Africa Adventures: Part 2 (Namibia Navigations)

Wow – the feelings of excitement, intimidation, fear, vulnerability, and elation all came crashing together as we landed in Namibia. This was our first time ever to spend time in Africa, and we were going to be driving around, by ourselves, with our children, with only remedial survial skills.

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Even though I had thoroughly researched this section of our trip, the following questions kept swirling around in my head: 1) Is this really going to be safe? 2) What are we going to do if our GPS doesn’t work? 3) How will we protect the family from a rogue animal? 4) Will the people be friendly? 5) What if the car breaks down and we don’t have cell service? 6) What if one of us gets sick?

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I would say we dealt with some of these issues, but, overall, everything was FANTASTIC. Our first nights we stayed at Urban Camp, which had excellent beds, large comfortable tents, good food and great staff.

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After a day of chillin out at the camp, we headed to Africar. This is a locally run shop that can hook you up with all your tenting and camping needs. They gave us a demonstration of how to use the vehicle and off we went. Basic rules: 80 on gravel roads, 120 on pavement and no night driving! Of course this is in KPH, not MPH….

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As we started our drive, we were on our own. Pro Tip: While at Urban Camp, I downloaded every route we would be taking from Google Maps while I had internet. This was the best choice ever because our GPS wasn’t working (due to user error but it wasn’t user friendly – Garmin sucks a bit now), and we were able to find all our destinations.

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Namibia is a HUGE country with a very limited population. This meant long stretches of road with no humans anywhere. However, we did see baboons within about 15 minutes of driving. Man they are big and will come into play later. We made our way to the first stop. The camp was BullsPort Lodge & Farm. Due to my initial intimidation of camping off the bat, I booked a place that allowed us to stay in a traditional bed and had a standard bathroom.

I think this was a good choice as it allowed us to get our feet wet a bit. We did a large hike in the morning and couldn’t believe we found a watering hole in the middle of the desert. The next stop was going to be the real deal. Camping in our tents above the car. We were heading to Little Sossus Campsite. Just a note about these camps in Namibia: they are incredibly comfortable. I didn’t realize this before booking. Most have safe water, a private toilet on your campsite, sinks and firepit. This was SOOOOO much better than I thought it would be.

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In this area of Namibia, there are the famous sand dunes of Sossusvlei. One amazing dune is named Big Daddy, and it is 325 meters tall. This area is incredible. There are trees on the salt flats that are 1,000 years old frozen, or should I say scorched, in time. The desert is estimated to be between 5-80 million years old and is considered one of the oldest, if not the oldest, deserts in the world. The backdrop of blue sky with the orange dunes is truly a site to be seen. Pictures do no do it justice.

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Pro Tip: DO NOT START THE BIG DADDY HIKE AT NOON, particularly after just getting over a mini-flu like me. The desert is hot. There is no water in the desert. But our dumbasses are too casual to get up at 5 am to do the drive to the dunes (about 1 hour) to arrive at 6 as everyone suggested to have cooler temperatures and more favorable hiking conditions. We literally start this fucking hike at 12 pm on the dot.

At first, we are just going to check out the dead trees. But of course I get a hair up my ass to go to the top because we probably wont be back here in the near future and YOLO right?! Family shoe breakdown: Owen – sneakers with socks, Jeff – Tevas with no socks, Andre & Mom – flipflops. As we start walking on the flat ground, everything is going just fine. We are really close to the salt flat old tree area, our original destination, when I make the declaration that, “we should just go a little higher.”

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We start climbing our first dune. Shade is on our side of the dune, so the sand is not too bad. Then we get to the top of the dune, sand is a little hot. Jeff expresses interest to just go to the trees but I say, “We can see the trees after we go a little further.” Then the hike of death begins. The further we go, the more ridiculous it seems to turn back because of all of the work we have accomplished.

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We have two 1.5 liter camelbacks and 1 large bottle of water. Andre starts complaining about his feet burning (which is appropriate because mine literally felt like little baby sand coals were dropping on them) and Owen graciously agrees to give Andre his socks. This worked great. We are all actively consuming water at a rapid pace. We reach the Big Daddy final dune ascent, and I feel like I am going to pass out. I also secretly almost throw up, only later to find out Jeff almost did the same.

Andre starts to freak out that we are going to run out of water and all of a sudden becomes a water Nazi. Only rationing out when forced to and continuing to tell us that we were are all going to die. I knew I didn’t look too good when the water Nazi started to ask if I needed a drink, followed by, “Hey Mom, why don’t you have a drink?”

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We finally reach the top!!!! What a thrilling hike!! So proud of the family for accomplishing this mission even though it wasn’t the brightest timing. We slid down Big Daddy, and it made this crazy vibrating sound I have never felt or heard before on a dune. It was so loud.

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If you look by the bottom of the dune, you will see two little black specs. Those are our children! It shows how big this thing is.

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We made it back to the car and turned that AC way up. We also drank a ton of water. Pro Tip: Listen to the locals about lowering your air pressure in your tires when driving on the sand road. We listened the first day, but then Jeff, MUCH TO MY DISAGREEMENT, said we were going to just go without lowering. We got stuck in the sand within about 5 minutes.