The sole tourist venture permitted in Namibia’s normally arid Skeleton Coast has just opened for business
Angus Begg
‘Remember to paddle when the waters reach us,” said Hunter Davies, noted English columnist and author of 40 books. He was seated in his bed in the dining room of a rather upmarket tented camp on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast.
All around him were mattresses and bedding, which had been hurriedly removed from the tents when the Kumib River, which apparently hasn’t flowed for a few years, came raging down the gorge in which the camp is situated. Davies felt relatively safe, as the dining room also marked the highest point in the camp in this, the driest place on earth.
It was two weeks ago, and Skeleton Coast Camp, the only permitted tourist venture in the northern, wilderness part of the Skeleton Coast National Park, had just opened for business. A few travel writers, among them Davies and his wife, Margaret Foster (also a renowned author), were having a look-see.
It had been our first enthralling and highly informative day out in the desert, and throughout we had been accompanied by a black, threatening sky to the east, with palls of rain joining earth and sky at intermittent points over the mountains on the horizon.
“Isn’t it a bit silly to build a camp in a river bed?” said an environmental editor from Cape Town, as we were nearing the camp, the sand a pale shade under the blue-black curtain of clouds. “Trust me,” said Johan Lombard, our vastly experienced ranger, “this river never flows.” Needless to say, it did that night, as we finished the type of immaculate meal it is difficult to conceive of in such a remote location.
One of the Wilderness Safaris (operators of the camp) directors, Chris Jacobs, came through from the kitchen. “I’m just moving the vehicles, the river’s coming down,” he said, hurrying off down to the pebble-demarcated “car park” next to the riverbed. Ever curious, as I reached the bottom of the wooden stairs I saw Jacobs gunning the motor of the Land Rover as the mountain-fresh, rushing body of water stopped the vehicle in its tracks.
He reversed the vehicle beyond the reach of the water, and so began a long night of carrying beds, furiously roaring water and Davies constantly checking the water level with sticks in the sand below his elevated tent.
None of which, however, detracted from a quite remarkable destination.
Given the norms by which we live, how is it that the harshness and desolation of a destination, on face value at least, is the very reason for its attraction? That bleached and windblown whale-bones on the beach, tenebrionid beetles eking out an existence in the dunes and springbok bulls defending mile upon mile of flat sand and gravel, can draw people in?
There lies the catch. Many would struggle to find beauty in such a place. An environmental enthusiast, however, would look upon the Skeleton Coast as the most remarkable wilderness – a cherished opportunity.
Those with the means to do so are searching out and visiting the world’s remaining wilderness destinations, most of which are in Africa. And as there is sufficient evidence for us to believe that man originated on this continent, it is quite reasonable to understand that for those visiting from elsewhere, something stirs in the soul when in the proximity of unspoilt African earth.
Which is why true travellers, with an interest in the world, the workings thereof and its history, take the time and effort to visit such destinations, a part of the world trapped in novels and coffee-table publications for most, if not unknown. Reputed to be the driest place on earth, this is where the desert chameleon is known to eat the sidewinder adder, where one of the multitude of tenebrionid beetles stands on its head to collect moisture, and where brown hyenas and black-backed jackals roam the beaches in search of a chance morsel.
At first glimpse so bare compared to traditionally lush (relatively speaking) environmental gems like the game-rich areas of South Africa’s lowveld and Maputaland, the desert of the Skeleton Coast National Park offers infinite amounts of pleasure. A day in which we were to drive 95km north to see the seals at Cape Frio, in the direction of the Cunene River, saw us travel no more than 20km, so many times did we stop.
After digging out fish moths, and
observing springbok, gemsbok and mating beetles, we eventually took lunch at Quicksand Springs, the proverbial oasis in the desert, in the company of maccoa ducks, noisy avocets and Cape teals. There, 20km distant, hidden from sight by the papyrus fringing the pool before us, was the Atlantic.
After a long afternoon of exploring the bone-graveyard beach in the company of an occasional rolling fog-bank, with flocks of seabirds sunning themselves and solo, snoring old seals doing the same, it was back to camp via the carved earth of an old amethyst mine. New terms like “barchen” dunes (crescent-shaped dunes that are known to move 5m in a year) and desert parsley had become proud additions to my vocabulary by the time we reached camp.
Ranger and camp co-manager Lombard – who has spent most of his time in South Africa’s lowveld and Botswana’s Okavango Delta – introduced us to this all-consuming and captivating world.
The beaming Herero staff were both a pleasure and evidence of a largely isolated and remote world. In preparation for the camp’s opening, most of the team – resplendent in new, uniform blue denim shirts and khaki shorts – had to be shown what a light bulb was and how to change it. Coffee served with the greatest pride looked weak, and on stirring, a bag was discovered at the bottom. No offence was taken as we went through it together, in time for the “real” guests.
The opportunity to see a desert river that hasn’t reached the ocean in 100 years, let alone flowed for a few, come pouring down from the mountains is a rare one.
But how I wish we had had the opportunity to see the nearby Himba village, the desert elephant and the thousands of seals and Damara terns at Cape Frio. Evacuation, I suppose, was the flip side to what was a treasured, once- in-a-lifetime event.
Wilderness Safaris can be contacted at (011) 807 1800