AFRICA

Here is photos, information and travel diary on Namibia: an adventile, wonderful African safari!

Information and travel tips for Namibia

Why go? Freedom, adventure, unforgettable views, fascinating fauna, mother Africa charming. Gentile population ready to help. Namibia and Botswana are secure countries, while in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia are needed some caution. Anyway, there is really no reason to give up this travel itinerary ... if not the next Mal d'africa !

When to go? August and September are the best months for a route like the one proposed, since it is dry season.
How to move? A private vehicle, possibly a jeep with the roof curtains, is ideal for the incredible freedom it offers. The most expensive, most comfortable and less exciting tourist alternative is to move with a guide between the resorts and carry out organized trips. But between a comfortable holiday and a dusty safari full of adventures and dangers, what would you choose? Here, note :)
To rent a car here at the best prices for your travel itinerary I absolutely recommend by Search And book this link .
How much does it cost? Daily life is economical, but the journey can become expensive. In three people, in sixteen days, we spent about 3000 euros each, of which 1000 between flight and travel insurance and almost as many (each) for Jeep.
Keep in mind that in what it costs I take into account All the journey ... from the airport to the airport of departure to the drink passing through meals and souvenirs.
For an idea on hotel prices along our route in Namibia Click here to compare hotels and find the most convenient accommodation.

Where to go? Namibia has natural beauties of all types: Fish River and Sesriem Canyon, Sossusvlei's sand dunes and Walvis Bay, the wild savannah of Damaraland and Epupa waterfalls. For the sighting of the fauna (as in TV documentaries, but from the real!) There is the Etosha Park. It is not difficult to take a travel itinerary that touches all these destinations.
Other destinations? You could return to Namibia and wander for weeks between canyons and deserts without ever boring. Needless to say, in South Africa there are many other destinations of great interest for other tourist tours of great satisfaction.

Travel Diary in Namibia

We wanted to visit the wonderful Namibia, but we first booked the flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, excluding other flights & quotes; interiors & quot;, because too expensive. We reserved a nissan with the tents on the roof (which would have been our house for fifteen days). We downloaded tracks4africa maps for our Garmin GPS browser. And we were ready to adventure!

We landed at Johannesburg at the beginning of August (ideal season to visit Namibia and Botswana).
An employee of the 4x4 rental company led us from the airport to their headquarters, where the secrets of our jeep explained to us . Immediately after sunset, we went shopping for the next campsites in a nearby hypermarket, where we ate a surprisingly eaten pizza. Then, we left towards Namibia .

I drove throughout the night , walking about 900 kilometers in the middle of South Africa ... what not really advisable, but it made us save time and money.
At dawn we were in Namibia (no customs problem) and after another 300 kilometers we reached the first goal of our improvised travel itinerary, the Fish River Canyon .

The landscape was spectacular, not just for the gigantic throat among the mountains (second only at the American Grand Canyon), but for the colors and all over the whole: wild views, virtually deserted dirt roads, few plants that peeped through the rocks, boundless free spaces.

The jeep was equipped with everything you need to camp (water reserve, fridge, cutlery, blankets, etc.). In the evening we took ourselves out of the street, we did the bonfire and I would grateful in the middle of the savannah, in absolute silence. That first night, there was probably no human within a hundred kilometers. Other than tourist destinations!
The next morning he actually led another wonderful day (no cloud seen in fifteen days: I will never stress the importance of traveling in the dry season). After exploring the surroundings on foot, we left in the direction sesriem , where we had booked a "real" campsite from Italy - what they needed as it was a national park. On the road the rocky terrain broken by the canyons turned into savannah: expanse of yellowish grass, with red hills brulles in the background, few solitary trees and the first mammals (goats, zebras and ories).

Animals were not afraid and we could watch them closely and then wander in search of other species. The road was generally a large pebble dirt road, but even off-road the ground was passable with a jeep.

We visited the beautiful rocky canyon of Sesriem, but we could not venture into the desert due to a windstorm. Too bad, because there the red dunes of Sossusvlei represent one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in Namibia.

. We reluctantly left the desert and continued our journey to the north through lands always brulli, now darker, with rounded hills separated by small canyons. Our travel itinerary then led us to the Atlantic Ocean, near the Walvis Bay . We walked the long road the lagoon, on which yellow sand dunes overlooked .

At one point we held between them, taking advantage of the 4x4 of the Nissan. We first first of time, so with the help of shovel and SGasate we managed to start again. Not happy, accelerated up to the top of a dune with a splendid view of the bay and flamingos who kept over the water at sunset.

Close to Swakopmund the dunes that were caught on the ocean were also 300 meters high; We climbed on foot on one of them, admiring the incredible view. We then resumed the journey and took another break on a beach, from which you could see a recent wreck of a ship.

A little further north we stopped in the Nature Reserve of Cape Cross , where thousands of seals rumbled and smelled. It was impressive to see them to throw themselves between the waves in the middle of the rocks.

We then moved to the inside and, in the middle of the savannah, we enjoyed another lovely campsite. This was the region of the Damaraland , beautiful and wild, in central Namibia. As we camped, we realized that our itinerary had led us to areas potentially inhabited by lions. We were happy that our tents were on the roof of the jeep.

The next day we entered the Etosha Park , vast nature reserve as well as Belgium, whose more accessible part for tourists caught up on a gigantic salt lake. Around of the water puddles the animals gather to drink.
Wandering between the dirt roads we came into Gazzelle, zebras, orates, elephants and giraffes

We were surprised how easy it was to see animals, there were hundreds of each corner. We thus begged to look for the rarest scenes, sometimes following comments from other travelers in Jeep. We found the hen intent to consume the carcass of a giraffe ; a leopard that moved quiet among the bushes; delle lionesse Impigrite.

The most exciting moment was the hunt for a gazelle by two cheetahs. Squatted in the tall seafood of the savannah, the two felines patiently waited for a slightly separate gazelle approached them. Then, they snapped and in a few seconds they reached her and lunch her lunch, poor gazelle!

The free campsite inside the reserve was prohibited, so we would no longer reserve the risk of being devoured, at least in that portion of the travel itinerary. We camped instead in a beautiful structure, well organized.
The next day we added the rhinos to the list of observed animals. We then left the Etosha and, changing program, we decided to visit North Namibia. From the park we then headed towards Opuwo, where women dressed in the Walker walked next to Indigenous Himba in a nude breast, with hair collected in braids made shiny by a red mud.

We left Opuwo and heading north, we noticed several Himba villages composed of a wooden fence inside which there were some huts and several goats. He was a primitive people, who lived in his own way: they didn't speak English and didn't seem interested in Western life.

The village was poor and very small, little more than a house for an enlarged family. There were two women, children, grandparents, while men were perhaps grazing. Triving to talk to them was fun, but bankruptcy!
we then proceeded with the jeep to the north, and the more we pushed towards the border with the Angola the more vegetation s'foltiva. Northern Namibia is more humid and rainy than desert south.

We resumed the Namibian itinerary, direction Epupa Falls . In the middle, a splendid campsite on a dry bed of a river. The Epupa waterfalls deserved the visit: splendid panoramas, palm trees on the river, a strange colored lizard and the inscription & quot; attention danger crocodili & quot;. Unfortunately, we didn't see each other.

We reached the border with Angola on another fascinating dirt road. We asked to gend my permission to cross the border, even just for a moment, but they rejected our idea. A hen, though, trotted under the bar without being seen.
we would then resume our way along the Caprivi Strip . It is a narrow strip of Namibian territory, north of Botswana, crossed by the Okavango, Chobe and Zambesi rivers. It is humid, rich in vegetation and rather populated (compared to the rest of Namibia). One night we camped along the Zambesi, terrified by the barriers of the elephants, the verses of the hippopotamus and the myriad of mosquitoes who turned.

We had not done antimalarial prophylaxis, which perhaps in that campsite would have had a usefulness. None of us left, however, nor the hippopotamus spilled jeep and curtains.
Click here to continue with the second part of the diary (a travel itinerary between Botswana and Victoria Falls) if you like these wild trips or if you want to find more photos of this And other destinations, as well as advice and new itineraries, visit our FB page and put like: