Kaokoland - Picture-perfect thirstland filled with magic

Sleeping under the stars on a stretcher out in the open is something that myself and Des try to do as often as we can. It’s difficult on most of our tours as we are normally in wildlife areas with lions, leopards and sneaky hyenas creeping around the campsites at night.

This tour of Kaokoland in northern Namibia offered a great opportunity to sleep out under the blanket of stars, pondering the answers to what is really up there and just how insignificant we really are… Of course, we also pondered our group’s ability to successfully traverse the notorious Van Zyl’s Pass that was our group’s challenge the next day.

On everyone seemed to be awake and pottering around a bit earlier than usual, in high spirits as the nervous excitement built to a crescendo. The night before I had set our departure at 09:00, which would give us plenty of time to tackle the 12 km descent of Van Zyl’s Pass before snaking our way to the Kunene River via the picturesque vistas of the Marienfluss. After a quick breakfast, I gathered the troops for a safety briefing so that everyone knew what was expected of them. Our convoy soon rolled out of camp and started the slow