Fish River Canyon to middle of nowhere

Trip Start Oct 01, 2005

101

137

Trip End Sep 20, 2006

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Flag of Namibia Near Bethanie, Namibia
Wednesday, July 26, 2006

We rose with the sun at 6am for an early 3km walk along the ridge of the Canyon. It was cold but once the sun was up it warmed up. It's a stunning canyon & it was great to have seen it at both sunset & sunrise.

We set off after breakfast and drove the 210km to the Helmringhausen area camping at the Lapa Camp. We stopped in a 1-road town called Bethanie - not a lot here but we were able to stock up on biltong!

It was a little strange to be standing in the little supermarket in this small African town in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and find ourselves listening to German folk music in the background! Namibia, as South West Africa, had been a German territory until WW1 when South Africa was asked to run it by the League of Nations and then the UN. There is just a smattering of German around that we could see, but most things are in English or Afrikaans. The official language is English. There are fewer whites here but there are still coloureds as well as blacks.

We got to the campsite for a late lunch. Nothing was planned for the afternoon so a group of us decided to climb the hill over the road from the campsite. We got the most spectacular view of the surrounding landscape from the top and we stayed up there to watch the sunset. That night we had Gemsbok steaks cooked on the fire - delicious! It was really warm during the day - we were all in shorts etc - but we had to layer up after the sun went down, the night was very cold.