Namibia
The Oldest Desert
13 days
The Namib has been dry for eighty million years. That explains the two-hundred-metre dunes, the dead trees still standing because there is no moisture to rot them, and a coast where Atlantic fog is the only water that arrives. Namibia is driven, and the driving is half the trip.
Day by day
Day 01 · Spain / Windhoek
Flight with one stop.
Day 02 · Windhoek / Kalahari
Arrival, pick up the vehicle and three hours south. The Kalahari dunes are red and low, covered in grass, and at sunset they change colour every few minutes.
Day 03 · Kalahari / Sossusvlei
A day on gravel roads through plateau country. You reach Sesriem, the gate to the Namib, in the late afternoon.
Day 04 · Sossusvlei
In at sunrise, when the light separates the lit face of each dune from its shadow. A walk to Deadvlei, a white salt pan with acacias that died nine hundred years ago.
Day 05 · Sossusvlei / Swakopmund
Down the Kuiseb canyon to the coast. The change is abrupt: from forty degrees to fog and fifteen in two hours.
Day 06 · Swakopmund / Walvis Bay
A boat out into the lagoon, with pelicans, flamingos and a large Cape fur seal colony. The afternoon in town, which is early-twentieth-century German and still looks it.
Day 07 · Swakopmund / Damaraland
Inland. Damaraland is rock, few people, and desert-adapted elephants that walk the dry riverbeds looking for water.
Day 08 · Damaraland
Tracking the desert elephants in the morning, and the rock engravings at Twyfelfontein, which are between two and six thousand years old.
Day 09 · Damaraland / Etosha
Into the park from the west. Etosha is an enormous salt pan and in the dry season the animals depend on a handful of waterholes.
Day 10 · Etosha
A full day. The technique here is not to look but to sit at a waterhole and see what arrives: black rhino, elephant, oryx, giraffe.
Day 11 · Etosha / Windhoek
Morning game drive and back to the capital.
Day 12 · Windhoek / Spain
Flight home.
Day 13 · Spain
Arrival.
Usually includes
- International flights
- A fully equipped 4×4 with comprehensive insurance, or a driver-guide if you would rather not drive
- Selected lodges, with two nights at Sossusvlei and two at Etosha
- Breakfasts and dinners
- Park and reserve entrance fees
- A travel document with every detail and a direct phone number
This trip, your way
Length
13 days
Route
Windhoek · Kalahari · Sossusvlei · Swakopmund · Damaraland · Etosha · Windhoek
Format
Private and tailor-made, on your dates
Let us make this trip yours.
Change the dates, add days where you want them, or simply tell us how you like to travel. We reply within 24 hours.
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