Namibia

A vast country with few people inhabiting it, yet offering a wide diversity of wildlife and scenery. A comfortable travelling was assured by our tour guide Andrea operating on behalf on her company Shinga Safaris.

Windhoek from Werth Lookout

File size 76 kB. JPEG only. Established as administrative capital in the early days of German SWA, one would not really think of an African town.

Suricate Tented Camp

File size 59 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Vista from our "tent" eastwards toward the Kalahari Desert. This is quite typical of the tented camps we where about to see.

Kalahari Game Reserve

File size 65 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. There's virtually no lodge in the whole of Namibia where there wouldn't be sundowners. Our first one with Justice, in the Kalahari Game Reserve, however, was one of our best.

Flintstone Cave at Cañon Lodge

File size 75 kB. JPEG only. Our most special "room" during our honeymoon, dubbed "Flinstone Cave" by Andrea. Taking a bath gave the real Fred feeling.

Cañon Lodge Site

File size 44 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. The Cañon Lodge (you can see the buildings to the right of the Bayern München fan) boasted some of Namibias freshest produce, including yummy vegetables and the best ostrich. Despite its largeness, it is a very cosy place. The panos was taken immediately before sunset (the sun hidden behind the left rock) at - guess what - a sundowner walk.

Fish River Canyon

File size 46 kB. JPEG only. At the brink of what is Africa's Grand Canyon. And grand it is, but without proper hiking, I'd say, the difference doesn' matter.

Lüderitz from Shark Hill

File size 66 kB. JPEG only. At the times of Lüderitz's arrival the Shark island - now a peninsula with a light house - was English propert with lucrative guano as well as seal colonies. Towards the Northeast you can spot the large dunes approaching Agathe Bay.

Lüderitz from Diamantberg

File size 74 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Around Lüderitz no one wonders why it took that long to settle this part of Namibia...

Görke House Interior

File size 83 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Recently restored, the Görke House is a jewel. Even though, the original inhabitant's wife preferred Berlin as far as I remember.

Kolmanskop

File size 61 kB. JPEG only. Kolmanskop was considered a high-tech town in the early 1910s offering "usual" European amenities to German engineers - all paid by diamonds. Today it is largely desert and a prime tourist attraction...

Inside the Quartermaster's House

File size 62 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. When the town was finally abandoned after 1944 up to 1956 most of the houses were left as is, transport being too cumbersome.

Kolmanskop

File size 36 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. The view straight ahead is a favorite postcard. To the left you see the Quartermaster's House, behind you the Casino.

Casino at Kolmanskop

File size 72 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. The casino is one of the few rooms which is still regularly in use - for the Fasnacht at Lüderitzbucht..

Kegelbahn at Kolmanskop

File size 50 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Among the luxuries Kolmanskop offered was a skittle alley (Kegelbahn).

Wolwedans at Dusk

File size 30 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. The place which was furthest away from civilization in mind and kilometers was Wolwedans. The perfect place to relax and be one with nature, whatever that is. This pano was shot seconds after the sun had set.

Dune top vista, close to Sossusvlei

File size 57 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. It took me close to an hour to climb the first larger dune on the road Sesriem-Sossusvlei, at the Tsauchab River crossing. You simply can't underestimate the effort of climbing in the sand, even though it was early morning and not yet hot.

Moon Landscape at Welwitschia Drive

File size 49 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. East of Swakopmund, the Moon Landscape does not really look like on the moon (there are stretches further east which are much more like a moon landscape), but it is definitely a very desert place.

Swakopmund

File size 73 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Swakopmund looks like an American bonanza town (see for instance Tombstone, AZ) dotted with German buildings. There happened to be road construction work on the crossing I considered most interesting, though on none of the others. In the German Brauhaus in town you couldn't tell the difference from Germany. Look for a German place (and may be fog as well), then go and see Swakopmund.

Twyfelfontein Rock Carvings

File size 79 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Even ashort walk already features an astonishing collection of rock carvings at Twyfelfontein.

Sunset at Namutoni Fort - Etosha National Park

File size 43 kB. Choose JPEG or Java Viewer. Fort Namutoni was the northernmost German outpost orginally set up to contain the Rinderseuche. Subsequently enlarged, it is now one of the three government camps to house people within Etosha National Park.