Driving along the Kuisib River Bed

In Palmwag, I met Volke Oleson, who was traveling with his son.  We shared a table at dinner and he told me about his work.  He's a physicist in Karlsruhe in Germany working for the European Satellite organization.  They have a ground measurement station in Gogobad, Namibia where they provide precise ground statistics for satellites to maintain their orbits.  More than once, he told me about Gogobad and invited me to visit.  I hadn't given it much thought until Meike, who runs Meike's Guesthouse in Swakopmund recommended Gogobad as a great place to stop and visit that few tourists ever discover.  With corroboration, I decided to check it out. 

The C14 road out of Walvis Bay passes through the red dune desert and I drove about 7km before finding the F1983 and turning right onto a wide sand road.  Meike warned me the road would be heavily corrugated from truck travel but once a month a paver passed through and regraded the road.  I guess that must have happened recently because the road was excellent.  It veers south and follows the Kuisib River, which is a green belt in the red, white, and black sand desert. 

Just a click down the road I spotted a church spire in the distance.  It was a wooden church and it was the first one I had seen in the desert.

The Nama people live in the desert along the Kuisib River bed, and I guess this church was setup for one of the settlements.  The Nama live off of small herds of goats and donkeys, with some small plots of farms.  Even though the river bed is dry, there is an acquifer below the dry bed that provides ample water, through wells, to both the local population and the port of Walvis. 

Their homes are kind of the same construction you find all over Namibia.  They provide enough shade to shelter people from the hot sun during the day between 10am and 6pm, and plenty of open windows to let the wind in so people can sleep during the cooler evenings.  The surrounding terrain is not hospitable to life and it often feels like you are driving on Mars or the Moon.  I drove for two hours and saw only two other cars and one Donkey Cart.  It is a remote region to be sure.

Donkey Carts are a common form of transportation on Sand Roads in Namibia.  I've seen between two and four Donkeys driving small and large carts with tractor wheels and flat beds behind.  These two people were happy to stop for photographs and did demand money in Afrikans.  I gave them a bag of apples instead and they were very happy.

Since I stopped, I used the opportunity to get a self-portrait in the namib desert.

The onward drive from there to Gobobad took another 20 minutes.  You can see the water tower for a few miles, and when I arrived a nice young American from Minnesota gave me a tour, showed me to my room, and invited me to take a swim with the other young researchers in the pool.  There are 20 or so young, college-aged researchers here from Germany, the US, Spain, and Namibia and they have been terrific hosts.  I really enjoyed the swimming pool. 

I had a nice dinner of chicken and carrots, and then watched the sun set over the dunes.  The room was too hot, so I pitched my tent outside and slept super well.  The tent is awesome.  It was quiet and and cool after the sun set.