From Victoria Falls to the Skeleton Coast – Day 8: Escaping the stench of Cape Cross

We began the day bright and early, departing Swakopmund well before eight o’clock. Before leaving the city, we made sure to fill up on gas, but we only checked the pressure in the tyres on a side road leading to one of the beaches, as we were afraid that re-inflating them would make too much noise. The wind was strong, and the waves beat down with a fury, pale blue against the pale grey morning sky and the pale yellow beach.

Our first stop was the Zeila Shipwreck, a relatively recent addition to the assembly of beached vessels on the windswept Namibian coast. The waves splashed around the wreck ferociously, occasionally chasing one or two cormorants from their roost. In fact, the whole ship was beset by the birds, who seemed to occupy every dry inch they could get their claws on. As soon as we left the shipwreck and drove north, the fog descended. It was as thick as milk. This, then, was the terrifying Namibian fog that had caused so many shipwrecks along the country’s coast. Driving slowly through the barren landscape, we spotted the occasional jackal in the mist, who did not seem to mind our presence even when we slowed down and followed it to take pictures.

We drove all the way to Cape Cross, named after a cruciform pillar that was left behind by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão in 1484. When the Germans came to Namibia, they hauled the artefact to Germany for conservation and planted a replica in its stead, and another replica was apparently added when it was found that the Germans put theirs in the wrong spot. I had read that the original cross was recently returned to Namibia, but the lady at the park office told me it has yet to be returned to Cape Cross, guessing that this might be because all the relevant archaeological and engineering work has yet to be completed.

The main attraction at Cape Cross, however, is not the cross or its two replicas but a colony of fur seals. As soon as we parked the car and opened the doors, we were hit by the terrible smell of their fishy faeces and urine, which no amount of wind could dissipate. The seal colony began just behind the wooden fence by the parking lot and extended all the way to the sea, with a fenced wooden walkway erected for tourists to walk among and above the seals as they went about their daily scuffles, suckling, and snoozing. The seals were louder than I had expected. Some seemed to be grunting heated arguments at each other, while the mothers and pups barked to find one another in the blubbery horde.

Driving south and then back inland, we emerged from the fog into the clear daylight. The rapidity of the change was practically unbelievable, and I was pleased that at that point I could no longer smell seal excrement on my clothes. A little after noon, we reached the small town of Uis, where we topped up our gas under the baking sun. We had to queue along several other tourist vehicles, as there was only one woman manning the whole station, and we could not refill the tank ourselves. In the meantime, several men came up to our window offering trinkets and visits to their souvenir displays, failing which they directly asked for food and money. When the lady finished fuelling our car, she not only kept some of the change she should have given us but asked for a tip.

Around Uis, the situation was even more desperate. At one straight section of the road, a small child would run in front of the speeding cars to beg for money. At another nearby intersection, men were propelling themselves towards slowing vehicles to offer rocks and stones. Farther still, people emerged from shacks to wave empty water containers at passing cars. Scattered among these sights were a few Himba villages, which usually had one or two sparsely clad representatives waving tourists down for a guided visit. They received much more attention than the colourfully dressed Herero women in broad mortar-like hats beckoning tourists towards their shops.

We arrived at Twyfelfontein a little before three o’clock. As advertised, we left our car in the parking lot and after registering, we proceeded to the reception where we were allotted a guide. For the next forty minutes or so, the guide led us around the various sandstone carvings that archaeologists believe were made by the San people some eight thousand years ago, when the area was full of water and lush vegetation. Consequently, the vast majority of the carvings depict animals. There are a number of convincing giraffes, zebras, gnus, rhinoceroses, gemsboks, and even a lion, some of which can no longer – or only very rarely – be found in Twyfelfontein. On one panel, these animal pictures are accompanied by pictures of their tracks, indicating that some of the carvings had an educational purpose. The carvings also include circles, which are thought to map nearby watering holes.

On our way out of the park, we let two ladies from the office hitch a ride with us back to their village. It was fascinating to hear the cadence of their speech unbroken by the clicks they made with their mouths. Our last stop for the day was the Three Stages Petrified Forest. We pulled up to the entrance just as the staff was leaving for the day, and though we were sceptical, we let their apparent leader wave us down and accompany us to the site. In retrospect, I am glad we did, as he led us through the entire site, pointing out the various petrified trees as well as the occasional welwitschia growing along the path.

When we pulled up at our hotel, or rather, the tented campsite, we were welcomed by a jovial white man. He freely informed us that he had just bought the place a week ago, which explained the absence of soap and toilet paper in the toilets, the half-working electricity, the absence of Wi-Fi, and the modest furnishings of the rooms. We were the only visitors that night. Having made some prior research online, we arrived thinking that there would be a restaurant at the site, so we did not prepare anything to eat, but it turned out this was yet another project that had been put on pause as the place changed hands.

What the hotel lacked in amenities, it made up for in the big personality of the owner and his Afrikaner assistant. When they heard that we had come expecting to find food, they invited us to join them for their grill dinner, though my very polite inquiry about vegetarian options almost knocked them out of their senses. They spent the next hour talking about all things under the Namibian sun, from the beauty of the Lord’s creation to the undependability of the local staff – peppered, of course, with a flurry of unapologetically racist comments that had us squirming in our chairs.