Starting in Windhoek, we headed into the dry belly of Namibia with Spitzkoppe as our first stop. 120-million-year-old granite peaks rising towards the sky, the endless stretch of rugged Namib Desert, with not a living soul for as far as the eye can see. Known for its ancient cave paintings and sunsets that glow like the flames of a campfire, Spitzkoppe is a place that’ll stay with us forever.
North-west, the Skeleton Coast waited, but first came Messum Crater, a bowl-shaped formation produced by a volcanic eruption. We took a detour, chasing curiosity over caution, and spent four hours trying to find our way back out. In the crater’s stillness, the silence pressed in; only the crunch of tyres on grit reminded us we were still moving.
From there, we cut inland, heading for the white salt pan within Etosha National Park. We drove what few attempt: the entire width of the park, from the east to the west gate. The road was less a road than a test; dry riverbeds, deep potholes, and the constant thud of tyres giving way.
And it wasn’t just punctured tyres we encountered.
For six of the ten days, we lived without signal. Off-grid and cut off from the world back home, all we had was each other. We couldn’t look to technology to tell us the way. Just a battered map spread across the bonnet, fingers tracing lines from point to point, decisions made by compass and instinct.
Next, we hit the Caprivi Strip, driving into Botswana’s Okavango Delta and Zimbabwe. In Botswana's National Park, known for its lack of fences, we were truly living amongst the wildlife.
Each night, we set up camp with a roof tent clamped to the top of the 4x4 with nothing but a 6-foot ladder separating us from whatever roamed below. One night, we woke to a family of hyenas exploring our vehicle, another, a hippo cutting directly through the camp.
Finally, we made our way southeast back into Namibia.
A sparsely populated country, surrounded by desert and huge open skies, encountering more wildlife than you do humans. Namibia doesn’t hand you adventure. It demands it. It strips away the noise, the signal, the shortcuts, until all that’s left is the road, the heat, the dust on your skin, and the people beside you. And somewhere out there, in the vast and ancient quiet, you find exactly what you came for, a sense of appreciation that can only come from taking a road less travelled.
