Namibia boasts what is known as the second biggest canyon in the world, a little sister to the Grand Canyon in the US. Having seen pictures from our friends’ treks to the edge, Fish River Canyon looks quite like the Grand Canyon in every way.
So…why bother? Why sail more than half-way around the world to see this almost-as-grand, Grand Canyon?
Calling Las Vegas, Nevada “home” Andrew and I arrived in Namibia marveling about the oddity of visiting an alternate dimension of our own desert life. Pink Flamingos instead of bald eagles. Oryx instead of mule deer. Baboons and hyenas. Diamond Fever instead of the Gold Rush. We had to see a canyon that matches a place we always thought unique in the world.
Plan To Slack-Pack Fish River Canyon
There are a few different ways you can visit the Fish River Canyon. It's a 6-8 hour drive out to the canyon rim from Luderitz. You can drive out, take a look, stay the night in one of Namibia's roadstead camps or lodges, then turn around and return. For the especially intrepid, you can backpack your way through the base of the canyon over the course of a week. We chose a hybrid of the two, and dare I say the most awesome of the options?
We planned to slack pack: all the fun of hiking with none of the suffering in carrying your own gear. We would drive through the Namib Desert, exploring stops along the way until we arrived at Fish River base camp. There, we would deliver our sleeping bags, clothes, and food supply to camp hosts. They would would set us on the trail early morning, then deliver our supplies to cabins perched on the edge of the canyon cliff. We had only to carry the day’s water, peanut butter sandwiches, and trail snacks from place to place.
Even better, we planned this adventure with friends. Matt and Amy on SV Florence sailed North with us from Cape Town. Having known them since Seychelles, we figured they knew the Odd-of-Oddgodfrey well enough to withstand a road trip together. For a while, they resisted out of concern that we'd be annoyed with their version of Namibian treasure prospecting.
"Don't worry!" I insisted, “I am going to hunt star pictures. What are you hunting, Andrew?”
“I want to live out the National Geographic Episodes of my youth." Andrew said.
Matt and Amy were out to hunt YouTube Footage Gold.
Matt and Amy first set off from England the same time we left San Diego in 2016. Amy started making YouTube videos to send their adventures back to her Nan. With their down to earth style, extensive dinghy racing knowledge (they were giving the Seychellois Olympic team a run for their money), constant movement through a real circumnavigation, and narration voices as credible as David Attenborough, their channel began to gather a wider audience. Now, they are Sailing-World Celebrities! At least once, I’ve been asked by a Sailing Florence audience member to take a photograph of them with Matt, Amy, and Florence in the background. Matt and Amy blush a bit when this happens, but it’s all in a days work! Their YouTube channel now keeps both Amy and Matt employed with 40 hours/week worth of video editing, voiceovers, music overlay, and the art of capturing what it means to live life at sea. Andrew and I looked forward to trekking with them and watching first-hand how the sausage gets made. In the meantime, Sonrisa, Grin and Katherine Hepburn were left in the capable hands of Andy the Mooring Keeper = a package deal “included with the cost of the mooring.”
The Oldest Desert in the World
The Namib Desert is the oldest desert in the world, and it is bone dry. Sand dunes move and shift in the driving winds that come up from South Africa, Antarctica, and off the ocean. Sonrisa and Florence had been catching sand dunes on their decks, coating their rigging and lines with a sand powder so fine it turns to paste when the sea fog rolls in. Thus, we were all amused by a warning sign posted at the side of the road warning us “sand” may be present in the vicinity.
In all seriousness, though, sand poses a real hazard to road travel here. It acts just like snow under our tires. When it is deep, you can get stuck. When it is blowing in thin layers across pavement, it is slick. And when the sun falls and it gets dark, it becomes impossible to see the contours of the sand/dirt in the road. Namibia employs a steady fleet of sand movers to dig its roads and railways out from under piles of sand.
“If you get stuck, it might be a while before anyone can come along to pull you out," the rental truck owner warned us. Namibia is remote. There is no cell service in anywhere but the bigger cities and with one of the lowest population densities in the whole world, there are few passersby. “Never pass up a fueling station. They are few and far between, and you never know when the next one will be dry."
It is with this advice we packed all our food, extra water, and both warm and cold weather clothes for a four day trip. We zoomed off into the desert figuring it can't be more remote than crossing oceans.
An hour or so down the road, Amy said “Here comes a city,” following our route with her finger on the road map.
“I think we passed that already,” Matt said, elected driver for this trip.
“I didn’t see anything,” Amy said.
"But look, this is where the wild horses are supposed be, and we passed this old train station here...”
Matt pulls over and all four of us lean in to decipher the map. Indeed, there is a dot with a name, much like you'd imagine to denote a city on every other map I've ever followed.
“Are we on the wrong road?"
Looking toward the horizon, we could see a sign to the side of the road marking the path to visit the wild horses. “There are the wild horses, so we are definitely here…” We were not lost, it was the city that was missing.
We parked the car and stand beneath a shade hut to watch a herd of wild horses gallop across the landscape and drink from a watering hole filled specifically for them. Namibians are proud of their water. “Best water in the world!” we heard more than once. It’s pulled from a water table below the surface, clean and drinkable without chlorination after taking its route of natural filtration through the earth. Despite this being a desert, they seemed to have descent water supply for those who live here - simply because so few people live here.
Apparently, enough to share with the horses.
After pushing onwards, we came to the next "city" on the map. We slowed to a stop at an intersection of two dirt roads. A small house was on the left, one gas pump with rusty cars from the 1940's was on the right.
"Well, now I understand why we missed the last city!”
We pull in and filled up with fuel.
Quiver trees are unique in all the world. They are found only here in Namibia and in a few bordering sections of South Africa. They are a member of the Aloe family. Their silky smooth bark of their trunks give off a golden sheen and leave behind a white powder on your hands when you touch them. Weaver birds pull grass from the ground and build huge nests for their babies to wait in while they find food.
Next door was the “Giant’s Playground”. We were skeptical this would be worth the extra drive, but once we arrived we changed our tunes. We were dwarfed by stacks of enormous rocks, just like rock cairns humans might stack near a hike, but enormous. Piles of these boulders stretch out to the horizon. How in the world did this happen? We marveled. The guidebook explained it is a function of volcanic activity in which certain lava material flowed into the crevices and spaces between sand, and as the sand blows away, these stacks of rocks were left behind. While this makes sense, the imagination is far more willing to accept the explanation conjured that giants carried the boulders to this open field to stack blocks like a school of 5 year olds may do.
I poke around with my camera while Amy and Matt narrate the experience before one of those very official looking fuzzy microphones. My own photo model clambers over rock piles and waves back at me to capture the scenery.
At this point the sun had fallen low in the sky. We'd long ago left pavement behind and instead our truck was flying over the wide grated expanse of Namibian dirt freeways. Our tires threw clouds of dust into the reddening sky until we arrive at our base camp where Andrew prepared our braai dinner and we busied ourselves preparing our gear for a pre-dawn wakeup call.
...to be continued...