There comes a moment of tense anticipation when you finally venture to a new destination, an uncharted adventure precluded with so much hype. Will this place that you have seen endlessly on social media, heard about from many travellers, envied and vowed to discover for yourself, really live up to all the expectations?
I have two items on my medium-term bucket list, one of them being a hot-air-balloon safari over the Namib Desert. The second, delightfully ticked off the growing list on a recent visit, was experiencing Shipwreck Lodge in the Skeleton Coast National Park.
It must be emphasised that this corner of our coastline remains one of the few truly untouched landscapes in the country. While wide open spaces are our forte, the favoured and easily accessible attractions have harboured clusters of lodges and activities, dotted around the noteworthy sights within Namibia. The Skeleton Coast National Park is well and truly the most forlorn place the country over, and Journeys Namibia managed to punctuate the deserted isolation with a few cabins on a dune, surrounded by sheer nothingness.
Getting there is half the journey. First, two large gates decorated with a skull and crossbones mark your entry to the fragile, protected area of the park from the southern gate. Then follows a long winding road between sea and sand to Möwe Bay, the small home settlement of ministry rangers and a handful of scientists. Another ride, this time with a seasoned guide, takes us over biscuit-coloured dunes and passes a few famed shipwrecks before trekking thick sand to the front deck of Shipwreck Lodge.
Here, the misty Atlantic winds whisper legends of pioneers and sailors who met an unfaithful end on this coastline. The sands of time venture into every crevice of a wretched shipwreck, left to wither away until the end of time. Remnants of the nomadic Strandloper people, their clay pots and ostrich eggshell beads shattered and scattered, tell ever more fables of life in this deserted place. Our guide shares the legend of inland settlers, whose donkeys ventured through the Hoarusib River to
