Closing Out Namibia: Swakopmund and Etosha National Park

World Famous Apple Pie on the Way to Swakopmund

From Sossusvlei, we drove over 5 hours to reach the small coastal city of Swakopmund. There is absolutely nothing for hours on end with the only semblance of civilization being a small stop called Solitaire. To call Solitaire a village is an overstatement. It is just a few buildings with a gas station, a restaurant, a shop, and a cafe famous for its apple pies in the middle of nowhere. Throughout Namibia, it’s quite baffling to see establishments like this out of the blue. I kept wondering, where do all the workers live? Sometimes we will also just see a person walking along the highway in the middle of nowhere. Where did they come from and where are they going? I’ve had so many questions driving around the country…

Since we were driving by, we had to stop to try the famous apple pie at McGregor’s Bakery. Nate was particularly excited as an apple pie enthusiast. It was clear that everyone was doing the same as the bakery was bustling, even though we saw very few cars on the road. The verdict? Nate thought it was good but nothing to rave about, but it grew on him and he revised his score upwards. I thought it was delicious! It was piping hot, not too sweet  like there was no added sugar, and did not have much cinnamon (which I dislike). So definitely worth a stop!

Swakopmund: A City in the Midst of Sand Dunes

As we got closer to Swakopmund, it was hard to comprehend what we were seeing. The road to Swakopmund was right along the coast, so to our left was the Atlantic Ocean and to our right were sand dunes as far as the eye could see. And then suddenly was this city, literally among the sand dunes. It really felt like something out of Star Wars.

Once we entered the city, even just a few blocks in, was a very cute German-inspired town where you could forget that the endless dunes were at the edge of town. Swakopmund was started by the Germans so their presence is still very strong architecturally, culturally, and linguistically. There are still many German-Namibians and you can hear lots of German being spoken.

We checked into our hotel where we would be spending three nights in an actual room with a bed! As much fun car camping is, I was very glad to have real accommodation for a couple nights. We walked over to the beach and had fish, calamari, and chips as an early dinner from a food truck. It was the best fish and chips we’ve ever had! The breading and seasoning was on point. The calamari was outstanding and perfectly cooked. We wanted to have it one more time before we left, but unfortunately were unable to. If you’re ever in Swakopmund, make sure to try Fork n’Nice.

The next day, I turned 32 in an oasis city in the desert. Not too shabby of a way to spend a birthday. We were exhausted from all the early days so we took it easy and went quad biking (or ATV-ing) in the sand dunes in the late afternoon. It was so incredible and fun speeding through the dunes! I had only been ATV-in once before in Costa Rica, so this was very different. I felt like I was in Mad Max. Fun fact, we later found out that Mad Max: Fury Road was filmed around Swakopmund so it was not an exaggeration. It got a bit disorienting driving through the indistinguishable sand dunes making it hypnotic in a good way.

After quad biking, we went for beers by the beach at a very laid-back outdoor bar. Then we went to a popular German restaurant for dinner as we had heard so much about the great German food, But it was a disappointment as the food was fine but not great. It was still a very cute restaurant so it was a good end to the day.

The next day was our action packed day. We went on an all-day excursion courtesy of Kim (thank you). In the morning, we went on a Living Desert Tour with a guide that shows how to find the little dessert creatures. It was very impressive to see the guides spot the small signs to find snakes, lizards, skinks, etc. It’s amazing the life that can thrive out there.

In the afternoon, we went out to Sandwich Harbour. This is where the sand dunes meet the ocean. You have to go with a guide because the narrow beach on which you drive disappears during high tide. So if you mistime it, you will get trapped and you have to climb the dunes to escape leaving your car to get thrashed by the ocean. We had an amazing guide who took us to the best scenic spots and gave us an adventure ride through the dunes. It felt like a roller coaster. It was so much fun!

The Matterhorn of Namibia – Spitzkoppe

There is so much to do in Swakopmund that I was sad to leave this delightfully strange and unique city (and our comfortable room and bed). But we had to make our way to Etosha National Park. This too, is a long drive, so we decided to break it up by staying a night at Spitzkoppe, an isolated group of granite mountains that is often called the “Matterhorn of Namibia”. It was striking to see because it rises up in the middle of vast flat land. Spitzkoppe was beautiful with rounded rock formations and peaks. It even had a cool rock arch very similar to an arches at Arches National Park. We climbed the arch and the rocks around it around sunset.

Spitzkoppe is also known for San (the native “Bushmen”) rock paintings that are 2 to 4,000 years old. We took a short hike up with a park guide to see some paintings. It is incredible how well preserved some of these paintings are. The ones we saw are tucked under a rock which has helped protect them from the elements. It was so cool to think that these were painted using a mixture of animal blood millennia ago and we could still clearly see and depict these paintings. The purpose of the paintings was to communicate to others what animals were in the vicinity. This could act as a warning to others if there were lions or other dangerous animals nearby. This was my favorite thing at Spitzkoppe.

Camping at Spitzkoppe was unique because each campsite was very large and spread out from others. It felt like we were the only ones at the mountain. We couldn’t see or hear anyone else. Luckily, it was much warmer in Spitzkoppe than Sossusvlei so we were also able to better enjoy our quiet evening with some Korean Shin ramen to break up our rice and beans dinners.

Self-Driving Safari in Etosha National Park

For our final leg of our Namibia journey, we went to Etosha National Park in the north of the country. Etosha is known for the many watering holes where wildlife, including rhinos, congregate making it an excellent destination for self-driving safari. We stayed at Okaukuejo campsite which has the most famous watering hole for two nights. Okaukuejo’s reputation did not disappoint as on our first night at the watering hole, we saw seven rhinos! The watering hole is lit with orange lights at night so we were able to observe past sunset. We had seen two rhinos from afar in South Africa, but here we saw many more, including a baby rhino up close. We were so excited that we watched them for two hours. We even saw a couple rub their horns and faces together which was very cool. It wasn’t always clear whether the interactions were all friendly or almost confrontational.

Other exciting sightings at Etosha were a cheetah and lions. The cheetah was from afar so we sadly didn’t get pictures, but we could still see it very clearly with our binoculars. We also saw a male lion with two females one morning and even saw two of them mate for a little bit. Otherwise, we saw probably thousands of impala and zebra. We also saw another large herd of elephants which is always exciting.

Self-driving is very different since it’s in our own vehicle and we don’t have a guide and tracker pointing out and explaining to us. But it was very fun in its own way since we have to be actively searching the entire time. Nate was definitely the better spotter than me so as the driver, he was wearing both the guide and tracker hats.

After two and a half days at Etosha, we stayed at a campsite outside of the park then made our way back to WIndhoek to head to our next stop: Victoria Falls.