couple of tourist cars the whole time. The sand is mostly untouched (one is not allowed to drive on the sand, but unfortunately some people do – the tracks remain there for a hundred years!), the ocean is wild and angry, and there is nothing but desolate desert landscape in any direction you look for hundreds of kilometers – you can see how unfortunate one would be to be stranded here after a shipwreck, the name “Skeleton Coast” becomes crystal clear when you are there. We saw the remains of one shipwreck, the lagoon (pink!), and some other odd curiosities, but the weirdest thing we encountered was when we approached Torra Bay, and then turned east to exit the park through the other gate – the traveling sand! There was very strong wind, and the light fine white-yellow sand was traveling across the road, resembling mist, creating the most ghostly landscape for those driving through it. We got covered head to toe in the sand, I was shaking out my head all day and still I think I still have some sand on my scalp.

Of course how can I talk about our visit to the Skeleton Coast without mentioning my mustache. Sometimes we pass our evenings playing cards, and sometimes we play for some sort of forfeit. At Mile 108 campsite I lost and the forfeit was to have a drawn-on mustache all day next day, and speak with a funny Hercule Poirot-like French accent. The mustache was fabulous but the accent I am afraid I could not do very well, so it just came out very strange and made Jonathan laugh a lot all day. However, it played up nicely with my clothes resembling a pirate and we took some silly pictures, of course.

As we drove more east, the landscape started looking like Mars – huge red desolate mountains with deep shadows and little vegetation. We drove to Bergsig crossroads, and then proceeded a bit southeast, before getting stuck in sand while looking at a dune eating a huge rock, then turning back and heading north to Palmwag, where we camped at a rather nice (but posh) lodge/campsite. A black cat came to rummage through our sink at night, but otherwise the stay was uneventful, and today we drove to Opuwa, where we started seeing a lot more of Himba people, this being the frontier town between the wild north and the rest of Namibia.

We are heading to Epupa Falls (almost on the border with Angola) then driving through the northwest corner, where the roads are supposed to be very rough and the journey long and excruciating, and after that slowly trickling down back to Windhoek. Only just over 2 weeks left of our journey, seems forever ago that Jonathan was in the hospital in Ethiopia, or I was throwing up in the Sahara desert after taking malaria medication on an empty stomach.