Our “relaxing” time back home was anything but. It was, maybe, the most stressful time we’d had all year. We had just under two weeks before leaving for Namibia, which we were looking forward to using to reload and recharge. But in the days leading up to leaving Mexico, our to-do list grew and grew. We had to buy new toiletries and supplies for Phase 2, and get my phone fixed, and fully catch up on laundry, and actually book things for Namibia, and see as many friends as we could, and spend as much time with family as possible, oh and work on the blog would be nice, oh and I’d love to work on my photography, and actually just relax and do nothing for once.

It was hectic and busy and we fought more than we did all year.

Finally, it was time to leave for Africa. The first portion of this Phase, in Namibia, was going to be our first time traveling with others on our trip. Our friends, Brennan and Sarah, were joining us for almost 2 weeks of safari and exploration throughout Namibia. Sarah was already in Africa for work, but we were actually flying over with Brennan. So at the end of our time in North Carolina, we rented a car, drove up to Washington DC, and the three of us headed out for the long journey to Namibia!

Before we dive in, I’d like to just give a tiny teaser: Namibia is home to some of the most gorgeous, unbelievable scenery we’ve ever seen. I’m unfortunately writing this months later, after much more travel, but that statement is still true. It’s otherworldly and incredibly varied, with the scenery able to change character drastically over just a few kilometers driving. Hopefully, the pictures over this upcoming series of blog posts is able to convey that, but the pictures are really a terrible substitute for seeing it yourself.

With that, we begin our series: Namibia Travels!

Day 1: Almost 24 Hours of Travel

Erika has done this before, but I’ve never flown to Africa. Whew, it’s kind of a long way. We had a thirteen hour flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, followed up by a 6 hour flight to Windhoek, Namibia. This was gonna be rough.

Fortunately, Ethiopian Airlines was quite pleasant. We had a comfortable flight to Ethiopia, I watched a bunch of movies because I couldn’t sleep, and the time seemed to pass very quickly. We got to Addis, where we met up with Sarah on our respective layovers, and the four of us boarded our next flight to Namibia.

This flight was excellent, as there was damn near nobody on it, and we were on a big, huge, comfortable, beautiful Dreamliner! Finally, after right at 24 hours of total travel time, we were in Windhoek.

A Self-Drive Camping Safari

Next, we had to get into town and pick up our rental trucks. For this portion with Brennan and Sarah, the plan was to rent safari trucks which came outfitted with rooftop tents, as well as full camping and cooking gear, and drive and camp our way around Namibia.

These things were awesome. We had everything we needed: a gas cooking stove, a full complement of dishes, chairs and a table for the campsites, lanterns, bedding for the tent, and even a refrigerator. Like, awesome. The tent, too, was excellent. It was easy to set up and tear down, roomy, plus you were on top of the damn car how cool is that?

We got to the rental agency, signed all the papers, and got a tour of the cars and all they came with. Then we were off on our own. Whew, okay, I got this big pick-up truck to drive now. With shitty visibility. A stick shift. Oh, and they drive on the left in Namibia. Okay brain, you got this…

OKAY BRAIN, YOU GOT THIS!!

Erika fought with the shitty GPS we had to navigate with, while I carefully and nervously piloted us through the streets of Namibia’s capital, with Brennan and Sarah following behind in their truck. After a few wrong turns, we eventually found our way, and made it to our place for the evening. Peter, a friend of Erika’s, had recently moved to Windhoek, and had graciously offered to host us that evening.

Peter, you and your family were so kind to take us in and let us stay with you, thank you so much for your hospitality!

Day 2

The next morning was the beginning of our driving adventure, and as we had a lot of driving to do that day, we planned an early start: we set alarms for 6 AM. Fortunately, when you’re on east-coast time, and you just changed six time zones, and just spent almost 24 hours on airplanes and didn’t sleep much at all, time is pretty meaningless. So yeah, 6 AM, sure, let’s do it!

As we got the trucks loaded up, Brennan got out some equipment he’d been holding out on us: walkie-talkies. Yes! I, next, had an obvious realization: we needed call-signs! Erika and I chose ‘Cheetah,’ Sarah and Brennan took ‘Springbok’. Cheetah to Springbok, let’s get this show on the road!

We bid Peter and his family farewell for now, took our walkie-talkies, and aimed our caravan south on the B1 highway out of Windhoek.

The Caravan Heads South

Highway is very much relative. Outside of Windhoek and some of the other more major towns, there are only a few paved roads, of which the B1 is one. It’s only a two-lane road as well. However, outside of Windhoek there is very little traffic on the road, there is plenty of long-range visibility so passing is easy, and the speed limits are mostly 120 kph so you make good time. The B1 is also in very good shape, so you don’t have to worry about potholes and such.

Our goal for the day was the Quivertree Forest Rest Camp, just north of Keetmanshoop, and about 500 kilometers south of Windhoek. Even with the good conditions and high speeds of the B1, that was a lot of driving, so we needed the early start to make sure we could finish in day light. Driving outside the cities in Namibia at night is an awful idea, as it’s exceptionally dark and secluded, there can be sand drifts on the roadways, and there are always animals around to ruin your day.

We didn’t have plans for anything else along the way, since it was so far to go, so it was looking to be a mostly uneventful day. We did, however, cross the Tropic of Capricorn during the drive!

We knocked out the rest of the drive, and got to the campsite with an hour and a half or so of daylight remaining. As we were pulling into the camp, Sarah’s voice came over the walkie-talkies: “Cheetah this is Springbok, we have a cheetah sighting on our left.” Cheetah?! Well, it was in a pen, but yes there were two cheetahs actually!

As we went to check-in, we found out that these cheetahs are cared for by the campsite, and not only that, but they do feedings for people to watch. Luck being with us, it was time for a feeding right then!  We hurried down to the spot, and as the campsite proprietor came over, the cheetahs knew what was up and tore ass to get over there for their food.

He told us some stuff about cheetahs–they don’t really live in Namibia, for instance–fed them some springbok (we giggled, in light of our code names), made some sexist and potentially racist jokes, and the show was over. We returned to our trucks, and drove them into camp to find the spot we wanted to set up our camp.

The other thing the camp provides is access to the quiver tree forest. We wanted to go walk through that while we still had light, so we left our trucks at our chosen spot, opting to set up camp later. The quiver trees are weird, upside-down-looking trees, that you can find scattered throughout Namibia, but there’s a whole ‘forest’ of them on this plot of land. With the sun low, the scenery was unique and stunning.

Unfortunately, this meant our first time setting up camp was done pretty much in full dark. That, combined with not knowing how to set up our roof-top tents, made things a little slower. But we got set up, cooked dinner, and relaxed the slightest bit, just enjoying not being in the car.

Namibia has some of the darkest night skies in the world, and the stars and views of the Milky Way that night were mesmerizing. It would only be better at some of our future campsites, too.

Day 3

The other thing near Quiver Tree Forest that is something of a tourist attraction is known as the Giant’s Playground. It’s essentially “across the street” from our campsite, so on the morning of Day 3, after tearing down camp, we headed over to check it out.

It’s basically just a bunch of rock formations, and someone went and bought the land under them, put a fence around it, called it a tourist attraction, and started charging admission. By staying at the campsite, we got “free admission” to Giant’s Playground. Though, I don’t really know what that means, as it wasn’t like there was someone there letting people in. There was a gate from the dirt road leading up to the place, and we opened the gate ourselves. Whatever.

Anyway, it’s a short, pretty walk around the rock formations in there. It’s nothing to go out of the way for, but, next time you’re in Keetmanshoop, Namibia, you should stop by!

We had a long day of driving ahead of us, and Keetmanshoop would probably be the last time we’d see a gas station until late in the day, so we made sure to fill up on diesel there. Then, we got some snacks, settled into our trucks, and got ready to tackle our long Day 3 head on.

Next Time, on Namibia Travels…

The gang drives, finds an amazing surprise in the Namibia wilderness, drives some more, sees a giant gash of a canyon, finds animals, drives so much more, then makes their way to the coast. Come back soon and follow along!