The Great Namib Desert Roadtrip

In Swakopmund I met up with an Israeli guy called Ori that had been overlanding in Africa for 10 months and was heading in the same direction as me, so we decided to team up for a roadtrip!
First we headed to some San rock art that dates from 2-5000 years old, before camping at some insane rock formations at Spitzkoppe. The first night I cooked while he made the fire, before we realised that we had our skill sets the wrong way around and reversed our roles for the rest of the trip!

The next day we headed to the heart of the Namib Desert where we climbed the "Big Daddy", a 325m high sand dune, one of the highest in Namibia. What the hell I was thinking climbing that I don't know but it was worth it in the end for the stunning views of the desert. At the base of the dune is Deadvlei, an old valley that is so dry that even the trees can't decompose, making them over 900 years old. It's one of the most beautiful places I have seen, making it a perfect place for Ori to be blinded by getting sand in his eye. After about 20 minutes of waiting for it to dislodge with occasional eye flushes and no luck, a (trainee) EYE DOCTOR just happened to wander past and offered her services. After a quick eye-lid inversion, a dousing, and sticking the handle of my sunglasses in his eye later, the sand was dislodged and we were good to go, what a bit of luck!

With quite a distance to go before our final stop of Luderitz we stopped for the night at a horse ranch where a friend of Ori's was staying. Miles away from anything the view of the stars was probably the best I'd seen yet. And of course it wouldn't be a road trip without car troubles, we had 3 flat tyres in 2 days, and broke down about 20km from Luderitz with no phone signal, so I hitchkiked into town to find a tow company. But we made it in the end, and what I loved about Namibia is that every time we were stopped, every single passing vehicle (of which there were few) stopped to check if we were ok.Read more