XWORLD AFRICA tour diary Stage 5

Day 1:

Our stage begins at the Ondekaremba Farm, not far from Windhoek airport. We meet for breakfast at 9 a.m. and discuss the route we’re about to take. The cars are quickly packed and we head off on our Angolan adventure. Everyone is a little nervous. Will the group get on? Will the fact that there is a woman on our “boys’ trip” work out? Over the next few days, it will quickly become clear that any worries and concerns were completely unfounded though – we come together to form a genuine dream team!

The first few kilometres take us along tarmac roads through Windhoek to the Waterberg Plateau. We make good progress, get used to the Amaroks and driving on the left and reach our destination for the day in the early afternoon. The lodge is fantastically located on the plateau’s slope and there’s not only a great view of the surrounding landscape but also loads of animals. We head out on a game drive and spot black rhinos, giraffes, warthogs and gnus.

During our first evening meal together, we enjoy the view across the vast expanse of Namibia and chat casually as we create the first legends.

Day 2:

We head north-east on a magnificent dirt road along the Waterberg Plateau, passing several farms and enjoying the countryside, people and sunshine. We’re astonished as we come across an enormous complex that turns out to be a school built by the Chinese.

Thanks to Raimund, the man in charge of our sights along the route, today’s first destination is the Hoba meteorite. We then continue along a slightly bumpy track to Tsumeb where we eat one of the worst pizzas to be found between Cape Town and Italy. The espresso in the neighbouring bar is far better and so, with our caffeine topped up at least, we head off shopping for our first camp evening tonight.

We find a lovely campsite that is also a museum village and set up camp with somewhat of a lack of skill. Sepp tends to the fire and the coal for our steaks while Ulli conjures up a tasty tomato salad. We thus enjoy our first evening under the magnificent African starry sky.

Day 3:

Almost 230 km still lie between us and the Angolan border. We once again enjoy the luxury of a shopping centre and stock up on beer, bread, cake, breakfast and other little items.

We reach the border at around noon and quickly cross out of Namibia. On the Angolan side, a brand new border station awaits us, which Christian discovers only actually opened a few months earlier.

Despite already having gone through the tricky process of acquiring visas in Germany, entering the country turns out to be rather difficult. The customs official wants to see the original versions of all the documents that we had already presented to the embassy in Germany. But the embassy retained the documents and so the coaxing, discussions and arguments begin. Thanks to a couple of little tricks and the good will of the customs official, an hour and a half later we finally get the stamp we need in our passports. Next come the cars. We have to fill out a whole load of paperwork followed by a whole load more paperwork, pay the road tolls and then fill out even more paperwork. But we’re gradually getting there and we try to remain patient by thinking that it would be far less of an adventure if everything went quickly and easily. Finally, the cars are inspected, a map and guidebook change hands and then we are in Angola.

The tarmac ends as we leave the border station and a track lies ahead – the adventure we’ve been looking for!

We cross the Cunene River beneath the dam where the Ruacana Falls were once to be seen and head along adventurous tracks past baobab trees that are thousands of years old. The tracks along the reservoir are almost completely overgrown and give us our first sense of what awaits us in the days to come. We are already better at setting up our camp today and eat spaghetti bolognese around the camp fire while enjoying a cool beer.

Day 4:

130 km offroad to the China Road. And these give us a real sense of being in Africa: maximum speeds of 30 km/h, detours around water holes, small villages with curious children and the question of who is staring at whom when we get out of the vehicles to take photos.

Back on the tarmac, we rejoice in having found a proper road again and make good progress. We stop for a refreshing cola in Cahama and, on seeing a tank by the side of the road, get an insight into what this country, and above all its people, had to suffer until just a few years ago.

In the afternoon, we reach our destination for the day: Lubango. We have arrived early and decide to visit the Tundavala Gap today. The journey there is quite clearly the destination. We head along adventurous and incredibly rutted side streets in search of the breathtaking viewing platform. On a clear day, the views apparently stretch as far as the Atlantic.

We can’t quite see that far, but the view is still unique and impressive. We take the tarmac road back down to the hotel and enjoy a cold glass of beer by the pool in the lodge – what a contrast to yesterday evening!

Day 5:

A Christ the King statue watches over the city.  This is our first destination today. The sun unfortunately gets in the way of our photos but the view of Lubango from up here is truly impressive. We continue on our journey and discover a market along the route. Even though we don’t need anything, it’s fun to wander around and join in the hustle and bustle. It’s nothing like the markets back home.

We wind our way down the Lebra Pass towards the Atlantic but again can’t quite get the photos we want of this. Nevertheless, it makes a lasting impression on all of us.

On reaching the bottom of the Pass, the landscape changes drastically. Every kilometre we go, it seems to get more and more desert-like and less green. In Namibe, we reach the Atlantic, enjoy a tasty coffee and then continue to the Flamingo Lodge.

A 25 km cul-de-sac along a dried river bed takes us to the Atlantic. This is great fun to drive along! The corrugated iron shakes every bone in our bodies and each driver tries to find the ideal driving line. Shortly before our destination, we bury the vehicles in the sand somewhat – at least the cold beer tastes twice as good after we’ve finished our ‘excavations’.

Day 6:

On arrival, we all wanted to stay for a week but now we’re actually all happy to be getting going again. We had a lovely stay but adventure is calling. First, we head back to the main road. From there, it’s 50 km to Tomba, the last bastion before we head into the Angolan outback. For us, that means time to refuel, fill our canisters, stock up on food and replenish our drinks supplies. The police also want to register us – the bureaucracy is something else here!

Finally, everything is sorted and we can move on! But we hit our first challenge sooner than we’d like. The weight of the beer stocks in the freezer cause a retaining mechanism to tear. The freezer slides into the rear windscreen and smashes it. As the team that we’ve become over the last few days though, everything is quickly distributed among the other vehicles, the back windscreen is ‘fixed’ with rubbish bags and duct tape and we continue.

The route is glorious. It takes us through small villages, past diverse rock formations with sandy and stony sections, over vast plains and through narrow crags with sharp edges. We continue along dried river beds and a flowing river into Iona National Park.

The truly breathtaking landscape makes it hard for us to find a good campsite – things might be even more spectacular around the next corner!

Eventually though, we find a great spot. Christian and Melina prepare the evening meal, Sepp makes the fire and Dominik hands round the freshly purchased beer, which is sadly not as good as we’d hoped.

Day 7:

Today, we again continue our journey through the national park. In the morning, we reach the park’s headquarters, where we discover that the national park is to be further developed with the aid of European, and above all German, resources. Developments have reached such a stage that six Angolans have been stationed here to collect entrance fees for the last three months. We’re probably the first people to pay these. After a nice chat, we continue on our way to a point where we can bathe in the Cunene River – our own mini oasis. We drive down the sand dunes to the river, which forms the border between Angola and Namibia.

We bathe and mess about like little kids, delighted to be here. After a light lunch, we want to continue. To keep things interesting, we have another car to dig out – thanks here to Fritz for finally driving it out ☺.

We pass by the park station again, repair a tyre and continue driving through the national park on a disappointingly futile search for hyenas, cheetahs or springboks. In the city of Iona, we try to buy a different kind of beer – but unfortunately fail. Instead, we end up in a minor dispute with the local police as we have to register ‘again’. In principle, we’re happy to do so but the way we’re dealt with here simply isn’t nice. We say goodbye with a handshake and hope that the next people to travel through will get a more friendly reception.

We set up camp not far from a Himba settlement and, as a result, get a very friendly visit during our evening meal. The children are inquisitive and so are we. We try to use our hands and feet to make ourselves understood, draw pictures to show each other and are delighted to have all met.

Day 8:

We accept yesterday evening’s invitation and visit our neighbours before setting off. It’s astonishing how little the people here have but they don’t seem to be unhappy or dissatisfied. With these thought-provoking impressions that we’re glad to have been given, we climb into our nine cars and continue on our way.

The route is demanding and we progress slowly. But this is the adventure that we sought. Our Amaroks shudder their way east over rough terrain. The landscape gradually gets greener although it’s astonishingly dry everywhere. At the few waterholes that we come across, we spot men and women swimming or washing.

When we start to look for a campsite, the vegetation is so dense that we have to look rather more closely before we find somewhere. This isn’t as far from the road as we’d hoped but that shouldn’t disturb us as there’s barely any traffic here.

Day 9:

As we eat breakfast, an unexpected motorcyclist rides past. We invite him to join us and he’s delighted to share our bananas and coffee. After we’ve packed everything away (we’re slowly working out a routine for successfully setting up and taking down camp), we set off again. The route is still demanding but with several straight sections on which we can accelerate to intoxicating speeds of 50 or even 60 km/h.

We eat our last bits of bread and cold meats in the shade of large trees and are visited by a group of Himba women who make it clear that they want to have something too and that we should give them money if we want to take photos of them. Other tourists have clearly passed by here before.

In the afternoon, we reach the Namibian border again. The exit process goes quickly but all the customs officials who are meant to stamp our carnets are unfortunately in a meeting in the next ‘town’. After a good half hour of persuasion and several telephone calls, I’m allowed into a backyard where there’s a stamp. We’ve now officially left the country, at least on paper.

We also enter Namibia quickly, get used to driving on the left again, pay a quick visit to the Ruacana Falls and rock walls then continue to the town of Ruacana itself. We go shopping and drive to the spectacular Hippo Pools campsite. There haven’t been any hippos here for a long time but there are showers for us. What a highlight! They’re almost as good as the Windhoek lager and bratwurst that we’ve bought for tonight.

Day 10:

As we’ve got a little ahead of schedule over the last few days, today we want to drive to the Etoscha National Park. The West Gate has been open since last year and we make use of this. However, there are few animals in the western part of the park. Or are we simply failing to spot them?

During a quick break at the Olifantsrus camp, several people are heard murmuring “Safaris aren’t for me...”, “far too boring...” but the next part of our drive quickly makes everything up to us. We spot huge herds of zebras and gnus by waterholes, see giraffes running and our zebra Amarok even discovers a white rhino! Just before we leave the park, we’re in luck again and spot a herd of elephants with their young – what a day and what a safari!

We spend the night to the south of the Anderson Gate on the Eldorado Farm where the men decide that camping is all well and good but a bed would be better. They therefore invite us all to enjoy ‘bed and breakfast’. We take a tour of the farm, where leopards, cheetahs and hyenas are caught and kept in fenced pens to protect the cattle.

We enjoy the hearty farm food and look forward to our last day of driving tomorrow with both a smile and a tear in our eyes.

Day 11:

To get us away from the tarmac, Raimund has selected the dinosaur footprints as today’s interim destination. We refuel the cars one last time in Outjo, storm the bakery, buy lunch and head out over the tarmac and dirt roads to the footprints. It seems to have rained a lot in the last few days as we find huge puddles along the route, which we instantly use as a backdrop for a few photos. The footprints themselves are surprisingly small although it’s astounding to see how well preserved they are considering their age. We return to the cars with mixed impressions and are given a short talk by a man from Gaggenau, Germany, who has emigrated here and run the farm for the last 10 years.

We reach our destination of Windhoek in the afternoon and soon after have our first rain in two weeks.

We spend an enjoyable last evening in the Stellenbosch restaurant and reflect on our memories from the last few days.

Day 12:

After breakfast, we drive the cars back towards the airport where they will be cleaned, ready for the next tour. It’s time to say our goodbyes. Fortunately, this is made easier by the fact that we’ve already arranged our next get-together.