THE ULTIMATE SAFARI III

NAMIBIA

“Mariah, Mariah, and they called the wind Mariah.” She is like the morning breeze, fresh, young, vibrant, moving as she wills; on our second morning walk she wandered off by herself for a few hours, after which she was put on a much shorter tether. Raised on a farm, she is clearly very fond of animals and is particularly knowledgeable about horses and dogs. Her love of long walks alone seems matched by an enthusiasm for swimming. I particularly admire, almost envy, her knowledge of literature and the arts; that seems so much more a part of English education than American. She is called Miranda, an Englishwoman living and working in London, and it was my good fortune to share her company during our sixteen-day sojourn in Namibia. We were the only two safarists whose mother tongue is English. But, like the zephyr of spring, she too will likely fade away at journey's end. It is an inevitable rule of group travel that friendships develop quickly, and the more pleasant they are, the deeper the sadness when they end. Still I continue to be grateful for the willingness of so many younger travelers to accept me as an equal.

Even the name of its capital city, Windhoek, reminds one that this country is still strongly influenced by the German immigrants who developed it; it remained Southwest Africa until three years ago, and in many ways it continues to be an integral part of South Africa. Afrikaans and German are the dominant languages, the South African rand is the monetary unit, and the two governments share the country's sole port, Walvis Bay.

The first three nights we camped out, using rather large, heavy tents and our own sleeping bags. We spent the first day in the Naukluft Mountains and then moved into the Namib Desert. The safari company was conducting two tours in parallel, with slightly different routes and accommodations, but about half the time both parties were quite close together. “Parties” is an apt term, because three of the Brits in the other group kept the evenings vibrantly alive. It worked out well for us, because we had our choice of solitude or companionship.

Our walk the second morning set the mode of the trip: unusually scenic and varied landscapes, beautiful birds, and desert plant life, all carefully pointed out and discussed by our young driver-guide. The young woman who did our cooking–“caterer” is her title–was also very helpful in describing what we saw. It was a beautiful morning, as they all seemed to be, and the clean dry air was stunningly blue. Before turning around to walk back to the van and move on to the desert, we sat by a small pond at the base of a cliff and watched rosy-faced lovebirds feed their young while four black eagles soared overhead on the lookout for their favorite prey, “dassies,” as the rock hyraxes are known here. I was particularly excited on this walk to see a swallow-tailed bee-eater for the first time, a bird I had sought unsuccessfully in East Africa.

It was a relatively short drive from the mountains to the desert, and our camping facilities for the two nights were decidedly better; each group had its own circular enclosure, with a huge tree at the center, and there was enough space to separate the tents just a little; it was several days later before we determined who it was that had kept us awake with heavy snoring that first night in the mountains when both groups camped in one very tiny space. Toilet and shower facilities were available at both sites, and at least part of the time the water was hot; it was a bit disconcerting to share one's shower with a horde of mossies, however.

On the drive into camp we had stopped somewhere at a multipurpose store to replenish our supply of sodas and beer, absolute essentials in the desert heat, and I had noticed a coffee-table book entitled “Namibian Nudescapes.” I didn't open it, but I was offended that someone felt the need to demean both art forms by combining them. It was only after our short hike up a sand dune to observe sunset that first evening and a much longer climb the next morning–this is where we lost Miranda, or she us–to observe sunrise, that I realized how appropriate that combination actually is. The dunes are stunningly spectacular, solitary, and sensuous, and where their boundaries meet, as Miranda pointed out when we discussed our reactions, the curves are decidedly feminine. Whether or not they are the world's highest dunes, as is claimed, matters not at all to me; they are the most exciting I have ever seen, and they remain the highlight of this visit to Namibia.

After two days of sand dunes, springboks, gemsboks, and a night of high-quality stargazing, we set off on our long journey to the sea. We were eight, counting driver and caterer, in a nine-passenger van topped with our luggage and followed by a small trailer filled with supplies. When we wanted to take photos, we stopped the van and piled out, so the fact that some of the windows didn't open was not a problem–at first. There continued to be dunes in our background for several hours, but what fascinated me this morning were the field grasses. They were already quite dry, although the rains had ended only a few weeks earlier, but their colors seemed to change to match their setting: sometimes a lush blue-green, at other times a much more sere gray-yellow.

Once we saw a few adult ostriches shepherding a flock of at least fifty young ones rush to escape our view by charging over a distant, decidedly red sand dune. By the time we had emptied the van, cameras in hand, they had vanished into a space between two dunes that had been invisible to us. Then the surroundings became as flat, barren, and desolate as any landscape I can imagine; there seemed to be nothing present; even mirages passed unnoticed. Just as suddenly we felt cool, moist air on our sunburned faces, the temperature dropped at least ten degrees, we passed the recently vacated border post between Namibia and South Africa, and were in Walvis Bay, an oasis of life, flowers, lawns, and even a golf course with grass greens. It looks like something Hansel and Gretel might have found in Sherwood Forest had they been born there. It was refreshing to stand in the cold sea breeze in shirtsleeves and watch the ever-moving seafowl, including flamingos.

But we had come to visit Namibia, not South Africa, so we soon moved up the coast a bay or two to begin a two-day stand at Swakopmund, an enterprising old German seaport that offered a variety of riches, including a surprisingly good museum. And we were able to enjoy it the morning after eating a huge meal–Miranda and I shared a seafood plank for two that could easily have sufficed for all eight of us–at a restaurant that looked more like the OK Corral than a seafood house, and then spending a few hours at the nearby disco where I must have cut the most foolish figure seen on the floor in fifty years. We ended that second day in Swakopmund seriously by visiting the area where the largest known example of one of earth's strangest plants, the endemic Welwitschia mirabilis, grows, the nearby moonscape of the Swakop Valley badlands, and a recently developed rug-weaving industry staffed by African artisans; we did show the good sense not to return to the disco.

Our accommodations those two nights were in bungalows maintained by the city. Each had two bedrooms and a shower, and I shared mine with a couple from Germany. They were a pleasant and rather quiet pair, she perhaps because her English was not so strong. He spoke often of previous travels, several of them nature-oriented trips: watching whales off Newfoundland, bird watching in Florida, and the Botswana experience. The two Belgian women, mother and daughter, with whom Miranda shared a bungalow, were quite intriguing. Mama was not at all happy with the trip right at first–it was a bit too vigorous for her–but Daughter was firmly, if quietly, determined to enjoy herself fully nonetheless. A bit impish in attitude, perhaps, the latter had a rather cute demeanor and spoke five languages. The two women had the charming habit, once we became accustomed to it, of alternating their conversations between Dutch and French, a few sentences in one, and then the next few in the other.

The sixth day was a rather involved and long one. We first drove up the Skeleton Coast to Cape Cross, the point of Diego Cao's landing in 1484–the recently erected replica of his stone cross puts the date as the “year 6684 after Creation”–and home to the more than one-quarter million Cape fur seals who inhabit the Cape Cross Seal Reserve. The beach was littered with remnants of bone and fur, and the accompanying tracks suggested that more than a few local jackals and hyenas dine here often. Commercial hunting is also a regular practice; the annual allowed kill is 800 bulls and 12,500 yearlings. In recent years the permitted allotment of bulls has been taken, but fewer than half of the yearling allocation. After walking up the beach past the seals to admire the breakers and a colony of cormorants drying themselves on the offshore rocks, I returned past a most enjoyable sight; several of the more clever seals in the colony were actually body surfing on the largest incoming waves.

But then we were on the road again, wandering almost endlessly through amazingly varied scenery and temperatures, passing fairly near the Brandberg but getting only distant glimpses of the Spitzkoppe. Here, as in most parts of this country, the scale is vast, and each animal, tree, bird, and mountain stands out in solitary significance. The perspectives and views are decidedly singular, and each element of the environment is enjoyed for and by itself. But we did ultimately reach Ria and Freddie's place, a hunting and guest farm named Immenhof. It was after dark, so we took a quick leg-stretching walk on the road before sipping some sekt and moving on to the extremely heavily laden communal dining table. I remember three additional guests: an older couple who came regularly, because her skin ailment required considerable sunbathing, and a young woman from Johannesburg, obviously also a regular and a close family friend, who had just made her first trophy kill, a kudu, part of which, I learned the next morning, was on my dinner plate. Everything about the place, food, customs, and language, was decidedly German.

I enjoyed Freddie very much. He is a big man, both in spirit and girth, an outdoorsman and hunter, a pilot, and I suspect a rather important man in national politics. It seemed to me that he had a very constructive attitude toward participation as a white minority in a government controlled by a black majority. “You won the election, so you must do the necessary work to keep the country moving, but we'll help and advise you,” is what I understood him to say, but Miranda dissented. She thought he meant, “Okay you won the election, so get on with it; we'll get involved again when we win.” Still, it made Namibia seem much more stable than many another African multiparty democracy. I was reminded of the taxi driver–black–who had taken me to the American consulate in Johannesburg one week earlier so I could have more blank pages inserted into my passport. I don't really travel all that much; it's just that every visit to Nairobi requires a page of stamps. I responded at some length to his query, “You don't have apartheid in America, do you?” I then asked for his opinion on the near-term future of South Africa. “Oh, we'll have a civil war,” he said without hesitation.

Immenhof was the first place where I began to think a little about the importance of hunting to the economy and environment of Africa. An ardent, if unthinking, conservationist all my life, I have always decried hunting, except when the quail were destined for my own dining table, and I don't ever expect to go out and kill something just for sport. Still, many people do like this activity, including the Johannesburg woman, who did not seem to mind Miranda's and my lack of enthusiasm the next morning as she described her hunt and proudly displayed the trophies the staff was preparing for her to take home. It is a fact that much more foreign exchange comes from hunters than from national park visitors, and I suspect that hunting farms and controlled hunting in national parks will continue to increase in Africa. And anyone who has ever observed the forest devastation produced by a herd of foraging elephants must recognize that the only alternatives are some type of population control or an essentially elephant-free game reserve for a century while the forest regrows.

Freddie’s grandfather established the farm, and it now exceeds 12,000 acres. On our short tour after a huge, typically German breakfast, we saw considerable game and birds, enjoyed a look at some Bushman paintings that Freddie, an ardent creationist, does not believe are nearly so old as radioactive dating implies, and wondered at some musical stones, slabs of granite that emitted audible tones when struck with a small rock. To me Immenhof was well worth a stop.

It was several days later when we came to what surely is the ultimate watering hole in Namibia, the Ongava Game Reserve. We stayed there only because it's still being stocked with game animals; when it's completely finished, neither Wilderness Safaris nor retired professors will be able to pay the rent. Set on a rocky ridge overlooking a vast plain just south of Etosha National Park, with which the Reserve shares an electrified fence, the ten chalet-style units, swimming pool, and the other facilities are tastefully designed and beautifully built. In concept and quality of service it matches the best I've seen in East Africa, but in the scope of activities to be offered, it stands alone in my experience. Its area is 75,000 acres, and it will doubtless earn big bucks for its five shareholders because of trophy hunting. The fees I heard mentioned are so high, even for shooting an animal with a drugged dart, in the presence of a veterinarian yet, so that it can be resurrected to be shot again, that I won't repeat them; I hope I misunderstood. Evidently human vanity will pay a big price to be photographed, unfired gun in hand, leering at the drugged “body” of a game animal. On the other hand, most hunters would probably sneer at Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Walking trails with sites for overnight camping, horse trails, air taxi service to nearby areas, and air safaris to such exotic destinations as the Caprivi Strip and the Skeleton Coast are all in the works.

Ongava is now managed by the former head ranger at Etosha National Park, a man highly regarded for establishing its anti-poaching unit–he brought his horse with him, but that's a bit much for the typical tourist–assisted by an expat Englishman of many parts, including most recently five years of acting in London. The guides and drivers are exceedingly well trained, and the house staff is friendly and efficient. But the best part may well be those big bathtubs, each with a full length window overlooking the plains below, and like Nairobi's Norfolk, this hostelry provides an appropriate terry-cloth bathrobe. And since the date was June 14, I went ahead and celebrated my half birthday, exactly one month early. I know not whether it was the Boers or the Brits who brought big bathtubs to Africa, but in surroundings like these, my clothes are off to them several times a day. And when you do decide to visit Ongava, please think generously of him who told you about it.

We stayed on for a three-hour game drive and exploratory tour and then lunch before taking the short drive to Etosha. There are only three lodges inside the park, all government operated, and we ultimately stayed at them all. Okaukuejo, where we spent the first night, is especially nice because it has a lighted waterhole right beside the residential units. I particularly enjoyed using the nearby tower for stargazing early the next morning. Halali, where we spent the second night, is very pleasant because it's in the woods, and one can walk about a little. Its lighted waterhole is near the camp but so new that the animals aren't using it yet. Our final two nights in the park were spent at Namutoni, which was quite fun because the accommodations are in a reconstructed turn-of-the-century fort.

My main objective in coming to Namibia was to sample its incredible landscapes, seascapes, and vegetation, not to see game. Of course I had enjoyed the game we did see, but those first ten days had excited me because of the uniqueness of everything else. And so it was actually the afternoon of our twelfth day before I got fully into the spirit of game-driving again. It had been the previous afternoon, soon after leaving that marvelous facility, Ongava, that we took our first real game drive. We had barely left Okakuejo when we spotted a cheetah feeding on her kill, a springbok. She was just finishing gorging herself, her face bloody and her abdomen distended nearly to the ground, so we watched until she staggered to her feet, walked a short distance, slumped to the ground, and then repeated the sequence.

The scene was totally spoiled for me by the incongruity of the radio and antenna some research group had put around her neck, but it sent our photographers, most notably the German couple, into a chaotic frenzy. The van pitched, yawed, and rolled, and a plethora of cameras and binoculars was pushed past my face and through the open window beside the seat that I had shared alternately with Miranda and our caterer since day one. I quickly ran to the one rear corner of the van that had a functional, if minuscule, window and cowered there. For the remaining days in the park, Miranda and I alternated between the two diametrically opposed corners of the van, but it was two days later before the Germans offered their choice window seats to the Belgians.

The view from the watering hole that night featured three black rhinos that appeared again and again. The Germans bought sparkling wine for us all to celebrate the cheetah sighting, and that, added to the previous day's rich fare and some excessive drinking at the party later on brought poor Miranda to her bed. But particularly here in Africa, one creature's misfortune is another's good luck, so I unabashedly took her seat in front on our second afternoon in the park. She took it back the next morning, I hasten to mention.

After laying out two cameras, three lenses, a pair of binoculars, and a bird field guide, I told Piers, our driver, “I'm serious today, let's go,” and so we did. The day was perfectly clear, the sky was a bright blue, a gentle breeze was blowing, and it was not too hot. We first passed by a small volcanic mound atop which the Germans had placed a heliograph for use during World War I; it flashed pulses of light to transmit coded messages. Shortly thereafter, we stopped for the first of many times to study and photograph interesting birds, most of which had been identified previously on the trip. Next we saw a few red hartebeests and black-faced impalas, both first sightings for me.

But it was our stop at a nearby, natural waterhole that set the afternoon's exuberant tone for me. Recognized generally as one of the country's finest, it is certainly the most beautiful I have seen. We spent a long, but reasonable, interval there watching hartebeests, impalas, springboks, and other life, and then we continued along Eland Drive. None was seen, nor were many other animals, but the trees were spectacular. Some of the mopanes, with leaves variously described as butterfly wings or angel wings, were still green; others were mixed yellow and green; some were yellow combined with brown; and quite a number had already dropped their leaves. These colors were beautifully supplemented by the dark green and purple of the terminator trees and the greens and browns of the various acacias and vines. In total the scene very much conveyed a feeling of autumn.

We had two more days in the park and a day and a half of driving to get back to Windhoek before heading for home, although I must confess I no longer know for certain where I belong. On one of these two days, I think it was the last, part of the group saw an African wildcat, but I missed it. And in the last few minutes of the very last game drive a leopard strolled across the road quite a distance behind us. I didn't have time to get my glasses on it, but its shape was definitive. So my life total is now up to six. I remain surprised that we did not see even one lion, and I'm disappointed for Miranda who still hasn't seen her first. The entire trip was a great experience, but the first ten days and that twelfth afternoon are the highlights for me. I would like very much to see the sand dunes again and also to visit the Skeleton Coast and the Caprivi Strip. And maybe someday I can even afford a fully operational Ongava.

But first I plan to spend a few days in London.

W. Vance Johnson

16 Jul 93