At the end of April I traveled for two weeks through Namibia in the southwest of Africa. This former German colony has a wide variety of wildlife and scenery to offer and some very unique landscapes. Namibia is twice the size of Sweden and slightly more than half of the size of Alaska. The country has only 2.5 million inhabitants, of which 325 thousand live in the capital Windhoek, in the center of the country.
The trip, specifically for photo-enthusiasts, was organized by Fotoresor i Fokus in cooperation with Aktiv Resor, a Stockholm based travel agency specialized in organizing active and adventurous holidays. Our tour guides, Elisabeth Landberger and Martin Agfors, are photo-professionals who offered a combination of energetic creativity and deep technological knowledge of anything photography.
The itinerary
From Windhoek we traveled north to the Etosha National Park, where we spent a few days spotting wildlife. From Etosha we traveled west to Damaraland and visited a Himba tribe village. We stayed in the Etendeka Mountain Camp, an eco-friendly luxury campsite that comes with the highest recommendations. It offers great home-made food and fantastic scenery all around.
From Damaraland we went onwards to the coast and visited the second largest city in the country, Swakopmund. This spacious and quiet city gives easy access to Walvis Bay, where tours for dolphin, seal and pelican spotting are organized.
Our last stop before returning to Windhoek was, for me, the highlight of the journey, a visit to the south of the Namib Desert, Sossusvlei and Deadvlei. Both areas offer unique landscapes of endless sand dunes that reach a stunning 300-400 meters in height and clay pans with dead camel thorn trees (Vachellia Erioloba). A true photographers paradise!
A wider selection of my photos can temporarily be viewed on the Namibia featured project page. A smaller selection will eventually be published in the Gallery section.
After viewing the Namibia project page I realized how priviligied I had been to be a member of the same travel group to Namibia as René. His photographic skills are only exceeded by his friendly preparedness to discuss how he achieves his results and give advice to us delving on a more mundane level of competence!
(But I will not show Renés photos to my wife until she has partaken of the results of my modest efforts …)
Thank you Johan for your kind words! It was a pleasure traveling with you in Namibia and listening to all the stories you could tell.