The Skeleton Coast - Exploring the Modern Day Pangaea

July 31, 2004

The Skeleton Coast

We have only seen a handful of other vehicles in the last 5 days in Namibia on the desolate dirt roads. After the Cheetah Park, we continued driving west through a place called Palmwag, which was in the middle of the desert. We spent a night there where we were told we could go on a game drive to hopefully find the "elusive desert elephants." As I said before, I'm a bit game-d out, so I did not go on the drive, which ended up being the right choice, seeing as the "elusive" elephants were roaming around our campsite as we pulled in. I thought they looked the same as regular elephants. So after the lucky desert elephant sighting, we drove through more and more desert toward the Skeleton Coast.

The Skeleton Coast earned its name because of its inhospitable coastline that has become a graveyard for many ships and their crews. The shores of the coast are rocky and very foggy, and if a ship was lucky enough to make it ashore, the sailors would find themselves in hte middle of a huge desert. So, survival was not very likely.

We drove for about 300km down the Skeleton Coast on a dirt road, stopping to see the Cape Fur Seals along the way. It took about 7 hours and the desert seemed endless until the city of Swakopmund just appeared like a mirage. Swakopmund (pronounced Swah-kop-mund, just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?) is known as the adventure capital of Namibia with numerous companies organizing excursions out into the dunes. I've chosen to do the sandboarding and ATV riding - which will be tomorrow!

Posted by msshell on July 31, 2004 04:17 AM
Category: Africa

Comments

What? No Fords? Wow, landscape seems to go on forever with nothing in sight. Quite a few seals, would have to fight for a spot on the cape

Posted by: ron on July 31, 2004 05:10 AM

I'm glad to hear Namibia is finally stabilizing after all the turmoil in the 80's and 90's. Have you run into many Germans there? South West Africa was a German colony, and I've heard there are still a good number fo them there.

Posted by: John J. on August 1, 2004 08:25 AM

Hey- Those pictures of the desert look pretty desolate and I just loved your cheetah pictures. They are so cute! That is funny that you are getting gamed out- I can't imagine seeing enough elephants and lions to be used to them. I am glad you were able to get a vacation from your vacation for a few days and actually sleep in a real bed. That must have been heaven. Things are good over here- we found out on Friday that we are having a little girl! It actually feels real now- starting to get a little freaked out. Take care of yourself and I hope you had fun on your ATV and sandboarding trips!

Posted by: Susan on August 2, 2004 08:21 AM

Geez, I tell yah... same with any good beach, if you dont get there by 10:30am, all the good spots are taken.

You looked pretty calm petting that Cheetah... which one of you was sedated? :-)

Amazing desert picture... can't imagine what it must feel to stand in the middle of nothing for miles...

PS: Do you have a maildrop scheduled for anywhere?

Posted by: Ali on August 2, 2004 12:15 PM

So, ahh, where did you say the city was? Did running out of gas ever concern you? Or did the bus have one of those neat little message centers that you trust so much?!? ;)

Posted by: silent blogger #1 on August 2, 2004 05:15 PM

Hey - Great photos, again! I saw that Bootsnall is going to publish your Kili climb ... that's too cool! Let us know how the sandboarding went.

Posted by: Rob M on August 3, 2004 12:10 PM

What potholes? I don't see any potholes on that road. Looks like you could go 100mph on that road!

Did you get any pictures of skeletons on the beaches? I just see some live seals... :-)

Posted by: Ed on August 7, 2004 12:26 PM

OK, so i had a little catching up to do on the blog, but all i can say is, "WOWSERS Bird".....

I'm so excited for you and your adventures. Your pics have been giving me goosebumps...

sighhhh...can't remember the last time i saw a sunset.....or rode an elephant for that matter...(i HAVE done that ya know! ha ha ha)

i'm yearning for adventure...uhhh....there's a frog exhibit going on at the American Museum of Natural History....maybe i'll go and check it out. :)

Enjoy Australia....write when you can...

miss you a lot.

Posted by: manali on August 9, 2004 12:23 PM

Hey Everyone: here are my answers to the questions on this post:

RON: No Fords, not much of anything in Namibia, but I think thats why I liked it so much.

JOHN: Yes, Swakopmund has lots of Germans - and it was meticulously clean. But the architecture seemed kind of mediterranean. I posted a pic of some of the houses in the sandboarding entry.

SUSAN: CONGRATULATIONS! I sent you an email...

ALI: Yup, no beach space, although it was pretty easy to clear them out by walking near them. They were really skiddish. Nope, no maildrop anywhere - not really sure where I'll be on a day to day basis...

SILENT BLOGGER: I know who you are! Creep. :) Our truck had a 200 gallon tank (I should have taken a picture of it)... so running out was not a problem.

ROB: Yup, they published it on their africa travel website. Sandboarding was ok, 4 Wheeling was better!

ED: The whole road was one big pothole...

BIRD: Frog Exhibit - I wanna go. i love frogs!

Posted by: Michelle on August 10, 2004 06:46 AM

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