Lounge
Where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Skeleton Coast
Summary
From Swakopmund's Bavarian architecture to Damaraland's vast deserts, Namibia is country of striking contrasts
The first time I saw Swakopmund was in my imagination, fuelled by the words of Wilbur Smith in The Burning Shore. Like most of his novels, it is set in the backdrop of the brutal yet beautiful continent of Africa. This one takes the reader into the desolate and dramatic wilderness of Namibia in 1917.
From 1884-15, most of what is the Republic of Namibia today was a colony of the German Empire. In The Burning Shore, Smith describes the town of Swakopmund in 1917 as “a startling touch of Bavaria transported to the southern African desert, complete with quaint Black Forest architecture and a long pier stretching out into the sea".
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In June this year, when I rolled into Swakopmund as part of Mahindra Adventure’s Authentic Namibia Expedition, I saw that the description still rang true. I walked that long pier one evening, originally built from wood 1905 and then, in 1911, with iron. The first civilian homes here were in fact prefabricated in Germany and transported by ship during the closing years of the 19th century. Even today as one walks around Swakopmund, there is a German air to it thanks to its architecture.
I was in Namibia to explore its wilderness, and Swakopmund was where the tarmac ended. We headed north towards Henties Bay on a sandy track with the Atlantic Ocean to our left, the beach littered with sea kelp that had been washed ashore. The Atlantic’s littoral in this part of Nambia is the Namib Desert with its ever-shifting dunes that the wind is constantly sculpting. This was Namibia’s infamous Skeleton Coast.
Most mornings the wind, chilled by the cold Benguela current running northwards along the west coast of southern Africa, blows inland and condenses the hot desert air into a dawn mist that is chased away as the sun goes high and strong.
As we drove through this mist of whimsical translucence, I recalled having read that this coastline was called as such thanks to the seal bones and the remains of ships that have come to naught here. To be shipwrecked on the Skeleton Coast, especially to the north of Henties Bay, meant almost certain death. Even if you survived and made it to land, the desert yielded no water or food. Portuguese soldiers referred to it as “The Gates of Hell", but life does exist and it is home to the indigenous San people.
At Henties Bay, 50km north of Swakopmund, we turned east onto the unsealed D1918 running parallel to the sandy and dry Omaruru riverbed. Spitzkoppe, a rocky hillock, rose like a mirage above the dun-coloured dust clouds being thrown up by our vehicles. Spitzkoppe is Namibia’s adventure playground for rock climbing and mountain biking.
We headed north into the Namib Desert, where I believed no life could exist but I was surprised by a pair of ostriches jogging along. Springbok daintily bounced across the road in front of my car.
As the sun started to descend, we spotted Brandberg, a sign that we had entered Damaraland. Home to some of the most dramatic and enigmatic landscapes in Namibia, Damaraland stretches from Sesfontien in the north to Brandberg, the country’s highest peak standing at 2573m, in the south. Brandberg means “fire-mountain" and as we drove towards it, the long rays of the setting sun lit it up as if it was ablaze.
After hours of driving through the sandy gorges and scrub plains, we checked into the sprawling White Lady Lodge, with cosy chalets, luxurious rooms, a campsite and a kitchen with gifted chefs and two swimming pools. It was literally an oasis in the desert.
A casual reminder that this was still the wilderness was the pug marks we saw in the sand. It seemed that elephant, antelope, giraffe, rhino and lion, all nonchalantly strolled through the environs of the lodge. I tried not to deliberate too much on this when I was out shooting the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere in pitch darkness at 3.15am.
The next morning when we drove along the sandy Ugab riverbed, we came across elephant droppings and followed the path marked by poo till we came up to the herd lumbering along ahead—bulls, matriarchs and calves.
From Brandberg we headed towards Twyfelfontein, also in Damaraland. That day’s drive was stunning. This region, though still a desert, had sparse vegetation by way of camel thorn shrubs and mopani and quiver trees. Giraffes strolled grazing the treetops, zebras yodelled in alarm when we braked to a stop next to a herd, and antelopes hastily sprinted to a respectable distance.
Twyfelfontein is a Unesco World Heritage Site thanks to the most extensive collection of rock engravings on the African continent. There are 2,500 engravings going back from 1,000-10,000 years, memories etched in stone that have survived for more years than any Instagram post ever will.
Rishad Saam Mehta is a Mumbai-based author, travel writer and budding travel video maker.
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