Pulled into Karasburg right around 2pm; the idea was to stop for cash and fuel, then go another couple hundred K’s to get to the Ai-Ais Hotsprings at the Fish River Canyon. No sweat getting our fancy little car through the border… in fact I think they don’t have many visitors because the cop kept joking around, giving us a hard time telling us he’d need to search the car, etc (but of course didn’t).
Got to Karasburg and learned it’s all gravel road out to the canyon (as are MOST roads in Namibia, amazingly) so we decided we’d stay back a night in Karasburg. On the map the town looks like a bit of a hub for the area but it turned out there’s only one paved road (the highway that goes through… everything else is dirt), there are 2 restaurants and one is the gas station which closes at 7:00… and that’s about it (they do of course have a place you can pick up a coffin though). Asked the guy at the hotel what there is to do and the answer was… “Drink?” …so that we did. Asked him if there’s more to do at the next town and he simply laughed (surprisingly he was a younger, good-looking guy with a wife and kid… not the type you’d expect).
Quite liked our first impressions of Namibia… bit of a middle ground between edgy South Africa and the more rural rest of Africa that we’re so used to. Kids walking around with no shoes, washing the windows for money, alongside the legacy of the German/Afrikaans era in Southern Africa.
Next morning, made it from Karasburg to the Ai-Ais Hotsprings well before noon (was about 150km on gravel road, but even in our little VW Golf, you can easily maintain 80-90kph). Hotsprings are in a beautiful setting near the south end of the Fish River Canyon – they’ve built a popular resort around a naturally heated (ie. somewhat warm-ish) pool surrounded all around by high canyon walls. Hung out at the pool for a few hours then headed north alongside the canyon on a gravel road (another 100km or so… ended up giving a local guy a ride who took us on a bit of a tour of one of the fancy resorts).
The main viewpoint for the north end of the canyon is spectacular – totally on par with the Grand Canyon I’d say (except there’s virtually no one there as an added bonus). You can actually spend 4 days hiking the length of the 80km canyon which I thought looked really cool; like the West Coast Trail though they only allow a certain number of people per day and you need to book way in advance (and you have to have 3 people minimum, persumably in case someone gets hurt? Strange…) Hung out until maybe an hour before sunset then made a dash for the closest town out of the park, Keetmanshoop.
Another race against the rotation of the earth (this time on gravel road), made it to town about an hour after sunset. Thankfully almost every road is lined on either side with fences so the groups of wild ostrich that get startled and stupidly run beside you can’t run in front of you (qute funny to watch)!
Keetmanshoop is actually a decently sized town so had a few choices on where to stay; chose the “backpacker” option at the German restaurant/bar, game-kebab for dinner, off to bed to freeze our butts off for the night.
Found a greasy spoon for breakfast and left town right after, headed for the small town of Luderitz on the coast…
Almost there!
You are lazy & stupid
Ai Ais hotspring
Browsing at a lodge
Fish river canyon view
Fish river canyon
Couples shot
Eddie in his swing