7 Day Taste Of Namibia Safari

You will be collected from Windhoek’s Hosea Kutako International Airport and transferred to Chameleon Backpackers Lodge close to the centre of Windhoek City. After checking in and having some time to relax, clients who have arrived in Windhoek before 12:00 midday are in for an interesting and exciting afternoon excursion. We will drive out to the internationally known N/a’an ku se Wildlife Sanctuary. It is located approximately 50 km east of Windhoek. N/a’an ku se is a sanctuary dedicated to the rehabilitation of sick, injured and orphaned animals. The ultimate goal is to reintroduce these sometimes rare and endangered species back into their natural habitat, allowing them to live life wild and free. Sadly, though, in numerous instances this is not possible. Some of the animals that come to N/a’an ku se would not, ever again, be able to fend for themselves in their native yet cruel natural environment. Instead, they take ‘’early retirement’’ and find themselves a permanent home at N/a’an ku se. We will be introduced to several species, perhaps baboon, caracal, lion & cheetah. Wild dog and leopard are also living at N/a’an ku se together with a multitude of smaller mammals, and we can watch some of the N/a’an ku se ’locals’ have their supper. Returning to Windhoek in the late afternoon. Dinner tonight is for your own account, but your guide will be able to make bookings and recommendations for you from the many excellent restaurants available in Namibia’s capital city.

You will be collected from your accommodation within the Windhoek city limits at 07:00 and transferred to Chameleon Headquarters for a short pre-departure meeting. Heading north from Windhoek, we stop briefly at the small town of Otjiwarongo to gather some last-minute supplies before continuing to Etosha, and we enjoy a light lunch pack whilst “on the move”. We enter Etosha National Park and embark on a game drive to our overnight accommodation. Etosha is huge, spanning just over 22,000 square kilometres and home to 114 species of mammal, 350 species of bird, 110 species of reptile, countless numbers of insects, and, somewhat bizarrely, one species of fish. There are good chances of spotting many of these different creatures as we tour through the park, stopping at the various waterholes along the way. All visitors must be in camp by sunset. We aim to arrive at our lodge before sunset, with time to settle into our rooms, which feature en-suite bathrooms and tea/coffee facilities. Dinner is at the camp restaurant tonight. The ‘game show’ in Etosha doesn’t stop when the sun goes down. All the Etosha camps have floodlit waterholes for extra game viewing opportunities. The waterhole is located near our accommodation. A visit, or two, is highly recommended this evening, as we can expect many species to visit during the night. This waterhole is renowned for its popularity with elephants and the critically endangered black rhino.

We have the whole day to explore Etosha, and we want to make the most of it. We enjoy an early breakfast and then start our day. The rest of the day, we explore the park with our guide on an open game viewer. Early morning is usually a productive time for game viewing, and first thing in the morning is a good time to catch big cats returning from the hunt. Etosha is a desert landscape, and water is the most scarce natural resource. There are, however, numerous waterholes here, both natural and man-made, and our game-driving technique is to take in as many of these as possible. Here, we hope that the game will come to us as thirsty animals await a much-needed drink. On our way today, we will stop to have a closer look at the Etosha Pan. The name Etosha translates as ‘great white space’, but this name does not do justice to the immensity of the pan. Over 4,700 square km of dazzling white mineral pan, so big that it can be seen from space. We exit Etosha at the Anderson gate, close to sunset, and it is just a short drive to our accommodation, which features a comfortable, spacious twinshare room with modern en-suite bathroom facilities. An ideal space to sit back, relax and enjoy the beauty that surrounds you. A fantastic dinner tonight.

After breakfast, we aim to be on the road by 7:30 this morning. We are heading for the Skeleton Coast, and we are taking the scenic route. We first head south on the main road, passing the small town of Outjo, and then continue west, picking up the gravel road as we travel through the area known as Damaraland. Damaraland is renowned for its stunning scenery, majestic mountains, vast open grasslands, and tall koppies (small hills) of rounded pink granite boulders, as well as its expansive landscapes and vast blue skies. We also have the opportunity to meet some of the locals, as there are several places along our route today where we can find informal shops selling locally made, handcrafted souvenirs. Represented here are ladies from the Himba, Herero, and Damara tribes, and most often, they are wearing their traditional attire. Here we can interact with some of the colourful local characters who live in this harsh environment. Making a small purchase here is a good way to inject some cash directly into the local economy. We continue through the beautiful landscape, making a stop for a light picnic lunch, under the shadow of Namibia’s highest mountain, the Brandberg. Rising from the desert floor, this giant monolith is 2,573 m above sea level and is formed of pink-tinged granite. We continue our journey west and soon arrive at the coast, where we encounter the chilly Atlantic Ocean. The whole coastline of Namibia is known as the Skeleton Coast, and it is easy to see why this barren seaboard is so named, with its forbidding mountains and barren beaches. The wind, the waves and the giant fog banks all conspire to push ships onto the beach.

The countless mariners who, in olden times, found themselves shipwrecked here faced the stark prospect of no fresh water, no food, no rescue and a slow death by exposure. Their Shipmates who went down with their ship were thought to be the lucky ones. Heading south on the coast road, our next stop is a more recent shipwreck. 15 km south of the small town of Henties Bay, a fishing trawler, The Zeila, was beached in 2008. She was an old vessel that had been sold for scrap and was under tow at the time. The cable snapped, and, like so many ships before her, she was caught in the swell and currents and ended up on the beach. She lays quite close to the shore and is well-positioned for photos. We complete the final leg of our journey to Swakopmund and check into our accommodation, which is centrally located, allowing us to explore the town on foot from our base easily. Swakopmund was founded by Captain Kurt von François of the German Empire's imperial colonial army in 1892. (He also founded Windhoek in 1890). It is an interesting town to say the least, bounded to the north, the east and the south by the mighty dunes of the Namib Desert and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. There are still many examples of colonial German architecture to be seen, and the German language remains widely spoken. Swakopmund boasts some truly excellent restaurants, and again, your guide will be able to provide recommendations and assist with bookings.

We have the option to start this morning more leisurely, as we won't be leaving Swakopmund until late morning. If you choose not to have a lie-in, then Swakopmund offers many opportunities to keep us busy during our morning here. The town centre is small and easily explored on foot, but there are also many extra, optional activities available. For those with a love of adrenaline, quad biking and sandboarding are very popular if you fancy careening down the slip face of a dune at 60 km per hour. Our guide will discuss all the options with you in advance and will be able to facilitate any bookings that we would like to make. Departing Swakopmund at 11h30, we head east into the desert. We first cross the Namib gravel plains, large areas of flat and seemingly barren terrain broken up by huge mountain inselbergs. We have two mountain passes to traverse this afternoon, the first is the mighty Kuiseb Pass, and we follow the road from the top of the hills, dropping steeply down into the canyon carved over aeons by the Kuiseb River on its way to debouch into the ocean at the port town of Walvis Bay. We climb up from the banks of the river and over the pass, travelling through the mountain peaks and on to the second, smaller canyon of the Gaub River, a tributary of the Kuiseb. We emerge from the mountains onto a flat road, and almost immediately we cross the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.5 degrees south. There is a signpost at this auspicious spot, and we stop along the road for photos. From here, we continue through the desert landscape to the tiny town of Solitaire, where we can stretch our legs. Onwards again to our accommodation for the next two nights. Overnight is in twin rooms with en-suite bathroom facilities. There is a pool and bar available as well as a buffet dinner tonight.

Getting into the dune area as early as possible this morning is the aim, and that means a pre-dawn start and a very early breakfast. As we are staying outside the national park, we will enter the dune area as soon as the gate opens at sunrise. The best time to photograph the dunes is around sunrise and sunset. This is when you can see towering dunes illuminated a glowing orange, apricot red on one side and swathed in shadow on the other. The depth of field is terrific at this time of day. From Sesriem, we cover the 60 km into the dunes quickly and arrive at the 2x4 car park where all 2-wheel drive vehicles have to stop. From here, we enter the ancient Tsauchab River-bed for the last 5km leg to Sossusvlei itself. The Tsauchab River is ephemeral; it only flows seasonally, when there is enough rain, and for the most part, the river-bed is dry. Aeons ago, during these rare floods, the Tsauchab sometimes received enough water to flow all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. However, as the millennia passed and the dune fields began to form (around five million years ago), windblown sand invaded the river-beds. The rivers became more and more constricted by sand until eventually the occasional floods could not break through the sand barriers that the wind had erected. The valley we drove along this morning to get here is kept free of sand by the Tsauchab, but Sossusvlei is now at the end of the water. Sossusvlei does still occasionally flood (perhaps once every decade). After good rains in the Naukluft Mountains, where the river rises, Sossusvlei can become inundated, and the lake that this creates can last for many months. However, the river can no longer find its original path to the Atlantic. There is a 4x4 shuttle service that will transport us through the sandy terrain of the riverbed. We will visit Dead Vlei, an ancient pan surrounded by dunes, which is strikingly populated with dead, skeletal camel thorn trees. These trees have been a feature of this landscape for over 1000 years. Dunes almost surround Sossusvlei; just one narrow path, kept open by the Tsauchab River, remains. We have time to explore the area on foot and to climb one of the highest dunes in the world, some towering 300 m above us; the views are breathtaking and justly famous. We drive back the way we came (there is only one road), stopping at the iconic Dune 45 (so named as it is 45 km from Sesriem). There is time to climb Dune 45 if you still have energy, or perhaps just sitting in the shade at the base of the dune will suffice. Driving back to Sesriem, we take a short excursion to see the Sesriem Canyon. Only four km from Sesriem, this canyon has been carved out of the landscape by the Tsauchab River. Approximately two million years ago, a period of intense cold known as an ice age occurred in Europe. This caused glaciers to form and led to a global decline in sea level. The knock-on effect of this at Sesriem Canyon was that it increased the length and water flow of the Tsauchab River. This greater force of water allowed the Tsauchab to begin cutting through the terrain, resulting in the canyon we can see today. We can easily walk into the river-bed, it is usually much cooler in the canyon, and we can follow the river for some way along its journey to Sossusvlei. We head back to our accommodation in the late afternoon.

Today is our last day, but excitement is still on the menu. We head back to Solitaire, where our guide will get us a sample of the apple pie that has made this homestead famous. There is some lovely mountain scenery on our drive back to Windhoek. The road climbs up onto and over Namibia’s central plateau, and we return to Windhoek via the small community of BűellsPort and the small town of Rehoboth. We arrive midafternoon and will be dropped at Chameleon Backpackers or the accommodation of our choice within Windhoek city limits.