Mzanzitravel Magazine - Issue 9

Discover Africa
By Stef Terblanche
Few people who have been to Namibia will not be drawn back time and again by this
vast, dry land’s solitude, isolation, beautiful landscapes and hospitable people.
One such an isolated, lonely and surprisingly beautiful stretch of this big country in the
south-western corner of Africa, is the region bordering the icy Atlantic Ocean between
the old German colonial town of Swakopmund in the south and Cape Cross in the north.
The loneliness is not so much brought on by isolation – for a good road runs all along
the coast with tiny settlements to be found along it – but perhaps more by the immense
silence of the desert and the thunder of the sea, coupled to the overwhelming presence of
nature.
This entire stretch of Namibian coast and the adjacent inland territories are a feast of
natural wonders. It lies spread across endless vistas, interrupted by the evidence of an
earth that once boiled with anger and left behind pockets of volcanic landscape. As you
leave Swakopmund and drive north with great Atlantic breakers pounding the coast on
your left, a casual glance towards the northern horizon may fool you. At first it may all
seem endlessly the same, distant and flat.
But look more carefully and you will begin to see the amazing changes that constantly
unfold in the natural landscape ever so often as you travel north. Venturing inland from
the coast also opens up new vistas populated by ever changing habitats, vegetation and
rock formations.
Giant living dunes of the Namib