Today we began a segment of our world cruise that has the potential to be truly memorable. Africa’s west coast is so ignored by the cruise industry that you have to work at it to find a ship that will take you there. In fact, if not for our rerouting due to the need to avoid the Suez Canal we wouldn’t be going there either. But thanks to the fact that the Houthi rebels in Yemen apparently have cruise missiles, here we are, and what an opportunity.
I should point out that the mainstream cruise industry does have some justification for ignoring west Africa. Here we are, a ship with a capacity of 2000 passengers, sailing up the west coast of Africa with 777 passengers on board. Once this segment ends in Ravenna (Venice) and the next one begins, with ports in Italy, Croatia and Malta, we’re told we’ll be full, with 2000 passengers, including 500 children. As with most businesses, demand and supply go hand in hand. The bottom line is that if you want to see this part of the world by ship you’ll almost certainly have to find a niche cruise line that operates smaller ships. But for me, like I said, here we are, and what an opportunity. So, back to country number one of our west African sojourn, Namibia.
Namibia shares a border with South Africa, a country it had to fight to gain its independence. The story of that conflict is complicated, and far beyond the scope of this blog, but if you’re a history geek here’s a teaser—German colony, the League of Nations, the UN, Cuban troops, Soviet military advisors, Angola, US Stinger missiles, apartheid. The deeper you dive into it the more interesting it becomes.
Anyhow, all that is in the past, and today Namibia is a stable country with one of the higher per capita GDPs in Africa, thanks in large part to its lucrative mining industry. Unfortunately, 43 percent of the population is considered multidimensionally poor, which says a lot about income distribution. Namibia is also home to the Namib, one of the world’s oldest and driest deserts, and today’s visit to Walvis Bay dropped us right in the middle of it.
Despite its long Atlantic shoreline, Walvis Bay is Namibia’s only natural harbor, so it is not surprising that a city grew up around it. Population estimates are all over the place, but there seems to be general agreement that it is one of the country’s largest cities, with only Windhoek, the capital, clearly larger. The entire country is home to only 2.6 million people, so it’s all relative. Let’s say that Walvis Bay has somewhere between 53,000 and 100,000 residents and move on.
Thanks to the fact that the desert goes right down to the ocean, tourism is a big part of the city’s economy, and it was no problem finding local businesses that were capable of maximizing our onshore experience. We opted for an excursion titled The Living Desert, offered by Charly’s Desert Tours, and it turned out to be a good choice. In some ways I was reminded of our experience in Abu Dhabi, as our guide/driver stopped to let some air out of the tires of our rugged nine passenger vehicle to give it better traction in the dunes.
Our excursion actually left from Swakopmund, a more prosperous looking town almost as large as Walvis Bay and half an hour north of there along the coast. One of the first things we noticed as we left the town and headed out into the dunes was that there was a lot of black mixed in with the sand. Our guide explained that the black substance was coal left over from the days of steam engines, when trains were hauling mining products to the coast for shipment abroad. It’s a shame that it’s still so visible in areas near where the tracks were, and I can only hope that eventually the prevailing southwest winds will eventually dissipate it so that at least it’s not so visible.
Happily, everything else about the excursion was great. Despite the fact that it hasn’t rained there in seven years our guide was able to demonstrate to us that the desert is full of life. The occasional low, scrubby plants get enough water to survive out of the air from the frequent fogs that blow in off the ocean. In fact, there’s so much water in the leaves of the dollar bush that water dripped from them when our guide squeezed a handful from one.
More exciting, at least to me, was our guide’s ability to locate living creatures hiding in the sand or dug in under it and capture them to show us. The first score of the day was a palmato gecko, a gorgeous, multicolored nocturnal creature that had buried itself well into the sand to avoid the daytime sun and heat. The tiniest of holes told our guide all he needed to know, and dropping to his knees he dug the gecko out with his hands by scooping away the little tunnel the gecko had made.
The next sighting didn’t involve any digging by hand, but it did explain why our guide carried a two foot long pole with a hook on the end. In a spot every one of us but him would have walked past without a second thought, lay one of the desert’s nastiest predators, a sidewinding adder, buried in the sand except for its flat, triangular, sand colored head. This poisonous snake is what’s known as an ambush predator. It lies motionless until it senses a victim approaching, when it will raise the tip of its tail above the sand and wiggle it to imitate a worm. You can guess the rest.
While we stood at a respectful distance, our guide collected our cameras and got in tight to take closeup photos of the beautifully camouflaged little triangular head for us. Then he used the steel hook on his wooden tool to lift the snake out of the sand so we could see it in its entirety. Sidewinder adders are small, and rarely grow more than a foot long, which I’d estimate this little devil was if we could have straightened it out alongside a tape measure. Considering its sidewinding form of locomotion it showed a surprising turn of speed as it fled, as I will attest because that flight was in my direction. After my unapologetic retreat I watched with amazement as the adder demonstrated its skill and speed at reburying itself in the sand. My final thought as we moved on was to wonder if the woman in our group who was wearing open toed sandals was beginning to have second thoughts about her choice of footwear.
We made a couple more photo stops as we navigated our way through the dunes, and at one of them our guide caught a sanddiving lizard, an impressive feat considering this species’s blazing speed. Our guide called them the Ferraris of the desert, and once he dropped it (or more accurately when it let go of his finger) we saw why, as it streaked away.
It was at this stop that we also examined some tracks in the sand, including a set of prints made within the past day by a wild hyena. There was also a distinctive trail made by a sidewinding adder as it scaled a dune. You only need to see that once to know what it is. Nothing else is similar. Check out my photo below.
At last it was time to return to Swakopmund, refill the tires with air at a gas station, and drive back to Walvis Bay and our ship. Along the way I noted several oil rigs just off shore. I know that Angola, just to the north, is a big oil producer, but I didn’t realize that there was oil this far south. I also took some photos of some of the housing communities on the outskirts of Walvis Bay, and I’ll post them below.
Namibia is an interesting country, and I would have enjoyed spending a second day here. That was actually supposed to happen yesterday in Luderitz, but that’s a tender port, and heavy fog kept us from safely anchoring and launching our lifeboats as tenders. Things like that happen on a cruise of this length, and we’ve long since learned to accept it and move on. Tomorrow we’ll be in Angola, another country with a complicated history, and I can’t wait to see what Luanda, the capital, is like. I’ll be back with a full report, so stay tuned.
Heading out of Walvis Bay. I thought this was a cool view out the narrow window over the windshield.
Housing on the outskirts of Walvis Bay.
Another housing development. Income inequality in Namibia isn’t as bad as it is in South Africa, but it’s still pretty bad.
Camels aren’t native here, but tourism is big, so here they are.
Sorry this one is a little blurry, but it portrays well what the drive is like between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, half an hour north along the coast. The Namib Desert goes all the way down to the ocean here.
If you’re ever in this neck of the desert and would like a tour, I highly recommend these guys. They know their stuff, as you will see in the next photos.
See that tiny hole in the sand? Our guide knows what made it, knows it’s still inside, and is about to prove it.
In fact, he’s so confident that he’s digging it out by hand. Would you?
And here it is, a palmato gecko.
One more photo, just because it’s so darn cute.
This, on the other hand, is a very different situation. Would you have noticed anything unusual if you had walked past this spot? I certainly wouldn’t have, but our guide did, and he wasn’t about to dig it out by hand.
This is what he saw. Know what it is? Let’s have a closer look.
That’s probably close enough. Close enough at least to see that that’s no cute little gecko.
Nope, it’s a sidewinding adder, an ambush predator that buries itself in the sand, waiting for its prey to come within striking distance. It’s poisonous, and its bite packs a wallop, though rarely fatal to humans.
This is the trail a sidewinding adder leaves behind when it climbs a steep dune.
Michele is going over to take a closeup photo of the adder tracks. Can you see the black tint to the dunes here? That’s leftover coal from the days of the steam engines, when trains hauled mining products to the port for export.
I’m just a hacker with an iPhone. Michele takes great photos.
Some of the dunes are really large. For scale, note the vehicle in the distance.
Another desert creature, a sanddiving lizard. Our guide called them the Ferraris of the desert because of how fast they can run.
This is the sanddiving lizard on the sand. Not a bad job of camouflaging.
Chadwick of the Desert. Has a ring to it, doesn’t it.
I’m their leader. Which way did they go? 😂
Found one of them, anyway. 😀
Passed a KFC on our way back to the ship. I believe it would fall into the category of invasive species.
Along the road on the way back to Walvis Bay. Lots of shore birds and desert sand running all the way to the ocean.
We also saw several oil rigs just off shore. Angola, which borders Namibia on the north, is a big oil producer.
We had a great time exploring the Namibian desert. Now it’s on to Angola.
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