KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

Keen to tour with Rey? Contact catnap@mweb.co.za or 027 718 1905 for details about the 2018 Kaokoveld tour. The tour normally lasts 17 days, starting and ending in Springbok. You can drive your own 4x4 or you can hire one from Rey. You can also come along as a passenger in one of his vehicles. How much does it cost? These rates are for 2017. Prices may increase in 2018. If you drive your own vehicle, it costs R1 000 per person per day, including accommodation, permits, meals and all the guiding services. If you’re a passenger in one of Rey’s cars, it’s R1 500 per person per day, including fuel, the services of the driver, camping gear, accommodation, permits and meals. Explore Namibia on your own: Namibia is one of the best countries for a self-drive holiday. It’s true that parts of the Kaokoveld require specialist 4x4 knowledge, but plenty of other amazing places can easily be reached in any car with decent ground clearance. small garden has been planted with a fence made from branches to keep the animals out of the mielies. Next to the pool are some big water tanks and a tap with clean drinking water. Such a tap is more scarce than elephants in the Kaokoveld, so we stop to replenish our stock. Rey fills his old army-issue fire bucket and pours the water over my head, three times. This is the first “shower” I’ve had since Epupa and it will be another couple of days before I’ll get the chance to wash properly again. Luckily no one in the Kaokoveld cares if you smell. On a barren rise nearby is the Orupembe police station. Half a kilometre in the other direction is a small clutch of houses with car wrecks in between. That’s Orupembe. We drive into the “CBD”, to Orupembe Shop #1, where I buy six cans of Tafel Lager and two Cokes for the princely sum of R119. I pay with a smile.

The driving conditions have changed: We’re done with mountains. Dry riverbeds and desert plains will be our home for the next few days. From Orupembe we enter the Khumib River and immediately we begin to see more game. (The animals generally move away from the areas where the Ovahimba keep their livestock.) We see zebra, springbok, gemsbok, ostrich and the first giraffe of the tour. This is another Namibian privilege: seeing wild animals far beyond the borders of a fenced game reserve. Everything here is wilderness. Talking about “dry” riverbeds is misleading, however, because deep below the sand there will almost always be water. That’s why the trees next to the rivers grow so big and why the animals can generally be seen along the river courses. The prominent trees in this section of the Khumib are leadwood and mopane. Elsewhere, given enough water, they might grow tall and straight. Here, they’re bent and gnarled like sheep horns. It must be because the landscape is more exposed to wind, or the odd flash flood bashes them up good. Either way, I find them beautiful – warriors that have withstood countless rounds with the heavyweight champion of the world: time. Each of them is a monument to persistence. If you ever drive along the Khumib, wait until everyone else has gone back to their cars, then walk over and greet these trees. Touch a trunk. You’ll be amazed at how much joy a tree can bring. After a night spent next to the river, we follow its course towards the sea. Just before the border of the Skeleton Coast National Park (permit only), we swing out into the desert. Now the vegetation fades away. If you want to find a plant, you have to look really closely. When the convoy pauses, I walk over to a boulder and climb it. On top, I find a small rock corkwood tree, stuck in there tight as a metal stud. Rey’s plan was to drive across the desert to the Hoarusib River, and then to follow it upstream to Puros. Ironically, however, it’s water that blocks our way. Late summer rain fell in the vast catchment area of the Hoarusib and the riverbed is drenched; parts of it are almost like quicksand. It would be foolish to drive here. So Rey comes up with Plan B. We drive further south across the desert until we reach the Hoanib River and make camp nearby for the night.

At sunset, I walk up the koppie behind our camp. I feel like a pirate climbing the crow’snest on a ship adrift in an unknown sea. There’s a candelabra euphorbia right at the top and I reach it just as the last rays of the setting sun touch its thorny, skyward arms. I sit down and let my mind float, like a raptor on a thermal. I try to picture myself from high up. I can see the map below – the Atlantic Ocean barely 50 km away – and I can sense the mountains, the desert, the ancient camel thorns, every rock… Everything in its place, even me. I’m also part of this wonderful, tolerant world. It’s quiet except for the odd excited voice from the campsite down below, where Rey and his team are preparing supper. I know that the fire has been lit because I lit it. Another thing I’m sure of is that I’m happy. Namibia makes me happy. It’s home to some of the most beautiful places in the world and you can drive to almost all of them quite easily. Sossusvlei – where we’ll camp for two days on our way home – is one such place. Swakopmund is another, where we’ll arrive three days from now, sun-kissed and a little drunk on wilderness. These places and others – the Fish River Canyon, Etosha, most of the old Caprivi Strip, the Kalahari, Brandberg, the Tirasberg – they’re all waiting for you. So what are you waiting for?