Uis, Namibia - Day 285 - Boots on the Loose

Anyway, Did the 100kms south from Naua Naua Guesthouse (near Etosha) to Outjo and stopped for breakfast, another 100 paved kms west to Khorixas. Thought maybe we’d spend some time touring around the attractions in the area that afternoon, but then mistakenly made the decision to come back up from Uis the next day to see them; trudged onwards south another 150kms on dirt road to Uis. The whole way down kept passing by local Himba women all dressed up in their traditional clothing (which in fact looks quite strange as it’s derived form 19th century European-style clothing), attempting to sell dolls modelled after themselves at the side of the road. Was neat to see, but also quite sad being out in the middle of absolutely nowhere (maybe 5 cars an hour pass by… how many stop to buy a doll??)

Uis is a dying town based on an abandoned tin mine; it’s maybe 4 blocks by 4 blocks big and doesn’t have much besides a gas station and store, some aggressive gem stone sellers wandering around, and a couple decent rest camps for the overland trucks to stop at. Signed up for a ride to the top of the tailings pile for a sundowner with the rest camp; turned out to actually be quite a beautiful view of the area with the sun setting directly behind Brandberg mountain. There were at least 20 people on the outing surprisingly, and the guy who ran it was a local Afrikaaner, very passionate and excited to tell you anything and everything you wanted to know about the geology of the area!

Next day was a long, hard one totalling close to 400kms on dirt road, checking out a couple sites in the area. Started out by heading north-west up to see some 6000 year old rock carvings (and 1 rock painting) left behind by the Bushmen (at a spot called Twyfelfontein); was nice enough to see, but I was more interested in the absolutely BEAUTIFUL area surrounding the site! Headed to the nearby, luxurious lodge for a bite to eat (thermometer in the bar showed a relatively comfortable 33C… imagine summer!??), then made the decision to head even further in the opposite direction from Uis to see the petrified forest, based on the we’ll-only-ever-be-here-once logic. Forest was perhaps spectacular with a lot of imagination, but slightly disappointing considering the ground covered to get there. It’s an area around 5×5 kms of petrified logs (mostly still underground unfortunately… with no plans to dig them up – I think that’s probably good?). The logs are something like 180 million years old (whatever that even means), and miraculously have been transported there thousands of kms from northern Zambia (the Copperbelt region), presumably by glacier? That’s fairly cool I suppose. What’s the difference between a petrified log and a piece of coal you ask? Basically a petrified log is a half-done piece of coal. I like that explanation. Time to get a move on, attempted a short cut home to Uis that probably only delayed us, made it back maybe an hour after sunset. Phew!!

Only maybe 1 hour from Uis, got to the coastal town of Henties Bay around noon. Situated at the southern end of Namibia’s “Skeleton Coast”, we headed north about a half-hour to a spot called Cape Cross where there live’s a rather large and smelly seal colony. Quite amusing to watch and listen to tens of thousands of seals lay around and bark at each other… apparently during mating season their numbers approach the millions (but maybe the guy that told us that was exaggerating a little). Headed back to Henties Bay and made the decision to stay for the night, still a little tired from the previous day’s drive! (despite there being little to do but play pool at the guesthouse with Swakopmund only another 60kms to the south)…