Namibia

14/02/2023
Welcoming the participants at the Lisbon airport, in a schedule to be announced. Flight with TAAG at 22h30.

15/02/2023
The time of arrival should be around 15h35. After the disembarking formalities and customs, and gathering up all the members of the group, we leave for the parking lot of the 4×4 vehicles. After distributing the vehicles among the participants, we continue our journey to the hotel. We’ll check in and have dinner at the hotel.

Hotel: Hilton Windhoek

16/02/2023
Early in the morning we will gather the necessary supplies for the first days of our trips. Windhoek is a modern capital with excellent infrastructures and plenty of large stores for this first mission of ours. Our expedition begins just a few kms outside of Windhoek, where tar gives way to dirt roads. These are the main travel routes across Namibia.

We’ll arrive in Solitaire. It’s a place where there are no worries, but there is everything we need. That which we want the most at the moment, Solitaire is there to offer it to us. This is where we will have lunch and coffee, along with the best apple pie in the country.

In the afternoon, we’ll keep on rolling through the earth tracks until we reach the Lodge, where we will have dinner and spend the night.

Hotel: Desert Homestead Lodge

17/02/2023
This day is dedicated to the National Park of Nauklut, one of the most famous and sought out places in Namibia. This is where we’ll find the iconic orange dunes, including “Duna 45”, the tallest dune nicknamed “Duna Big Mamma”. This is a gratifying hiking challenge beyond the amazing Dead Vlei, where we’ll have lunch.

These dunes get to be 400m tall. This marvel is a reason in itself to visit Namibia, though it’s not its only nature attraction.

Dead Vlei, further ahead, is probably one of the most incredible and most photographed places in Namibia. The arid beauty of this small dry lake, which means ‘dead marsh’, was once a lake that eventually dried up due to the advancement of the dunes. The trees ended up dying, but, because of the heat, they almost petrified. The white riverbed, the black of the trees scorched by the sun, the orange of the dunes that envelop the lake, and the blue of the sky make this scene unique which any photographer and nature enthusiast will fall in love with.

By the end of the day, in Sesriem, we will visit a small canyon where the sunset lit up in gold, and its aisles sculpted by the erosion of the water that has ran here for thousands of years.

The name of this place comes from the fact that the locals usually heave buckets of water by using six belts with knots (Sesriem, precisely means “six belts”). After this short walk across the canyon, we will head to the lodge where we’ll have dinner and stay the night.

Expected hotel: Desert Quiver Camp

18/02/2023

We continue along to Walvis Bay. On the way, we’ll cross the Tropic of Capricorn, the Kuiseb River Canyon and a few miles until we sight the usual mists of the shore. Walvis Bay is a small city with the largest seaport of Namibia. The charm of the residential area, facing the bay, contrasts with the sea giants that moor here each day. The night will be spent at a bayside hotel and dinner will be at a local restaurant.

Expected hotel: Protea Marriott Walvis Bay 

19/02/2023

Walvis Bay doesn’t really show a lot on tourist itineraries because its neighbour, Swakopmund, steals away its protagonism. However, Walvis Bay has a lot to see: its bays shelters colonies of sea-lions, flamengos, pelicans and jackals. The contrast between this wild environment and the great containers and oil tankers that stop at the bay and make the scene an uncommon postcard.

In the morning, we’ll take a boat ride around the bay, where we can have a closer look at the colony of sea-lions and flamengos. To top the ride, we might even be visited by a pelican friend which likes to show off on the bow of the boat in the hope of getting a treat. We then make way to Swakopmund and then Cape Cross, discovered by Diogo Cão, where there is one of the largest colonies of sea-lions i the world..

We say goodbye to the shore and venture into land, to the semi-desert region of Damaraland. We’ll set our camp in the Messum Crater, where we can see the first ever Welwitschias Mirabilis, a plant that can live over 2000 years and that only grows here. The first camp of the program will be in the wilderness, where the panorama is indescribable. Wait until you see the star-speckled sky… this will be a night to remember.

20/02/2023

At dawn we break and get started on one of the two days which we will be spending across the Damaraland region, one of the most inhospitable in Namibia. The semi-arid and petrified landscape is a treasure of geology, archeology and ancestral natural history put together. The region has vast plains of gravel, steep areas, plateaus and sandstone agglomerations of several sizes.

Damaraland gets its name from the Damara people, who, along with the bushmen San, are known to be the oldest original inhabitants of Namibia and the creators of prehistoric art found in the rocky massifs of the region.

It is impressive that this region can hold animals with a supernatural ability to resist and to adapt, such as the oryx and the elephants. Even so, we can find an important amount of zebras, antelopes, giraffes and a few black rhinos.

In Damaraland there is also the Brandberg Mountain, or ‘the fire mountain’ (its summit is 2600m high and the highest in Namibia), the petrified forest with over 200 million years, the Burt Mountain, the basalt layers called Organ Pipes, as well as the world-famous prehistoric paintings of Twyfelfontein. There are over 2500 paintings and carvings across the region, made by hunters in the Neolithic Age about 6000 years ago. After visiting Twyfelfontein, a relaxing afternoon awaits us at an exclusive lodge. Dinner at the lodge.

Hotel previsto: Twyfelfontyein Adventure Camp

21/02/2023

The following morning, we will visit the “Damara Culture Living Museum” of the Damara tribe, and the petrified forest, before we head to a special place where we will rest and recharge and especially enjoy the magnificent view at Vingerklip Lodge, where we will have dinner.

Expected hotel: Vingerklip Lodge

22/02/2023
After breakfast, we’ll have a final swim under the amazing view the pool of the lodge offers. After this treat, we will head to Etosha, stopping by the small town of Kamanjab to get supplied for dinner at camp.

As we camp on this day, we are already inside the Etosha National Park, over 60 km away from the entrance gate. At this isolated campsite in the wilderness, there is an observatory where it is frequent to spot lions, rhinos, elephants and many other animals. It also has an information center on the history of the elephants in Etosha, which tells some of its most dramatic tales in the 1880s.

23/02/2023

We’ll spend the day exploring this amazing park. Etosha is one of the most important natural reserves in the south of Africa. It was declared a National Park in 1907, with 22 270 km2, and it’s the home to 114 species of mammals, 340 species of birds, 110 species of reptiles, 16 species of amphibians and, surprisingly, one species of fish.

Etosha, which means ‘Great White Place’, holds an enormous pan (dried salt lake). It was originally a lake fed by the river Kunene, but the course of the river changed thousands of years ago and the lake dried. The pan is now a geological depression of dusty salt and clay which fills only with the intense rainfall and so attracts thousands of wading birds and impressive flocks of flamingos.

Our adventures at the park start at dawn, with the sunrise. The wild animals don’t wait for us and it is at this time that it all begins, while it’s still cool and the animals travel to water sources.

At night, already outside of the park, we will have dinner and stay at the lodge.

Expected hotel: Mushara Bush Camp

24/02/2023
The day will be spent on wheels as we head directly to Windhoek, where we expect to arrive mid-afternoon. After handing back our vehicles, we will check-in at the hotel and have a goodbye dinner at a local restaurant, a very special and unique place in the capital of Namibia. It is a gastronomic experience which will spark up your taste buds.

Expected hotel: Avani Windhoek

25/02/2023
Free morning to shop for some last minute souvenirs and visiting the center of Windhoek.

We’ll check-out of the hotel and leave for lunch at a time to be arranged. We’ll then be taken to the airport so as to return to Lisbon. The flight will be at 16h35 with TAAG.

26/02/2023
Arrival in Lisbon at 6h10.

END OF THE TRIP