‘See that sedimentary mountain? The one with the jagged face and neat stripes of multi-coloured rock. Eighty million years ago that was once the ocean floor’. I am on the edge of my seat in a light aircraft just metres above the mountain in question, hanging on to our guide Bertus Schoeman’s every word.
Everything he tells us simply reinforces my absolute awe of this beautiful, stunning country. I have grown accustomed to feeling small and inconsequential amidst the vastness of the African continent, but Namibia takes this feeling to an altogether different dimension.
Everything about it is…well, just big and bold, its landscapes, mountains, sand dunes, night skies and even its colours. The only small thing about Namibia is its population, but this too is a positive as it allows for 42% of the country’s land mass to be dedicated to conservation.
‘Safari’ is the Swahili word for journey, and I am on a flying safari along the Skeleton Coast with one of the Schoeman brothers. This remote corner in the north-west of the country is as wild as it gets – much of the topography hasn’t changed for millions of years – and it is hard to comprehend that others may have been here before you.
Bertus shares his unique knowledge with us, gives us space and time to absorb what we are seeing, and we do begin to believe that we really are the first people to set eyes on this breathtaking environment.
Each day was remarkable, different and full of surprises.
Every incomparable last experience was soon surpassed. Highlights were too many to list, but flying ten feet above the shipwrecks that still litter the Skeleton Coast, landing on a clay pan in the Sossusvlei corridor, listening to the dunes ‘roar’ then driving across them in a land rover, boating on the Kunene River and, as a finale, flying over the mountains of Angola are memories that will stay with me for ever.
A Skeleton Coast Safari with the Schoemans is a very, very special experience that no word or photograph – and certainly not mine! – could ever do justice to.