Journey to the Deserts Edge

I’ve recently returned from a 2 week trip to Namibia. My long time school friend Emile Borman currently resides in Windhoek Namibia where he is a pilot. We remain in contact all the time and he’s been telling me about all the great places he’s been to in Namibia. He also told me that he flies over the Namib Desert for scenic flights and that there are often an extra spot on the plane.



“Albert, I am quite sure that if you make it to the Desert next week, then I’ll be able to take you on a scenic flight” – Emile Borman.







With this opportunity in mind, I started to plan a trip up North. Last year I went traveling through Southern Africa and paid a brief visit to Namibia. I haven’t been to the Namib Desert since 1997 when I had the opportunity to go with my parents. In April 2008 I visited the South of Namibia, but I’d always wanted to go back to the Desert.



I arranged a lift with a truck driver last year before leaving to Namibia for my Southern Africa trip. Unfortunately the Margarine order due for Windhoek that time failed and I opted to go up with the bus. This time, a year later, I contacted the same truck driver and asked for a lift up to Windhoek.

With hardly any money I would try to make use of free or cheap transport to visit Emile and hopefully be able to get a scenic flight over the Namib Desert.







The journey up north started on Sunday morning. My father dropped me at Fritz Brandt the truck driver’s house in Porterville. We journeyed up to the Namibian border through Namakwaland’s flower region. The sceneries up to Namibia were beautiful. Past the border we stopped for a braai next to the highway and grilled some lamb chops and sausage.

I would catch this free lift with Fritz and then hitch to the deserts edge to meet up with Emile. I packed enough food for the road to last me 2 days. With my tent, sleeping bag, gas stove, pots, canned Tuna and water bottles I was prepared for the adventure that lay ahead.

Fritz dropped me early on Monday morning in Windhoek where I met up with Emile for a brief hour. He was on his way to fly a group of tourists to a lodge in the desert. Luckily I had made it in time to meet up with Emile in Windhoek as we shared valuable information about the travels ahead. I took a quick shower at Emile’s flat, filled my water bottles and told him that I’d most likely make it to our meeting point in 2 days time.

He then dropped me at the side of the B1 highway to start my hitchhiking journey westwards to meet up with him again.

Within 20 minutes I was off with my first lift. This lift took me back south to Mariental where I climbed off and headed west to Maltahohe. The man that had picked me up was originally from Denmark and had been traveling and working through out the world as a UN refugee consultant. He’d been traveling through Africa numerous times and all the stories inspired me for my journey ahead.

At the turn off westwards I got a lift with a baster from Rheboth. He and his farm worker drove into town to buy bullets to kill the baboons on the farm as they were a threat to his livestock. He poured himself a double brandy and coke in a foamlite glass and said that it’s because of the baboons that he was drinking. This lift took me only halfway to Maltahohe and I had to wait 3 hours for my next lift.

A grumpy old man picked me up and took me to Maltahohe. The only words of this trip were at the end when he asked me if I had enough water for the road ahead. So I went to the only café in town and bought a 1.5 liter water to add to my 1.5L I already had. Never through out the journey did I buy water again as I always filled my bottles with tap water.

If there’s no tap water then you drink Beer!

I got a lift on the back of a bakkie from Matlahohe in the direction of Sossusvlei. By this time my boere-tan started to take shape.

I was dropped at an intersection and within 10min a German women and her son picked me up. This was my first encounter with the Germans as Namibia has more German tourists than Jacob Zuma has wives. I climbed into the rented car with Sonja and Felix and we started off with a wheel spin. At first they thought I was from England and when I told then I was from Cape Town they thought I was American. Welcome to Africa, Cape Town is 1600km south from here, be careful of the lions. They dropped me at the intersection I had to take and took off in the sunset.

As the sun started to set the horizon became more colourful and I realized that this would be where I’d have to spend the night. In 2 hours not a single car had passed and I started to walk to the nearest tree. The girl in me decided to build a fence with thorn branches incase there were some Hyenas. I started up my gas stove and made a filling tuna meal where after I went to bed in my one man tent. That night there were no hyenas though I was kept awake by an owl in the tree above me.

At sunrise I was up and standing next to the road. The first 4x4 convey that came past picked me up. We did not have much to say to each other as they were Italian and I was American/English/South African.

I was only 60km away from where I was supposed to meet Emile. The Italian group took me to the turn off for the lodge and Emile told me that there would be cellphone reception at the gate (I bought a Namibian Simcard in Windhoek). Arriving at the gate there was no cellphone signal. It was a 20km hike to the lodge and there was no way I would make it. I only had 500ml of water left.

A German group in a rented 4x4 came from the opposite direction and I opened the gate for them. They looked at me as if I got paid to stand there for a day opening gates. Before driving off I stopped them and asked for some water. Again they looked at me as if I was some dirty backpacker Bushman with hidden water in Ostrich eggs behind the gate that I open for the 5 cars that pass per day.

Off they went without giving me water (I hope they got a puncture and could not read the instructions on how to use a jack and ended up being dehydrated). I had 500ml left, so I would make it.

Within 5min the staff of the lodge arrived at the gate. I asked them for a lift in to the lodge and 20min later I knocked on Emile’s door where he was still in his boxers watching The Hangover.

It was Tuesday morning and I had made it to the edge of the Desert. I washed all the desert dust off, drank a cooldrink and joined Emile to watch The Hangover.

The day before I was nursing a boere-tan, taking a shit in the bush and being a girl about Hyenas. Here I was clean and chilling at a 5 star lodge with 3 meals a day having a laugh with one of my best mates.