Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Kaokoland has been described as one of the last true wilderness areas of Africa.  It is a remote and uninhabited region, with the exception of a few Himba villages.  We regretted missing this part of Namibia in 2019 and were determined to visit this time.  If you plan to travel to Namibia’s “Wild West” make sure you have enough water, food and fuel, not to mention a trusty 4×4 vehicle.  Fortunately, we had all of these things.  Even so, we almost abandoned the idea before we started, because in the week before our proposed trip there had been a fair amount of rain and many of Namibia’s rivers were flowing.  We were anxious that BB might have to ford fast-moving water getting her tyres wet – in a big way!

But we took good local advice from Theo and Cora at Sesfontein Guesthouse about our route.  Theo had just returned from a trip to the area and confirmed that the rivers were still dry enough.  We left our itinerary with them (they had kindly offered to raise the alarm if we did not re-materialise after a certain amount of time) and set off to Orupembe via Puros (or “Porous”, as Francine calls it – due to the many sandy bed river crossings and the possibilities of sinking). 

We had hardly left Puros, before we spotted an unusual cactus (further research told us it is called a “Hoodia”).  It’s beautiful wax-like pink flowers were unlike anything we had seen before.  Known for centuries by the San people for its medicinal properties, it has now been discovered by pharmaceutical companies in the West.  Once common, it has been harvested aggressively, so that it is now a protected plant in Namibia and we felt lucky to have chanced across it.

The area is sparsely populated, even by Namibian standards (where there are 3 people to every square kilometre, compared to say, the UK with 281 people!).  Puros, a small settlement with a primary school and a few informal shops, seems like a metropolis compared to Orupembe, which has one informal shop, a large brick police building – and nothing else!  Once we left Orupembe, we saw more stone men than real ones!

Our route took us along the border of Skeleton Coast National Park up to Green Drum, Orange Drum, Blue Drum and Red Drum.  The Drums are navigation aids marking significant junctions, but have become points of interest in themselves.  We left a message in the visitor’s book at the most remote (Green Drum), which, inexplicably had some bits of a computer keyboard resting on it (not plugged in)!  Onward from Red Drum we caught first sight of the beautiful Marienfluss Valley.  The colours were breathtaking – the burnt orange sand of the wide river bed; the mixed shades of purple, grey, pink and red of the different mountains behind; and the patches of pale green vegetation at their base.  We camped at the foot of Van Zyl’s Pass – 10km of tortuous rocky track over the mountains and Namibia’s most challenging Pass.  It was impossible for Big Bertha to attempt, but we climbed up part of the way on foot for some great views.  The nights in Marienfluss were cloud-free and moonless.  Without any source of light pollution, the stars were spectacular.

Although we had been worried about the weather preceding the trip, the rainfall had brought forth an abundance of new growth, which we would have missed had we visited a couple of weeks earlier.  The desert had come to life and the blanket of short blades of grass was wonderful to see.  The goats were making the most of the newly arrived food source, but we came across one bleating most miserably, with its hoof stuck in the cleft of a tree.  Heroically, Dave managed to free it (without getting kicked!) and it limped off in the general direction of its herd without so much as a “thank you”.  We came across a Himba guy shortly afterwards, who we assumed to be the herder and we tried to explain (without English) what had happened.  Francine’s “goat with a limp” impersonation definitely needs some work, as we may have left the bemused herder with the impression that there was a small child stuck in a tree up the track.

In total, we spent 8 days in the Wilderness, reaching as far as the Kunene River (marking the border with Angola).  We drove 883 km over some challenging terrain in which Bertha showed us why she really IS an “expedition vehicle”!