Namibian Wilderness

My wife loves camping!

Just ask her – I mean she really loves it!

I am not sure if I am getting across the sarcasm in this post… Yes Megan absolutely loathes camping – the reason?  a 25 day trip around Southern Africa in a tent.

It was, how did she describe it again? Hell!

Well I didn’t agree – I thought it was incredible… There was such variety, there was such beauty, and there were so many experiences… Africa just resonates with me. The colours, the smells, the climate… It is like another world to good old England.

I previously blogged about this trip and an experience we had in Botswana regarding a storm (catch up here), but what I really want to write about today is the remote wilderness of the Namib Desert in Namibia. It was transfixing…

We had already been in Namibia for a few days, and our next stop was a wilderness camp in the middle of the desert. I expected a campground with a little outback shop and some random trees for shade. My goodness was I wrong… We drove down a dusty sandbowl of a track to a huge rock formation in the middle of nowhere – literally nowhere, there wasn’t another settlement or feature for miles. This is the mere definition of True Wilderness…

The burning sun had fallen in the sky to give us some shade next to the huge rock formation, and as we were told to pitch our tents, a few blank looks were exchanged! Where exactly? The hard rocky ground was not ideal for camping. The majority decided it would be better to sleep outside just in a swag bag – but no Megan wanted the tent so we had the tent. One of our group just took her swag out, 100m into the desert dumped it there and literally went to sleep in the pitch black.

This was a location that was a true adventure, but also a bit scary, as if anything happened here there was nothing you could do about it – we were the masters of our domain. I guarantee we weren’t the only living things in the vicinity but we were the only human beings!

Danny, Tom and I went to explore, climbing the giant rock, but to make sure we weren’t camping next to a mountain cats lair. No such luck, there was nothing – just the beautiful sun and the open desert and wilderness.

The night was dramatic to say the least – and by that I mean nothing happened. But the sky, the sky was magical. You could see galaxies, stars galore and well there is something very special about a night sky.

This is the true meaning of wilderness… and I love it!

#wilderness #africa #camping #namibia #travel #travelblog #blog #stories #isolation