Story and Photos by Libor Pospisil.
In the first part of this Namibia series, I explore Windhoek and travel to the country’s coast. There lies the old resort town of Swakopmund and also the Sandwich Harbour, the only place on Earth where gigantic sand dunes fall straight into the sea.
Story and Photo by Libor Pospisil
This trip began when the screensaver on my laptop randomly chose a beautiful photograph of what looked like the Grand Canyon. The warm colors of the rocks and the barren landscapes made the scene extremely reminiscent of the national parks in the American Southwest. For some of us who grew up surrounded by fields and forests, the pull of the desert is irresistible. We call them otherworldly, not just as a turn of phrase. At closer inspection, however, the screensaver picture was a canyon on the other side of the planet—the Fish River Canyon in Namibia, a country in southern Africa.
Soon enough, I found myself on a plane landing at the airport outside Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. At that moment, I had no idea the Fish River Canyon would be overshadowed by the country’s other desert landscapes, which I ended up ranking among the most spectacular in the world.
Windy corner: Windhoek was nowhere to be seen from the plane. Only dark mountains and dry savannah were in view. It took a half hour fast drive to reach the city’s edge. One theory says that Windhoek got its name from “Windy Corner” in Afrikaans, so the airport was purposely built far from the city center. This weather reference kept haunting me as I experienced a summer wind storm in Windhoek (in December), with flying branches coming to rest on the roads.
The empty grasslands on the way to the city reminded me of the central geographic fact about Namibia—it covers territory twice as large as California or Germany but has only three million people. Namibia is the second most sparsely populated country in the world, right behind Mongolia. The ride to Windhoek was just one sample of the country’s isolated geography.
I had a day to explore Windhoek before my first desert trip. The downtown area is pleasant to walk around, with remnants of German colonial architecture, including a church (Christuskirche), a fortress (Alte Feste), and the parliament building (Tintenpalast). Also, in the downtown, there is the heart-wrenching memorial to the genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples from the era of German colonialism.
After stopping at the Namibia Craft Center, I visited the tallest new structure in Windhoek–the Independence Memorial Museum, built by North Korea in 2014 before its companies had to leave because of U.N. sanctions. The abstract shape of the museum building does not look too abstract to the locals, who refer to it as the “Coffee Maker.” Its exhibits and murals are dedicated to Namibia’s struggle for independence from Germany and South Africa, which it achieved in 1994.
Namibian purple: At the top of the museum is a restaurant with a viewing terrace, which I used as the place for a meaty dinner. Julia, a lady having a drink there, struck up a conversation with me. Like others I spoke to in Windhoek, she moved to the city from the very north of Namibia. I asked her about local languages, and she taught me to use “tangi” as “thank you” in the Oshiwambo dialect. This is the most widely spoken language in the country, concentrated chiefly in the north. Although reflecting Namibia’s history, “tangi” is a loan-word based on the Afrikaans “dankie.” Julia even spoke some Portuguese since her hometown was located on the Angolan border. That association was familiar to me because a gentleman in Windhoek had earlier told me how he played soccer in northern Namibia with boys from the neighboring Angolan village.
Our view overlooked Windhoek and we noticed the the empty landscapers beyond the surrounding mountains. The nearest million-sized metropolis lies thousands of miles away. As Julia told me about her trips to Europe, she was not paying attention to the sunset, of which I was ferociously taking pictures. The layer of vivid purple, hovering above the silhouette of the mountains, might have been an everyday sight for her, but I fall for the African sunset every time I am on the continent.
It is no accident that many people in Windhoek are northerners. The north of Namibia is the most populated region—meaning least sparse—because it is the least dry area. It is the only region with enough rain to sustain cattle and wild animals. The north has the Etosha National Park, home to the big five species of African animals. No wonder Etosha is a popular safari stop for tourists on their grand tour of the country. The rest of Namibia can offer only mountains, deserts, and dry grasslands, which is exactly where I chose to spend my time.
Out of the city and toward the coast: From Windhoek, I traveled in a crowded van serving as public transit. The ride went on for about four hours. Despite the sleep-inducing straight road, I managed to wake up to the sight of a train, fuming heavy black smoke, as it carried freight between the ocean and the interior. The monotony of the landscapes was interrupted only by the rocky domes of a formation called Spitzkoppe, a place for hiking and camping.
Eventually, the grassland yielded to sand, and then the Atlantic Ocean appeared on the horizon. We finally made it to the coastal town of Swakopmund, whose name means “the Mouth of the [River] Swakop” in German, but the name of the river comes from the Nama language. I walked the geometrically laid-out streets of Swakopmund and hoped for the salty fog to disappear. When it did, I admired the purest German architecture of the southern hemisphere. Timbered houses, an ornate former train station, and several crenelated hotels all looked cozy. The yellow façade of the baroque church almost transported me to central Europe until I noticed the palm tree beside it.
Swakopmund is a proper coastal town with a lighthouse decorated in red and white. The museum next to the lighthouse and the antique shops found all over the city have plenty of furniture, machines, and memorabilia that took me back to visions of the 19th-century world of the original German settlers. However, there is more to see in the museum—iron-age weapons and pottery, reproductions of rock paintings, and models of Namibian fauna and flora. I found an unusual exhibit of Naminia’s local wonders in the richly supplied Kristall Galerie. Among its stunning pieces of stone crystals was the largest cluster of quartz in the world, taller than I; it was discovered not far from Spitzkoppe in 1985.
For both pensioners and digital nomads, Swakopmund is the most popular Namibian destination today for European vacationers. Although I found the vibe a bit resort-like, I thoroughly enjoyed many of the city’s fine seafood restaurants.
Sand and water: I was happy to leave Swakopmund on a day tour to Sandwich Harbour. Little did I know it would turn into the most spectacular highlight of the whole trip. My driver, José, was a Namibian despite his Spanish name. He picked me up in his jeep, and the exciting part began once we passed the port of Walvis Bay. José started lightly by showing me a flamingo herd and a pink lake, which got its color from a unique mix of salt and algae. As we passed by low-rise coastal dunes, José remembered how he rode them on a quad bike as a boy: “I never wanted to live anywhere else,” he remarked.
Soon we left the paved road and continued along dirt tracks, with the ocean on our right and yellow sandy mounds on the left. José stopped at one point, got out of the car, and walked toward the mounds. Suddenly, one of his legs sunk deep into the sand: “You see! It’s a thin layer with an underground water beneath.” He pulled his leg back, and it was dripping wet. He described how people driving the area on their own might often get stuck, with a wheel cracking through the layer of sand.
José then inspected creases in the sand, the purpose of which became apparent when he pulled a little lizard from it. He affectionately held it in his hand and showed it to me. The lizard—Namibian sand gecko—was almost transparent. “Why are you holding your other hand over it?” I asked. “Look how sensitive it is to light. And look at the big eyes. It needs them late at night to search for food. When I put it back on the sand, it will immediately dig its way inside.” So it did.
We drove farther out, left the dirt tracks behind, and found ourselves among sandy dunes. Up, down and over, José proudly displayed his sand driving skills, even accelerating dramatically as we neared the last dune before the ocean shore. There, had he not turned sharply, we would have been flying into the water. I tried not to give in to the fun-scared tourist reaction, but even I cracked at that speed. He then let the car just slide down a sandy slope before gearing up for the last ascent.
The end of the world: These were severe dunes over a hundred meters tall (three hundred feet). We stopped at the crest of the tallest one. José said: “Enjoy and walk down to the ocean. I will meet you there.” I stood at the top and could not believe it. I looked around, trying to take in the view. The landscape was simple yet so unique that no other scenery in the world could match it. There was only blue and yellow in sight. Above was the clear sky, and below it, the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, with the little natural harbor. As I turned around, there was the sea of dunes in perfect yellow, with nothing else on the horizon. The only sign of civilization was José’s car parked on the shore.
Sandwich Harbour is said to be the only place on Earth where dunes of this height go straight into the ocean. I felt overpowered, not only by the geomorphology but also by the visual drama. It was the air of remoteness that that mesmerized me. I couldn’t seem to get enough of it. Sandwich Harbour is in a true desert, far from Windhoek, let alone any other metropolis. Unlike deserts in the northern hemisphere, there was never an ancient trading route here, just a minor one. No caravans of camels would pass by here. Even the European ships that once sailed around Africa were not welcomed; thus, the northern Namibian shore is called the Skeleton Coast. Its beaches have scores of whale bones and bones of ships that dared to venture too close to this desolate land.
As with Windhoek, it is not clear where the name Sandwich Harbour originated—it may refer to the British sailing ship, a whaler named Sandwich, that hunted in the South Atlantic in the 18th century. The uncertainty of its namesake makes the spot feel even more detached from the rest of the world.
I wanted to stay and meditate about why deserts are so enchanting. I wanted to run the dunes up and down like José would have as a little boy. I wanted to take so many photographs; if I were a painter, I would have painted the scenery. But the wind rose, and the sand began flying from the dune’s crest. My face began to sting. I couldn’t take it much longer, so I slid barefoot down the dunes toward the car. I kept stopping and looking around in disbelief. José smiled at my shell shock, which he most likely sees in anyone who visits for the first time. “I have never seen anything like this,” was the only thing I could say.
In the Part Two: I go on a dusty road trip to Sossusvlei, the interior desert of Namibia. There, I got to see the most iconic view of the whole country.
IF YOU GO:
Windhoek:
Namibia Craft Center https://www.namibiacraftcentre.com/
- Namibia Independence Museum https://www.museums.com.na/museums/windhoek/independence-museum
- A guided tour of downtown Windhoek and its northern township Katutura https://www.chameleonsafaris.com/
- High-end dining in the former German castle, Hotel Heinitzburg https://www.heinitzburg.com/restaurant.html
Swakopmund:
- Swakopmund Museum https://www.museums.com.na/museums/coast/swakopmund-museum
- Kristall Gallerie https://kristallgalerie.com/
Sandwich Harbour:
- Tour company Sandwich Harbour 4×4 https://www.sandwich-harbour.com/
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