Damaraland, Namibia

We have a rare 2 nights in one place here in Damaraland at this lovely “neighbourhood” lodge. Today we’ll explore the region a little bit.

We started at the second of two UNESCO World Heritage Sites we’ve visited in Namibia. The first was Sossusveil, where we climbed Dune 45. This one is called Twyfelfontain which means a place where there is sometimes water and sometimes not. An early settler tried, with his large family, to eek out an existence in this unforgiving area, but he was unsuccessful because of the uncertainty of the water supply and the site was abandoned.

Then in 1921, rock drawings were found in this area that are 2000-6000 years old. They were etched in the iron rich sandstone, and acted like early Google Maps, to depict areas where animals and water could be found in the region. They were pretty amazing, although rudimentary etchings, and one even indicated a giraffe with its neck in 3 different positions to indicate it leaning over to drink. Water holes were indicated by a circle and those that were permanent had a dot in the middle of the circle. We saw just a few of the over 2500 drawings found in the area.

Our guide was a descendant of the original Dama people who were Bushmen similar to the San and in his native language they use the same clicking sounds as the San. He demonstrated the 4 different clicks they use and laughed at us trying to recreate the sound.

We had to hike a short bit from the visitors centre out to the site and then scramble over some rocks to be able to view the various pieces of sandstone, now resting on the valley floor or among other rocks. They also had built some metal viewing platforms. Along the way a couple of our travel companions fell, one of top of the other. Everyone scrambled to help, especially our guide as it appeared the one on the bottom might have hit her head on the rocks. Finally this very practical Aussie spry grandmother said, “OK then, who should get up first?” Everyone started breathing again, and after their limbs were untangled their injuries were assessed. Some scrapes and bruises but thankfully, no broken bones. The episode proved to remind us how far from any services we were. Our guide said later he was already thinking quickly about how we’d evacuate anyone with any broken bones, etc. He has already had to rescue a passport left in a safe back in southern Namibia, and arranged to have it brought up to meet us in Windhoek. I’m sure he was relieved not to have to challenge his logistics skills once again.

Next we were off to visit the Petrified Forest National Park. As the Ice Age receded, huge trees (which I think our guide said they figure had stood for 1000 years), from central Africa were deposited in this area, and they were compressed under tonnes of debris and the wood became Petrified. There were pieces of the wood spread over the surface of desert and in some places there were larger trunks of trees, even with some bark still left on the tree. The guide also pointed out a plant surrounded by a circle of the wood, the Welwitschia that was the national plant of Namibia.

Then we were off back to our lovely lodge to enjoy a swim before heading up to the Sundowner deck to enjoy the sunset, drink in hand, before dinner. Well, that plan came off the rails as a rattling noise coming from the undercarriage of the truck that was assessed several times, got worse and worse. Turns out the bracket holding the water tank on the bottom of the truck had broken and although a fast fix was done with wire holding it up, that didn’t last long and something was rubbing on the drive shaft. Luckily it held until we hit the “bitumen” road (we’d call it “sealed” road) and limped into a town just a short distance. And more luck, there was a welding shop that was still open for the day. So we all headed off back to a gas station in town for ice cream treat and sat on a curb in the shade and chatted while the welding job was done and we were on our way again. TIA – This is Africa, and so travellers need to remain flexible, and we all took it in stride.

But it meant that our swim got scratched off the itinerary and we had to hustle up the hill to the sundowner deck to get there in time to grab a drink (and sadly they were out of my Savanna at the mobile bar) and watch the sun go down. We met a lovely German couple travelling with their grandson, who were taking somewhat the same route we were on their own. Canada of course came up and yes, they’d been to the west coast and up through the Rockies to Banff and Jasper, and into Yukon Territory and Alaska. People, one of the best parts of travelling.