THE EXPERIENCE
Everything in this astonishing country is vast: the cloud-scuffed skies, the rippling dessert dunes, the distances, its tranquility. Staying in some of the most remote yet luxurious resorts in Africa, you can’t get further from crowds or modern day stresses. The scenery is ever changing and magnificent: the red dunes, the white dunes, the yellow dunes; the massive tracts of water in some of the driest places on earth; the graphic print of an Oryx cutting across an impossibly blue skyline. The surprise of desert-adapted wildlife: elephants that dig for water, rare and reclusive black rhino that eat plants that should be poisonous, giraffe that can stoop to graze. All of them bleached by the piercing sun. Pitted together for survival, life in any form here is precious and marvelous.
See plants that are thousands of years old, stark white saltpans that can be filled with water fowl in rainy seasons and glittering with parched mirages in dry seasons. And, amongst all this are the fascinating ancient tribes of Namibia – the red ochre painted Himba with their beads and plated braids, the Damara cow herders, the shy grins and tentative approaches of curious children. From the ghosts of the skeleton coast to the quaint German colonial-era architecture and cultural remnants, framed by some of the harshest sea and land environments on earth, Namibia is quite exceptional and entirely unique.
TAS TIPS
- There’s something very special about waking before dawn, climbing to a high point, and watching this surreal land awaken
- Don’t miss out on some fine German cuisine
- Ask Himba people before taking photographs, they don’t normally mind and may like to barter something in exchange
- The ochre-stained handicrafts can cause a smell in luggage, so rather choose unstained jewellery and ornaments if you wish to take home a keepsake (check with your home country what materials you can transport – wood and animal products can sometimes be problematic)
- If you like adventure, add the cultural town of Swakopmund with its opportunities for dune boarding, surfing, quad biking and sky diving