On paper, the mission looks simple: Walk through the Kuiseb Canyon from east to west over the course of a week, to see whether it can be a safe and “official” hiking trail.
The canyon is not completely untouched – there have been people here before. During World War II, two young German geologists, Henno Martin and Hermann Korn, hid out here with their dog Otto for two years. They were afraid that the government would lock them up. Martin wrote about their hardships in The Sheltering Desert, a Namibian classic.
Our entrance into the canyon is about 140km east of Walvis Bay, near the C14. A cave in which Martin and Korn lived is close to the road and open to the public. Not far from this cave, the Kuiseb River runs through an imposing gorge all the way to Homeb, a Topnaar settlement.
South of this 160km-long slash in the landscape are the red dunes of the Namib; to the north are sheer, sunburnt cliffs. There are no humans in sight. The Kuiseb is only known to leopards, zebra, gemsbok, jackals, baboons and brown hyenas.
Remember, it’s a recce
“We don’t know how far you’ll hike each day, where you’ll be able to climb out of the canyon or where you’ll camp. It’s a recce, after all,” says Jurgens
