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Drumbeats from Africa - Week 6
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12 August : Namib Desert : DUNE DRIVING
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After leaving Windhoek, the team made their way to Namtib Farm where we camped for the night. The drive was uneventful but the scenery – simply breathtaking. The hills changed hues as the sun set turning the normally brown hills orange and then red. We arrived at the campsite late after watching the final rays of the sun disappear from the horizon.
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The campsite had a beautiful view of the hills and the desert. A great dinner of ostrich neck and potatoes was served to a hungry PETRONAS Adventure Team. After dinner most of the team had an early night anticipating a tough day of sand, dust and dunes tomorrow.
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The night was the coldest the team experienced so far – zero degrees! If you factor in the wind – it was at least minus six!
Anyway the team woke early to a hot breakfast prepared by Mark, the cook for this sector. After a short briefing on the do’s and don’ts of desert driving, the team headed into the Namib Desert.
Only the second convoy given the permission to drive through this way, the Namib Desert is a spectacularly barren, brilliant red sand landscape along the Namibian coast.
There's money below all this sand - Namib Desert has the richest source of diamonds on the planet making Namibia the world's largest diamond producer!
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Before we headed into the desert, we released the air in our tyres leaving only 1 Bar or 14.7 P.S.I. This is recommended for sand driving for better traction in the soft sand. We encountered our first high dune only 30 kilometers into the desert.
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Most had difficulty at first but after getting used to the soft sand it was plain sailing the rest of the way. The day was without casualties – Ah Tee’s car went up the dune a little too fast and damaged his rear half shaft. The mechanics went to work immediately and got him up and running in under one hour! The South Africans could not believe how fast these guys work.
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Another 4 hours of driving and we finally arrived at our first campsite in the desert. It’s cold, and it’s going to get colder.
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10 August : Windhoek : LIVING WITH THE BUSHMEN
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Goodbye to Botswana and Hello to Namibia.
A quick stop in Maun, (unfortunately we didn’t have time to explore the Okavango Delta), the team headed across the Kalahari to the Namibian border for the seventh country in the Africa Trek 2003 Expedition.
It was an easy drive on some excellent roads. The scenery was quite monotonous so the chatter on the radio was more than usual. The border crossing was by far the easiest of the expedition so far; there were hardly anyone at the border, no money changers or curio sellers tapping your window, no long queues for the immigration...nothing. We got through the border and arrived at the campsite early.
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Halim, the expedition leader at the Botswana - Namibia border
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The campsite called Zeldas, is near a bushmen village so after some game
watching and observing the cheetah and leopard feeding we were escorted by two bushmen to the village for dinner. As we arrived, two bushmen hunters returned with a kudu to be cooked for dinner. A kudu is an antelope and it lives in rocky hill country or on brush-covered plains.
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We were allowed to explore the village while the women cooked. At sunset the bushmen put up a show and served us dinner. The kudu was tender and the bread similar to our “char kuay”.
The bushmen has benefited from the tourism industry as much as the Masai, the Zulu, and most of the other well known African tribes. They open their villages and houses to visits by hordes of tourists, and sell their handicrafts in US dollars! These bushmen are pretty rich if you consider a bus load of tourists come to their village everyday. I guess if you have something people want to see you might as well charge people to see it. I just hope that they are not exploited and eventually see their culture drown in a sea of dust from the many tourist buses that stops by.
The team is now in Windhoek to replenish supplies and move on to their next challenge - the Namib Desert. Everyone is looking forward to some sand dune driving, something they don't get much of back in Malaysia.
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Bushmen bringing home the kudu.
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Ujang dances with the "Bushladies".
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7 August : Kubu Island : ZAMBEZI RIVER AND KALAHARI DESERT CROSSING
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Livingstone. The name conjures up thoughts of explorers and adventurers, but now Livingstone Town is very different from the days of old. It is now the “Adrenaline Capital”, bungee jumping, microlights, white water rafting, just to name a few of the activities you can indulge in. |
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The team had a full two days to explore and enjoy the Victoria Falls and the Mosi-oa-tunya National Park. The Expedition Leader opted for the hotel to give the team a break before a gruelling 14 days of deserts and camping. After loading up on adrenaline and curios, the team left Livingstone in high spirits, crossing the Zambia-Botswana border into Kazungula. This must be the easiest border crossing to date – quick and easy. |
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We had to put the cars on ferries to cross the Zambezi River and 10 kilometers later we were in Kasane and into the Chobe National Park. This is home to thousands of elephants and other animals; a river cruise here is definitely one not to be missed. Many team members opted out of the Chobe river cruise but the ones that went had a fantastic experience.
The park is a beautiful grassland reserve that has gained international fame for its abundant elephant population (over 70,000) and is Botswana's best big game park. It covers an area of over 10,000 sq. km and it is not uncommon to encounter herds in excess of a hundred!
Although the campsite was a little cramped with other campers it was a nice change and we got to exchange notes on our travels with fellow overlanders. You can be sure most of them are envious of us when they hear of our expedition.
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Crossing the Zambezi River, bottom: hippopotamus in the Chobe River
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Our next stop is an island in the middle of a desert – Kubu Island. Once upon a time, waves lapped against the shores of this granite island. Evidence of Kubu's past life still exists in the form of wave prints and fossilized bird droppings. These droppings bear testimony to a large bird population that used to live on the island, feeding off the fish of the waters that surrounded their rocky knoll.
After a quick refuelling at Nata we headed into the vast Kalahari with our Global Positioning Systems on and calibrated.
As we drove south the terrain changes, from lush grasslands near the Chobe River to just sand and scrubland with some thorntrees and the occasional boabab.
We are driving through the driest desert in the world. Nothing lives here. The road is good but straight and featureless and then after 300 km it’s off-road time!
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Convoy en route to Kubu Island
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Off-roading time!
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| Our cars scratched by thorn trees and covered completely in very fine dust, we arrived at Kubu Island just in time for a beautiful sunset. The temperature rapidly drops and everyone quickly sets up their tents and starts cooking before it gets too cold. The menu today? Hot Chicken Curry at Echo Lima’s, Masak lemak cili api at Ujang’s and Tom Yam for Botak’s camp. Anything to stay warm tonight!!! |
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