Travel and Places  

Namibia: 4 Things To Do In The Land Of Adventure

By Michael Bamidele

23 May 2021   |   9:23 am

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It is said that the beautiful country of Namibia is Africa for beginners. The Southern African country is famous for its other-worldly scenery, ethereal starry skies, stunning coastline, colossal dunes, vast deserts, incredible wildlife, and epic adventure opportunities! Officially known as the Republic of Namibia, the country shares its western border with the Atlantic Ocean…

Namibia: 4 Things To Do In The Land Of Adventure

It is said that the beautiful country of Namibia is Africa for beginners. The Southern African country is famous for its other-worldly scenery, ethereal starry skies, stunning coastline, colossal dunes, vast deserts, incredible wildlife, and epic adventure opportunities!

Officially known as the Republic of Namibia, the country shares its western border with the Atlantic Ocean as well as shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south and east.

Listed below are a few things you can do in Namibia:
Explore Sossusvlei
The Sossusvlei is one of the most visited attractions in Namibia. It is the perfect specimen of Nambia’s unspoilt desert beauty. Sossusvlei is a salt and clay pan situated in the largest conservation area in Africa, the Namib-Naukluft National Park. The best way to experience the Sossusvlei is from all angles; by quad-biking in the dunes, taking nature walks, and hot-air balloon flights. It is a photographer’s dream, famous for its large, red sand dunes, which are some of the tallest sand dunes in the world.

The sand dunes in the Namib are dynamic and change shape with the wind. The dunes around the Sossusvlei area are known as “star dunes” due to the wind shaping them from all directions.

Big Daddy is the tallest dune in the Sossusvlei area. This magnificent dune is situated between Sossusvlei and Deadvlei and at 325 meters, it dwarfs the other dunes. Should you want the ultimate bragging rights, take a lot of water and trek to the top of Big Daddy, where you can look down onto Deadvlei.

Dune 45 is the most photographed dune in the world. It got its name from the fact that it is 45km from the Serium gate into the Naukluft Namib park. Standing over 170 m, it is composed of red sand that accumulated by the Orange River from the Kalahari Desert and then blown here. The best time to visit is from May to September when it is less hot.

Safari in Etosha National Park
Etosha National Park is a national park in northwestern Namibia. it is one of the most incredible safari destinations on the planet with a wide variety of animals including lion, rhino (white and black – it’s one of the best places to see the endangered black rhino in Southern Africa), elephant, leopard, giraffe and antelope, so you will not be disappointed!

Etosha means the ”great white area” and refers to the huge salt pan. This is an impressive sight because it’s certainly the biggest salt pan in Africa and it can be seen from space.

The park has about 114 mammal species, 340 bird species, 110 reptile species, 16 amphibian species and 1 species of fish (up to 49 species of fish during floods).

You can camp in the park. There are five sites inside the park with lodges and four with facilities for camping. All sites have game-proof fences.

Visit the Himba tribe
The Himba are a semi-nomadic tribe and one of the most recognisable and traditional tribes in all of Africa.
The Himba people, especially women, are famous for covering themselves with otjize paste, a cosmetic mixture of butterfat and ochre pigment.

Otjize cleanses the skin over long periods due to water scarcity and protects from the hot and dry climate of the Kaokoland, as well as from insect bites. It gives Himba people’s skin and hair plaits a distinctive texture, style, and orange or red tinge, and is often perfumed with the aromatic resin of the omuzumba shrub.

Otjize is considered foremost a highly desirable aesthetic beauty cosmetic, symbolising earth’s rich red colour and blood, the essence of life, and is consistent with the OvaHimba ideal of beauty.

Gaze into the starry skies
The whole of Namibia has some of the darkest skies measured on earth, allowing stargazers to gaze deep into the night sky just about every night of the year.
In 2012, the NamibRand Nature Reserve was selected by the International Dark-Sky Association as an official dark sky reserve on account of its low light pollution and cloudless night skies.

Many lodges around Namibia take advantage of the unusually dark skies in the country and have their own telescopes.