Namibia: Namibia Attractions for people travelling to Namibia

Windhoek

Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, is situated in the country’s central Khomas Region and is commonly described as a city with a multicultural character. Set amidst the rolling hills of central Namibia, Windhoek is the perfect destination for visitors wishing to get a real taste of Africa. Our rich mix of cultural diversity ensures something special for every mood. Excellent restaurants serving African and European delicacies, art and craft markets with exquisite gifts to tempt you.
For visitors wishing to get back into the fast lane, Windhoek also boasts a first world infrastructure with sophisticated banking services and medical facilities, world class hotels and lodges, and advanced telecommunication systems. As a conference destination, Windhoek has a proven record of organisational expertise, with everything from video conferencing and sophisticated audiovisual equipment through to interpreters and venues for up to two thousand delegates. An excellent road network and two city airports with regional and international flight connections, facilitate travel to the rest of the Southern African region and the world.

Swakopmund

Swakopmund, founded in 1892 during the period of German colonial rule, served as the territory’s main harbour for many years. In 1884, South West Africa – the future Namibia – was declared a German Protectorate. By 1907 Swakopmund had the largest European population of any German colony in Africa, the town pulsated with life – a quaint town had emerged out of the desert!
Today this quaint desert town, hedged by desert and sea, is enhanced by lush green lawns, palm trees and carefully tended public gardens. Swakopmund is popular amongst visitors because of its old-world charm and relaxed atmosphere. Quaint architecture from a bygone era adds to the time-out-of-place atmosphere of Swakopmund. When approached from the interior, domes, turrets and towers on the skyline appear as a hazy desert mirage. Much of the distinct German colonial character has been preserved and today many of the town’s old buildings, house shops, offices and other utility services.

Cape Cross Seal Reserve

The reserve and its surrounding area was proclaimed a reserve in 1968 to protect the largest and most well known of the 23 Cape Fur Seal colonies that breed along the coast of Southern Africa. It is also the area where the Portuguese navigator Diego Cao erected a stone cross in 1486, commemorating the first European to ever set foot on Namibian ground.

Epupa Falls

Situated on the Kunene River at the Namibian / Angolan border. Wending its way through awesome mountainous terrain, it suddenly interrupts the arid landscape by a cascading network of spectacular falls that tumble over a multitude of rock shelves into a deep gorge. Adding to the allure are the Baobab trees clinging to the steep cliffs of the gorge, whilst majestic makalani palms line the banks of the river and the islands separating the channels.

Lake Otjikoto

Otjikoto is undoubtedly as idiosyncratic as lakes go. The traveler comes upon it suddenly and the sight of this huge orifice can be quite startling. The ground without warning opens up into a more or less cylindrical pipe while far below, the eye is arrested by the seemingly placid green waters. The lake has a diabolical reputation - enough people have disappeared without trace into the depths (120m!) and have even given the lake a notoriety of being haunted by the spirit of a German soldier. In 1915 the Schutztruppe dumped a cache of ammunition into the depths to prevent them from falling into the hands of the South African forces, when (or so the story goes) one luckless soldier was dragged in after the plunging armaments...

Popa Falls

The name conjures up images of a raging waterfall, so it is little wonder that first-time visitors are disappointed when faced by a profusion of gentle rapids with a total drop of 4 meters. The falls are majestic, however, especially at daybreak, when the sunrays break through the surrounding foliage, illuminating the fine mist rising from the surging water. Magnificent riverine forests that are inhabited by a rich and varied bird life surround the falls and the walking paths leading up to the waters edge.

Petrified Forest

Namibia’s petrified forest west of Khorixas is indeed a rare phenomenon. As if through the intervention of some great time machine, the fossilized remains of these tree trunks provide an intriguing glimpse of flora that existed some 260 million years ago. The optical illusion is uncanny – right down to such details as the colour and texture of the bark and growth rings. As startling as the initial sight may be to road-weary eyes – the surprise reaches its climax when the visitor stoops to touch a section of log… for what to all intents and purposes is a piece of wood, turns out in reality to be cold stone!

Organ Pipes

The name is an apt description of these five- to seven- sided perpendicular dolerite columns, some of which reach 5 meters in length. They are found standing exposed in a 100-meter long gorge that forms part of a deeply eroded dry riverbed. It is advisable to visit this geological phenomenon in the early morning or late afternoon, as the heat during midday becomes unbearable, especially during summer time.

Twyfelfontein Rock Engravings

This National Heritage site confers yet another distinction to Namibia: that of one of the foremost centers of artwork in the world. It counts as the largest open-air art gallery in Southern Africa, its name reflecting a farmer’s incredulity that the unreliable spring (Afrikaans: Twyfelfontein) could have supported the Stone Age hunter and its prey for thousands of years. The reddish sandstone boulders seem to glow in the fierce heat, yet ancient man sheltered from enemy and spied on game from these surreal rock formations. Here he assiduously carved away at the intractable rock surfaces to imprint his indelible creations. Today, you can browse amongst these selfsame boulders and slabs of sandstone and marvel at the grandest spectacle of rock engravings in Africa.

Welwitschia Mirabilis

Friedrich Martin Joseph Welwitsch (1806 – 1872) was the distinguished figure destined to bring to the attention of the world one of the most extraordinary curiosities of all living organisms. This plant would arouse more interest and produce more surprises than any of the other 375’000 species known to man. It seems to bear kinship only with a prehistoric flora known today as fossil remains. Yet somehow it still survives…an anachronism…a relic of flora long past…a LIVING fossil!! No less unique is the phenomenon of the Welwitschia’s habitat. It occurs in isolated colonies confined to the Namib Desert, generally within a narrow 100 km-wide coastal belt and nowhere else in the world!

Moon Landscape

This desolate and forbidding valley of conical and dome shaped hills near Swakopmund is reminiscent of an actual lunar landscape, resembling the lifeless surface of mars itself. The Moon Landscape represents the leftover of an ancient, enormous mountain range. During more severe weather patterns, the valleys of the mountain range as well as the mountain range itself has been chafed, chiseled and gouged by wind and the waters of the nowadays known Swakop River. Known as “badland topography”, the crumbling granite surface hardly supports any plant life and is best viewed in the late afternoon to enjoy terrific light and shadow contrasts and cooler temperatures.

Sesriem

Situated on the vast sea of sand of the Namib Desert, Sesriem is the base to explore two of the Namib’s most celebrated attractions: Sesriem Canyon and Sossusvlei. The canyon’s name originated from early settlers dependent on the canyon’s rock pools as a source of water. They tied a bucket to six (ses) thongs (rieme), hence the name. Making your way down, you are transported 15-18 millions of years back in time when alternating layers of gravel, sand and pebbles were deposited during a wetter phase and later cemented into calcrete conglomerate. Two to four million years ago the brute erosional force of the Tsauchab River incised a gorge about 1 km long and up to 30 meter deep into this conglomerate floor, enabling the geologist to read the history of the entire area like a book.

Sossusvlei

Sossusvlei's rich ochre sand dunes offer one of the most mind-blowing sights you will ever experience. Their oscillating crests rise to an astonishing 320m and, with their air of timelessness, create an unforgettable wilderness in the heart of the world’s oldest desert. Dwarfed by the sheer size of the highest dunes on earth, your ascending footprints look like insect trails leading into infinity. The solitude is immeasurable and your place in the great scheme of life takes on a curious insignificance. The white vleis (clay pans) contrast sharply against the red sand and vast blue sky, while fog-dependent animals and plants seek shelter from the sweltering heat underneath the sand and age-old camelthorn trees.

Duwisib Castle

An enigmatic castle in the bush, this castle stands incongruously in an arid setting south west of Maltahöhe. Financed by the American wife of the eccentric Baron Hans Heinrich von Wolf, it was built as a reminder of his ancestral home in 1909. The castle was stocked with an array of priceless antiques of eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe and Russia, including furniture, firearms, paintings, crystal and porcelain. These valuables, still found in the castle today, had to be shipped from Germany to Lüderitbucht and then laboriously transported by ox-wagon across hundreds of kilometers of the rugged desert - a remarkable logistic feat!

Quivertree Forest

The Quivertree (Aloe dichotoma) belongs to the most conspicuous plants of the countries indigenous flora. The name derives from its traditional practical application: the hollowed out pithy branches served as perfect quivers to the ancient Bushmen! Despite its strange, even heroic appearance, closer scrutiny reveals that the “kokerboom” is nothing more than a tree version of the common aloe lily – a remarkable variant fashioned by the combined forces of nature and Namib. The most striking characteristic of the Quivertree is the flared trunk armoured with coarse, drought resistant scales and the multi-branched candelabra topped with fleshy, tapered leaves that jab skyward. In winter these aloes carry a striking spike of rich yellow blossoms that attract a vast variety of nectar-eating birds and insects.

Giant's Playground

Kolmanskop Ghost Town

To the imaginative but uninformed, the “Sperrgebiet” (forbidden diamond territory) conjures up images of watchtowers, electric fences, barbed wire and ferocious guard dogs protecting the restricted area. This may tickle the fancy but could hardly be further from reality. In fact, for most parts there is nothing – nothing but the limitless desert and the occasional forlorn notice board with its stern WARNING! WAARSKUWING! WARNUNG! ELONDWELO! And then you find Kolmanskop, a deserted Ghost Town in the Sperrgebiet – once a cosmopolitan center where diamonds were lying around like “plums under a plum tree”, a town built to last…until the diamonds ran out. Today Kolmanskop stands as a haunting monument to the day’s boom and bust, where once opulent homes, shops, hospital and theater surrender slowly to the relentless heat and encroaching desert sand.

Lüderitz

Stone-Age artifacts found in the region confirm that Khoisan People knew the area centuries before Europeans arrived. The Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias found ‘Little Bay’, or Angra Pequena in 1883. A German merchant from Bremen, Adolf Luderitz, landed at Angra Pequena. In 1884 this land became part of the protectorate of the German Empire, marking the beginning of German colonial rule in Namibia, referred to then as Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika. The town is renown for its old-world charm and distinctly German colonial architecture.