In which the beach eats us, the locals save us, and my dignity takes a permanent holiday.
The morning started the way every other one had on this so-called “holiday”: woke up practically on the beach, a luxury house wrapped in 180 degrees of ocean views, the sort of thing Paris Hilton would post on Instagram before retreating to her cryogenic chamber.
Problem is, my kind of place is the one Black Mamba Man sings about — bleak, dusty, and with the ever-present threat of tetanus.
We packed the car and hit the road towards the Skeleton Coast, faint echoes of “Rhodie Till I Die” muttering in the back of my skull like a bad omen.
Now, if you remember from the previous chapter (if you don’t, congratulations — you probably had better things to do.), you’ll recall I had a rather miserable attempt at being a tourist.
Well, guess what? Today, I was forced into being one again.
It went about as well as dropping a piano down a flight of stairs.
We stomped around Swakopmund like lost livestock, paraded through every shop designed to lure in your mother and bleed your wallet dry. And since mine was physically present, the prophecy was fulfilled.
An hour of life lost forever, we finally fled.
We hurtled past Henties Bay like a getaway car after a bad heist, and suddenly, the tar just… ended.
In its place, an endless dirt road that looked suspiciously like the moon, if the moon had been sponsored by Elon Musk and had zero amenities except dust.
It was barren, wastelandish, and somehow still breathtaking — the kind of beauty that marketing departments promise but never deliver. Except here, it was real.
Now, my brother had made it known that his wish-list for the trip included seeing shipwrecks. At first, I thought: fair enough. Maybe a few good photos, maybe some birding. What could go wrong?
Enter: Disaster One.
We pulled over at the first wreck, got out like dutiful tourists — a bicker here, a shove there, because why not — and immediately got swarmed by local hawkers with the persistence of mosquitoes and the bargaining skills of medieval tax collectors. Annoyed beyond measure, we beat a hasty retreat.
Another 100km down the coast, another wreck loomed.
Perfect, right? Remote location, less human infestation. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, everything.
The road to it had a ‘4×4 Only’ sign, which — naturally — we ignored because the Polo Vivo had survived “worse”.
But what the sign really meant was: “You are about to drive 3 kilometres on loose beach sand, and your overnight accommodation will not be reimbursed.”
And not the sort of sand a humble hatchback can flirt with.
No no no- the kind that requires a land cruiser and some experience. Definitely not a Land Rover and the belief of experience. We crashed onto the beach the way arrogant Americans crashed on to Normandy. The Mg42’s in our case was the Skeleton Coast’s pure white sand. Burning bridges from Kelly’s heroes might as well have been playing on a broken cassette because in a brief two seconds, we were completely and utterly f#@ked!
Now, in moments like these, it’s important to have a plan.
And by plan, I mean don’t panic and make things worse.
Naturally, everyone immediately panicked and made things worse.
I, being a man of wisdom (and general disinterest in sleeping on the beach that day), lit a cigarette and left them to it.
Four minutes and several colourful insults later, a band of local Namibians materialized — thick Afrikaans accents so potent that Steve Hofmeyr himself probably appeared somewhere in the ether.
Thankfully, unlike most things in Namibia designed to extract cash from tourists, these guys were actually helpful.
Two minutes later, the Land Cruiser had heroically freed itself.
The Land Rover, however, was still contemplating its life choices and had to be dug out like an obese beached seal.
A few litres of Klipdrift Premium later, peace was restored, and we were back on the road.
The miles dribbled by in pure desert nothingness until we reached a tiny speck on the map called Cape Cross, just before the Skeleton Coast National Park gate. Now, Namibia basically IS a national park, but here, things took a darker turn.
There’s a small seal colony there, perfectly visible without the need for entrance fees.
But no, someone slapped a sign up, called it an “official site”, and decided to charge tourists 20 Euros to drive a grand total of 400 metres.
I’m all for paying conservation levies — places like Etosha deserve every cent.
But paying to look at seals you can literally see from the road?
Even my inner optimist — which is basically just a tumbleweed — found that offensive.
We politely declined.
Entering the Skeleton Coast proper, we eventually reached Terrace Bay — a place so eerie and remote that it felt like the end of the world.
A quick pitstop, a few photos of jackals looking far more competent than us, and some more predictable tyre-pressure arguments later, we fled back inland.
And then the magic started.
Thousands of landscapes flashed by — barren, stunning, prehistoric.
We even stood around gawking at a Welwitschia — a flower older than my ability to tolerate stupidity — and, against all odds, I found it rather impressive.
Of course, the fleecing wasn’t over.
We got scammed again at the Petrified Forest by a few more enterprising locals, because apparently, in Namibia, simply existing near a tourist means you get to charge a fee.
Blithering idiots that we are, we paid and moved on.
Finally, blessedly, the tarred road reappeared under our tyres, and for the first time all day, I felt a little human again.
We were heading straight to Etosha.
The excitement inside me was bubbling like a toddler the night before Christmas.
We pulled into Okaukuejo Camp, where we were greeted by elephants — smaller than their Pilanesberg cousins but still impressive enough to snap me back into awe.
A proper night’s sleep followed.
Stay tuned for Chapter 4: lions that will make you question reality, a guiding style that will make you cry, and a leopard that still refuses to show itself.
Wildlife Beyond the Lens 