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Swakopmund Part 1
Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Wesley Snipes and now Ralph Spilsbury, the celebrity A list has certainly made Swakopmund, on the Namibian coast, it’s home over the last couple of years.
Brad and Angelina came here to have a baby, Wesley to make a movie and yours truly to update our website, re-stock with wine and do the running repairs to vehicle, trailer and Angela that 1200kms of gravel road conditions demand.
As we passed through Walvis Bay on our way to Swakopmund, the roads near the airport were lined with armed troops. I was impressed by the level of security laid on for our visit until I read later that Robert Mugabe was visiting the deep water port that is Walvis Bay. Incredibly goods are off loaded at Walvis Bay and trucked across Namibia (the Namib desert), the Trans Kalahari Highway through Botswana (yet another desert) and in to Zimbabwe. It is apparently cheaper than sailing round the Cape to ports on the east coast of Africa like Durban.
Seeing Mugabe’s smiling face in the local newspaper the next day doing a V for victory sign was galling, he is one of the richest men in the world and his people need a carrier bag full of notes to buy a loaf of bread. One of the most beautiful countries in Africa and some of the friendliest people we’ve ever met screwed by yet another despot, now seeking a change to the constitution to allow him to continue ruling for another 10 years.
Swakopmund is a strange mix of holiday homes (Namibians flock here in December and January to escape the heat of the interior, making it the number one tourist spot in the country), old German colonial buildings and encroaching sand dunes.
The highlight of our stay is a day tour south of Walvis Bay to Sandwich Harbour, a serious 200km 4x4 drive along the beach, sand dunes and salt flats. The salt and fresh water estuaries here are one of Africa’s most important habitats for flamingos, pelicans and numerous wading birds that we recognised from their summer visits to the UK.
In an all too familiar scenario, the area is being destroyed by salt extraction, over fishing, holiday homes development and mining, conservation being the last priority in this barren and harsh landscape. Ironically Namibia is one of the few countries in the world to have environmental protection written in to the constitution, sadly irrelevant when most ministers have shares in mining, chemicals and fishing.
Our guide, Ernest, gives us a master class in dune driving including descending 200 metre high dunes at 45%. He drives a 15 year old Landrover Defender and powers it over areas of potential quicksand before we are aware of the danger. We pause on the beach to see a huge leatherback turtle carcass, probably killed by a ship’s propeller judging by the gouges on it’s shell, and have to stop quickly to avoid running over a seal warming itself on the beach.
Behind the beach and in the dunes, Ernest shows us where jackals have dug for water. Incredibly fresh sweet water is a mere 1ft below the sand here. Taking advantage of the water are a variety of plants including the Nara melon that constituted 70% of the local tribe’s diet before they left for an easier life in town. We see numerous beetles and the aptly named wedge snout lizard, a master in desert survival that swims in the sand to avoid predators.
The tour finishes all too quickly, it is a pity that 99% of the visitors to this area remain unaware of the natural treasure along this coast and choose quad biking and sand boarding in the dunes for their thrills here. Hopefully recent visits by the BBC and RSPB will raise awareness of the threat to these unique wetlands before they disappear for good.
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