06.2011 Namibia

Tsiklonaut

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Namibia….. Namiiiiiiiiiibia….. The road meanders across the landscape until it disappears somewhere behind the horizon. The wind brushes the sandy, dusty fields of semi-desert. The sky has the appearance of a watercolour painting and the sun is blinding. It feels as if we were aliens on a strange planet.

Or maybe it is our planet afterall, but aliens from another world have transplanted a fragment of their own reality, their own time space here? We pass a wrack of a car that stands next to the road. Its wheels are missing but the fan in the bonnet is stll revolving, rushedly, making and otherwordly noise that is further amplified by the tortured body before it is carried away by the wind. It must have been abandoned in around sixties, but the bearings still go around. It is so syrreal you'd almost believe that it is not a car but a spacecraft that has crashed down on Earth and is now using its last power to transmit an emergency signal back to where it has come from.


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Abandoned car in the Namib desert - the fact it still makes noise through its rotating cooling fan operated by wind is quite mind-boggling.








...::: LISTEN :::...








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Some 40+ years abandoned and the bearings still go on - making sort of a natural/technical "desert-techno" symbiosis sound, the metal body of the car acting as an acoustic amplifier.













Panorama of Namibian landscape (click to enlarge each panorama)












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Sci-fi like trees in Namibia - and sci-fi like birdnests in them - one bird nest "ball" is some 1 meter in diameter! And used by many birds at one time.













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Closer.














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Funky trees in Namib desert.














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On Namibian roads.








What ever the aliens came here to do, they must have thought big. They may say that the second largest canyon on Earth, the Fish River Canyon in Southern Namibia was carved my some mythical snake escaping from hunters - hence the heaving shape of it, but… well doesn't matter if it was the snake, some aliens with hyperpowerful excavation equipment or as the scientists now tend to agree, tectonic forces, the canyon is pretty otherworldly.




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Fish River canyon - second only to the Grand one in the US.















Panorama of the Fish River canyon from a different place...

































As we switch on the radio, we hear a strange language. It definitely is human, but it has weird clicks in it. A hybrid? The Bushmen (or to be politically correct, the San people) have spoken it since forever, but does make you wonder who taught it to them...







Another strange thing in this area is a roadhouse, which together with all the old cars and retro stuff is almost like a museum.



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Wind operated pump in front of the Cañon Road house.













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Oldschool car in front of the Cañon Roadhouse.














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At the entrance there's a car directly in front - you have to walk around it.















Panoramas from inside the Cañon Roadhouse - all cool stuff in the eatery.



























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Engine on the table inside the restaurant.














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Men's toilet - nice!














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With logos and stuff keeps your mind going while doing your thing :D














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Bar's ceiling - I noticed even a number plate from Rio de Janeiro.














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Nice oldschool calendar for oily handed garage tech guys. :wink:














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Old moped on the wall.














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Truck in the restaurant.





Namibia is a pretty huge country with a population of only 2 million people, meaning that towns are small and far between. So no wonder we covered hundreds of kilometers of solitary road before we stumbled upon one, called Lüderitz.

If you look at the map you might wonder why on Earth would someone establish a town in a place like this - in the West, bordered by the cold Atlantic Ocean, in all other directions, by unforgiving desert stretching for hundreds of kilometers. Not exactly the place for mellow lingering or successful business, I'd say. But a German merchant by the name of Lüderitz did just that, establishing a trading post, which turned out to be the beginning of Namibia's colonisation by Germany. It was only later that diamond deposits were discovered in the area, which meant that a large portion of the coast was turned into a prohibited area. But it is not only on land that diamonds are being excavated, but also in the sea, which is a rather peculiar process. If I'd have to explain it in short, it would be something like "sucking the diamonds from the ocean bottom", but it reality it is much more complicated than that - some special excavators are lowered to the ocean bottom where they scrape it and extract the precious stuff which is then transported up to to the surface via a special tube, to a big ship where it is further processed. Or something like this.

Lüderitz is a mellow place, especially in African terms - very sleepy and quiet, so it is easy to lose your guard. In front of an internet café, on the main street, we almost lost our wallet to pickpockets. To cut the long story short - I went in the café and Kariina stayed outside to watch for our stuff. Two black guys came first asking the regular questions, but which soon turned pretty illogical, almost desperate, trying to distract her, when she suddenly saw one of them trying to force her wallet into his pocket (too bad for him that our day wallet is stuffed with lots of useless rubbish such as old receipts and such, so it did not quite fit!). She shouted at him to give the wallet back, he dropped it, and off they were.

It would not really have been a great damage if they had gotten it as we rarely carry more than we need for one day in that wallet, but the fact itself that they tried, and in a popular tourist destination like Namibia… is not encouraging. We'd like to trust people whom we meet, but it shows that you cannot really relax. Later we heard more than one story about people being attacked or they stuff stolen in Namibia - it can, of course, happen anywhere, but it pays to be careful.

Regardless of the incident we stayed for two nights as the campground on the Shark Island was truly idyllic and the steaks and sausages that we barbequed tasted superb in the salty air.



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Modern church in Lüderitz.














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Massive wave against the rocky shore in Lüderitz - big ship in the visible horizon "hole" is "The Explorer" - the infamous diamond digger - that vacuums the bottom of the sea to find diamonds.












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Our braai - or barbeque in local language.














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Our dinner in the last beams of sun - after that it gets really cold here.















Panorama from our camping spot in Lüderitz - also The Explorer is visible.













Panorama of Lüderitz - the town is visible in the distance.













Dusk panorama from Lüderitz - yes, the sky was one half deep red and the other normal.












Sunrise panorama of Lüderitz - this place has many faces.






Close to Lüderitz is a popular tourist attraction - a town built in the beginning of the last century and abandoned in the sixties, which is now being reclaimed by the dunes. When it was first constructed, it even had a theatre and a gym, and its hospital housed the first x-ray machine on the Southern hemisphere, but now many of the buildings are full to the brim of sand, and in very poor condition. Walking up and down the creaky stairs and trying to imagine how the kitchens and bathrooms looked like in its heyday, one could almost agree that there is something of a ghost town (as it is being marketed) there, but there are far too many tourists wandering around with their expensive camera equipment and tripods to actually make it feel like one.


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Kolmanskop - an abandoned ghost town used to be a rich diamond miner's village.













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Inside one of the abandoned houses.














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View from one of the windows - outside are the sand dunes, inside is a sand dune.













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Used-to-be electrical stuff...














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The light in an abandoned room...














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Electrical distribution building.














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Inside - contacts not connected.














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Rusted roof and the sky.














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Rusted barrel in the middle of Kolmanskop.














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Building under the sand.














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A big sand dune inside the room.














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A nice abandoned house.














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Ghost town of Kolmanskop.














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Book keeper's house - this is a luxurious one of course - used to be on diamond business profits!













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Sand in the sink...














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Empty spacious livingroom.




From Lüderitz and the ghost town of Kolmanskop we headed towards one of the most popular sights in Namibia - the huge red dunes of Sossusvlei, but did not quite go there. As we got to the park entrance, we found out that starting from this year, motorbikes are no longer allowed to enter. We would have been hesitant to take the expensive shuttle and leave our bike and all the stuff unattended in the parking lot for half a day even before our incident in Lüderitz, and now we were even more so. With no safe and reasonably priced place to leave our belongings (already campsites at the gate cost from $50 for two - and these are definitey not safe, I do not want to think what a room would cost), we decided to skip Sossusvlei. It is quite obvious that Namibia, just like Botswana, is mainly interested in tourists with a fat wad of cash, which we simply do not have, so we just have to limit ourselves to looking at the magnificent pictures of the red dunes on the internet.

Instead we enjoyed the hundreds of kilometers of solitary gravel roads, which at one point took us through a private nature reserve where we could spot hundreds of springbok. There were signs warning about zebras and giraffes, but as hard as we tried, we could not see them. I guess this is as good as it gets if you do not go to the famous national parks, which we once again cannot afford.




Panorama of Namibian landscape.












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A big bug in Namibia - you see them everywhere on the road.














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Size compared to my hand - helped the funky fellow off the road.














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On Namibian roads...














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Niiiiiice gravel!














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With some warning signs - didn't see any of those animals though.














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Namibian landscape.














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Where are the zebras?










Those hunders of kilometers of gravel took their toll on our ABS, but luckily nothing serious - a rock must have hit the rear brake sensor cable, damaging it, but a little bit of soldering and it was up and running again.


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Rock from the rear wheel caught the ABS wire.














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Had it soldered in the local garage - one man did the work, three aided with moral support.





We spent almost a week in Windhoek, arranging for some visas - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Republic of Congo. The plan currenly is that we'll try to stretch the available funds as far north as we possibly can - it would definitely be much much easier to put the bike and ourselves on a flight back home, but what is probably the most adventurous part - the West Africa - is awaiting us. So, as you understand, Angola and the Congos are on our radar now. We'll see what happens after that. Maybe some Nigerians would indeed share their inheritance with us? ;)

So, the visas. Compared to Angola, the Congos were easy. The Republic of Congo issued us with visas in just a couple of hours, only wanting two assport photos and 700 Namibian dollars in return for each. The DRC was a little more expensive (I guess democracy costs extra) at 750 Namibian dollars, and took a whole three days to process, but otherwise no problem - no stupid requirements or anything.

Otherwise our stay in Namibia's capital (which is actually even smaller than our own capital, just some 270 000 people) was quite uneventful, which is a good thing. Strangely it is here that we heard again about people being robbed in plain daylight, so we did not go around too much. One thing that stuck us, though, was how cold it got at nights - it is winter here, and the temperature drops below zero, so it was quite a bit of shivering in our +8 C sleeping bags.




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On the positive note, the local radio proved to be very enlightening, playing local music, not only the boring global pop that we hear everywhere. And often funky DJ who sang and jammed along:





...::: LISTEN :::...






One of the best finds was a program about cultural heritage playing music from different tribes - sometimes in real lo-fi quality, but therefore with a truly African authentic feel. Something for fans of wolrd music:





From Windhoek to Swakompund one can choose between some three major routes, and we took the one that was marked as being scenic on our map. It took us over two passes and across the windy plateau of the Namib-Naukluft national park before reaching the coast and some big dunes. It would have been rather a nice ride if not for some rough sections where we once again managed to finish off the bolt that keeps the rear suspension in place. The bolt that we had installed back in Sutherland, South Africa, had snapped, and we had some hundred anxiety filled kilometers before we could reach a workshop or a hardware store. But it held up, and we arrived in Swakopmund, the last major town on our route before resuming our course towards north and the unknown of Angola and the Congos.




Panorama from the road through Naukluft National Park (click to enlarge)












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Namibian landscape.














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Mountanous landscape in Naukluft National Park.














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In the white fields of Naukluft.














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Just before Atlantic Ocean coast there's real Namib desert again with mighty high sand dunes. Just like another planet.




As this was to be our last stop in civilization, we tried to to accomplish a few tasks - service the bike, buy new tyres, send a parcel back home and exchange some cash - running around the place like mad persons. Suddenly we realised that no matter how fast or efficient we ourselves were, African time would prevail. Namibia is a place of slow motion. You come to a place, you linger, and you go when you feel the time is right. Without rush, without looking at the clock, without a plan to get somewhere.

In Swakopmund we could see many ships off shore, and once again we could hear some of their communications on our radio. Here's one in Spanish - from what we can understand they're talking about marriage and how life is expensive - but we've also heard some Portuguese discussions about football. Clearly, the seafarers are bored.




...::: LISTEN :::...










Seven ships on the Atlantic Ocean. The above communication we recorded came from somewhere between them (click to enlarge)





It is there that we met our Slovenians again, and as they are one fun couple, we decided to share our journey north for a few hundred kilometers. So once we had managed to somehow do all we needed in Swakopmund, including buying a new bolt and a spare for the suspension, we set off - first skirting the coast, then turning inland, mostly on gravel. By the end of the first day, of course, the new bolt that we had purchased from Swakopmund's dedicated bolt shop, had snapped. This must be a curse, for sure. Since we had one spare with us, we installed it, but hey, how many bolts will we need to transit West Africa?




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Sunken ship on the Skeleton Coast.














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Familiar bikes and faces - Dean.














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And Vlasta in movement through Namibia.














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Meetup.














Panorama of Brandberg ("Burnt Mountain", at 2573 meters it's the highest in Namibia) - click to enlarge the panorama.











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Spotted many giraffes aside the road but got only one picture (we don't have any zoom on our camera! :lol3)













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Lizard on the rock, they are lightning fast and hard to take picture of.














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Another one caught.






Meanwhile, I had a bithday, and to celebrate we bought the only bottle of wine that there was in the village shop, and some kudu steak and sausages, and had a fun evening with our friends. It is sad we'll have to part soon as they're going back to Cape Town whereas we're going north.



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My anniversary present from the Slovenians. That's life on the road! :lol3














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Eggs on the grill.














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Chips sandwich - sounds silly but tastes good!














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And the anniversary grill - it's not every day we eat so luxuriously while on the road!




The further north we travel, the more chaotic it all becomes. There are no more colonial buildings, and it is not Afrikaans that we hear from the radio, but Portuguese from across the border instead. The smells and colours are of the Earth, and quite literally so!

The north of Namibia is home to many tribes, one of which we had a chance to explore more closely. The Himbas number at around 20-50 000 and are quite distinct from the rest. The Himba women treat their skin and hair with a mixture of butter and ochre which gives it a red glow. Red is the colour of African soil where all life comes from. But aside from symbolism, the mixture also protects the skin from the scalding sun and insects. It is told that Himba women never wash themselves, and only use wood ash to rub the skin and hair, but they absolutely not look dirty or unkepmt. In fact, they rather leave the impression of being wild princesses, wearing nothing more than a skirt made of animal skins and a fair share of jewellery. Also the hair is important, and quite a distinctive feature of Himbas.

The men appear far less inspiring. Firstly because they do not have the habit of adorning themselves, and nowadays wear quite regular clothes. Secondly because they never seem to work, leaving all the burden on their multiple wives who take care of the children, cook the food, tend the animals and carry the water, while their husbands go from one wife or girlfriend to another. Our guide said to have two wives and some twenty girlfriends. When we asked about HIV, he said he didn't care, and that it was "low season". Nobody uses condoms, of course…

For our great pleasure, the Himba ladies performed some traditional dance with singing which sounded quite like a citation of the Beginning of the Mankind.







...::: LISTEN :::...







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Himba's hut - inside pics is taken inside the very same one.














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Himbas inside their hut.














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Curious Himba child.














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Himba woman.














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Younger woman carrying a pot on her head.

















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Child wrapped into warm blankets, outside is quite chilly.














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Himba woman.














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Boy taking care of the cooking pot on fire.














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Himba women hair is with brais and jewellery.














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Jewels between Himba breasts.














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Himba women with all the stuff attached to them.














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In front of their living hut.














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Time for breast feeding, but the baby was curious of us.














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Till finally got back feasting on milk.














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Jewelry on the forehead.












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Boy in the village.














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They also look very interesting from behind.














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Curious boy.














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Vlasta showing pics to women - they like it.














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Adorned legs of a himba woman.














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Younger Himba girl.














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Young Himba man.














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Woman selecting mielie - they make flour from it.














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Making of mielie flour - it's hard physical work doing it with the frictioning rocks.










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Hut's key on young woman's breast.














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Holder of some white powder they suck into their noses - no, it's not what you think. It's medicine since it's winter here - for running noses.













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Himba woman warming her hands on fire.






We ended up staying longer in Namibia than we'd expected, waiting for a couple of original suspension bolts to be shipped from South Africa. Since it was taking so much time, we decided to go and do some sightseeing right on the Angolan border. There are two falls, Ruacana and Epupa, some hundred kilometers apart, and although both are quite impressive, there aren't many tourists around. Maybe it is because they got lost, which is easy to do as most of the place names in North-Namibia sound so much the same - Oshakati, Otjiwarongo, Ondangwa, Oshikango, Orupembe, Okahandja, etc.

While riding from one to another on the gravel roads we managed to break the suspension bolt again, so ordering a few originals for spares was a good idea indeed - those African quality bolts just don't take the punch.


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On Namibian roads...















Panorama of Ruacana falls (click to enlarge)












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Ruacana falls.














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Epupa falls.














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Baobab tree at Epupa falls.














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Epupa.















Panorama of Epupa falls seen from above (click to enlarge panoramas)













Panorama of the river.













Panorama of Kunene river dropping into Epupa falls.












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Massive rock cutting the stream.














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Epupa falls.















Panorama of Kunene river.













Panorama of Epupa.












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Somewhere inside the Epupa falls.














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Under a baobab tree.














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Gooood gravel on the way to Angola.














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Dusk - Angola awaits.



When the bolts arrived with the courier we could finally stop contemplating Angola on the other side of the river, and approach the border with a concrete plan to cross it. The process was quick and smooth on the Namibian side, but entering Angola was time-consuming, inefficient and so on - just as one would expect from a third world country. The customs refused to fill in the Carnet, and had us pay some 65 USD for a temporary import permit instead. Or was it the road tax…. Anyways, everything was receipted, so "Bemvindos em Angola!"
 
Great photo's as usual :Motomartin

Thanks both for sharing with us..... for most of us its the nearest we'll get to being there :beerjug:
 
Fantastic pictures, well done.

Namibia has to one of the world's best destinations. Like a microcosm of all of Africa in a single country.

I spent three weeks there and would go back tomorrow. We were there in the summer and I can't imagine riding a bike in that hear - bad enough in an air-conditioned land rover.

Thing I remember the best was camping in truly wild places, hearing lions in the night, waking up once with a giraffe trying to poke its head into our roof tent.
 
amazingly awesome,love that roadhouse and the rust and the red red ladies,thanks for sharing.:thumb2:thumb2
 
Come on you two, it's getting boring now, you MUST have taken a crap photo somewhere. If you have, please post it next time you're on line, just to cheer me up a little:beerjug:

Love the food stop garage:thumb2

Keep it going the pair of you,and ride safe
 
Loving this, the photos, the sounds, transporting us with you on your epic journey. Look forward to the next instalment.

Thankyou for posting.

Andrew:thumb2:thumb2
 
Superb photographs. SWMBO was there is January for three weeks (height of the rainy season, which did cause some problems with river crossings) but her photos were not up to the standard here.

Looks like a great place to go touring and supposedly one of the safest (though not cheapest) places in Africa.

Grey Beard
 
Kariina love the sunset shot of you :thumb2
thats some size of bug :eek:
fantastic shot of the massive wave with ship in distance :thumb
slow mo water :thumb2
as for the portraits i dont have the words...:thumb2

keep it coming
ps up graded to a nikon D90 and getting some nice lens together :thumb2
 
Namibia is an absolutely beautifull country and your photo's does it jusice. A proper tourist trap and loads to do and see. My favourite holiday destination and I love it there as the attitude of the people is more friendly than in SA and a lot less crime. Be carefull of those bugs as they squirt acid when frightened. Nasty if you get it in the face. Nam had more that it's fair share of rain this past year with over 2000mm recorded up to May. You're very lucky as during the winter it would be barren but there's more savana now due to the rain. If I had read your post earlier I could have directed you to my brother-in-law as they live there in Windhoek. Did you visit the old german church in Robert Mugabe Avenue? Makes for some beautifull photo's as well as the gardens nearby. Thanks for sharing. Have a good trip.
 
Thank you so much for posting these. My daughter Daisy (16) has just finished her GCSEs and is travelinng to Namibia on Monday for two weeks in the bush helping to build a school.

She raised over £2,500 herself (without resorting to the "Bank of Dad") to fund her trip.

I cannot wait to show her these pictures tonight, they are fantastic.
 
Oh by the way, there is a BMW motorcycle dealer in Windhoek. On Bismarc street. Downhill from that german church on the roundabout to where it ends in a T-junction. BMW is on the corner.
 
Hi, I'm Daisy - Charlie's daughter. I'm going to Namibia on Monday for 2 weeks and these fantastic pictures just made me even more excited for it! The gorgeous landscapes and photos of the Himba tribe just make me want to be there now, so thank you for posting them!
It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially for a 16 year old, and these pictures make me feel like all my hard work will definitely pay off :) perhaps my dad will upload some pictures I take whilst I'm out there?!
 
Fantastic write-up and Pics! Makes me want to buy my GS a hell of alot more!

Good luck to your Daughter! :D
 


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