Namibia reflections
- Guy Mavor
- Oct 28
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 hours ago
So what was your favourite part?
Namibia is a wonderland, and so varied, so there is no adequate way to answer this question. We loved the Naukluft for its unexpected flora, the Namib for its scale and stark beauty, the coast for the life on the shoreline and in the sea, all three for the way we were looked after. Damaraland's rock art was extraordinary, the people we met there and at Etendeka were special, doing extraordinary things to safeguard their environment and their future in a changing world, Nhoma too, in what it seeks to do for traditional culture but also for its community's sustainable participation in a modern economy and country. It is a delicate line to tread and they do it thoughtfully.
And what about Etosha? For me, it is a highlight precisely for the crowds - of wildlife and people. The latter are well below 'carrying capacity', carefully penned in and directed around the wildlife. In my view, above and beyond the endless fauna, it is precisely the democratic, communal waterhole experience which gives Etosha a special kind of magic. Our moment with the lion pride was shared with one other couple and their young son. We grinned at each other briefly. Wonder was the vibe. The waterholes drew bigger crowds, but people are OK, aren’t they? Lots of safari marketing still contains the word ‘exclusive’ (from the verb ‘exclude’).
There are special, remote experiences to be had in Africa, often with a considerable price tag, but the best of these are built on, with and increasingly for the local community. Originally, when this was meant to be a business rather than a blog, I intended Many Africas to showcase these kinds of places, and I am glad we have visited some.
In my time writing guide books I found that beyond a certain price point I ran the danger of meeting people congratulating themselves on being the kind who can afford to be there in such an 'exclusive' place rather than looking outward at what was around them. This always got to me. Times have changed but this outlook persists. It is such a shallow, isolating way of engaging with the world, with people but also with an environment: the world around us isn’t just another consumer experience, although often in wild Africa you do need a guide to keep you safe from dangers to which you are oblivious.
But perhaps it is also the hosting which encourages this. In some safari lodges you can be treated and flattered like a pampered princeling. The cool flannel and welcoming drink after a game drive on which you have just had a drink are borderline ridiculous in my view, but some lodges go much further than this. There are places in pristine, wild bush which have built air-conditioned, tasting-notes-on-a-touchscreen wine cellars. I don't think this helps. So many of my best travel memories are conversations with hosts, who open a technicolour window onto their world. Ideally, the setting will always lend itself to this breaking down of the client-host barrier because in the best places the host, even while working ridiculous hours, loves being there too, or is home, even, and relaxed. Conversations around a fire after dark or around a vehicle as the sun goes down are such a lovely part of visiting a wilderness.
In order to really enjoy the vastness of the desert, we stretched our budget to stay at Kulala, which was gorgeous and for my tastes bordered on too-slick in terms of hosting, but was pulled back from this by genuine individual and collective warmth. There is the sense of a stake in the business from people working there, which I think is generally the case in Wilderness properties, although for my tastes their marketing could tell more people-in-the-wilderness stories. I don’t know. Years ago went to a job interview at a safari company with these notions in mind, only to be told that perhaps 10% of customers felt this way. But I think that figure has risen dramatically in recent years. Travel is more conscious of impact, more deliberate, perhaps more guilty, more desirous of meaningful experiences and exchanges.
The idea that locals ruin their environment ('unspoilt Africa') is fading from the marketing, and not before time, but there is a tension in conservation and the conservancy model, which is centred on land use. You could look at it in farming terms - yield-per-hectare: does conservation make more money for local people than activity which doesn't preserve or even restore an environment? In some ways, this is a clear way of seeing things, and in northwest Namibia the answer is clear: yes. But it does leave the door open for other industries to say "I can get you guys more cash" (yes, mining and oil, I mean you). The distribution of this cash is rarely equitable in these cases.
Etendeka, for example, is a conservancy which made the deliberate decision to ‘exclude’ local people from the land, but only in order that they might benefit far more from tourism than they were able to from livestock. Interaction with the people who work there, with their environment and knowledge, is what makes the stay special. The clear sense that they are custodians of the land really gives the lie to the idea, beloved of a certain kind of populist politician, that conservation is a white luxury imposed on black people. This is development in concert with conservation, sustainable whole-community uplift.
Nhoma had this feeling too, in abundance, except that what is conserved is culture. Given that this includes hunting and gathering, it makes for slightly emptier bush than in the adjacent national park but, equally, you are among people who tread lightly on the Earth. The environment is lush, and from our glimpse of it, village life is joyful, quiet, peaceful, lived on its own terms. The contrast with adjacent land signed away to loggers or livestock owners in unequal deals, or even Tsumkwe, is vivid. The latter town, which serves as the administrative centre of Bushmanland, did not seem quite as dismal as the place Paul Theroux described in The Last Train to Zona Verde but there were still a few alcohol-dazed men hanging around the petrol station and store on our brief stop there.
What is still a reality, in Namibia and South Africa, is white ownership, both historical and based on access to capital for setting up tourism businesses. That is changing, and is only a bad thing if you have never met a small-scale tourism or safari business owner constantly balancing overheads, occupancy and the hundreds of other factors which keep it thriving and prevent it going tits up. It is an exhausting business, full of passionate, caring people.
How can you make informed choices when you travel? Hopefully, this blog helps. I am opinionated, sure (my top tip, as you might have gathered: avoid the word 'exclusive'), but I do try to make these opinions informed, by research and on-the-ground experience. Talk to someone at a travel company like Expert Africa, who organised our trip at my wife’s insistence. They really are experts. I would happily have organised it myself but probably couldn’t have done it cheaper. It is an industry built on fine margins, with operators able to access slightly better rates. Other good options: Aardvark Safaris attract a posher crowd, Yellow Zebra have a younger clientele perhaps, but most Africa-only specialists are full of Africa nerds who will listen to you, make suggestions and find somewhere brilliant for you, rather than marketers who will hard-sell you something. Demands for payment are generally quite prompt and insistent once you have agreed on an itinerary, however.
A final tip: if you are on a budget, you can camp in all the areas we stayed (apart from Etendeka, which doesn’t have a campsite, although Palmwag Lodge at the bottom of the valley does have a lovely one) in a 4x4 with rooftop tents, or even a 2x4 camper van or car with a bit of clearance (you could also do a trip in a VW Polo, as I once did, but gravel roads are not a lot of fun in a small car). There are spectacular campsites all over the country, as well as good supermarkets, and you will more than halve your costs. You can also do an organised camping tour of Namibia – big truck, 16 people or so, communal cooking – but I last did it as a teenager over 30 years ago, so I can’t recommend any companies now. They all looked to be having fun when we came across them. I don’t think I’d camp in Walvis Bay or Swakopmund in winter, however, as it’s damp and cold and there plenty of reasonably-priced guest houses.
If you’re wondering where to start, begin with booking flights and a good vehicle. Outside school holidays (Christmas, January, July, August and the two weeks around Easter) you will be able to find a good spot to camp, if not your first choice, with little advance booking. During school holidays, it only takes a little more planning. Go for it!
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