{"id":1899,"date":"2013-08-12T18:28:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T17:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2018-07-22T12:24:08","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T11:24:08","slug":"namibia-skeleton-coast-and-damaraland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=1899","title":{"rendered":"Namibia: Skeleton Coast and Damaraland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although we’ve just moved to India, waiting for our things to arrive means there’s time to finally catch up on those blog posts I didn’t have time to do while we were getting ready to leave Namibia.<\/p>\n

This is the final trip we took within Namibia, a country that is far too large to be able to visit everything worth seeing in only two short years. \u00a0We had scheduled this trip twice already, but cancelled each time due to illness. \u00a0This time I was again sick with a fever – and throughout the 4-day trip this illness was passed around from family member to family member. \u00a0So we each spent about 24 hours out of commission in the car or the hotel room – but we were determined not to cancel this last time, only a week before leaving Namibia for good.<\/p>\n

\"skeleton\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Namibia’s entire coastline is protected; in the northern half, it’s the Skeleton Coast Park, an ominously barren stretch of hundreds and hundreds of miles of desert that meets the sea, and has earned its name by claiming the lives of countless sailors and their ships, both of whom have left skeletons littering the beaches up and down Namibia’s northern coast. \u00a0Only the southern half is accessible by car; in the north, you need a special permit and can only come in by plane.<\/p>\n

We started our trip by heading north along the coast from Swakopmund. \u00a0The first section is somewhat monotonous; you are anywhere from about 300m to 1 km from the sea, and on both sides of you are nondescript gravel and desert. \u00a0I once ran a marathon that started in Swakopmund, went north 21 km and then you ran around a cone and came back; it’s almost ramrod straight, with few rises and falls, nothing to look at besides the 70 or so other runners that quickly spread out, and the most boring marathon I’ve ever run. \u00a0But as you go along, you will see strange lichens and hills in the distance, and the wildness of the coastline will gradually grow on you until you reach Henties Bay, a vacation home town where we spent our first night.<\/p>\n

\"Sunset<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hentiesbaai<\/a><\/p>\n

From Henties Bay we continued north until we reached the Cape Seal Colony at Cape Cross. \u00a0If you ever decide to do this trip yourself, you should check to make sure the seal cull is not underway. \u00a0This annual event causes a great deal of controversy surrounding Namibia; personally I’m not excited about the idea of clubbing seals, but the number of seals culled in Canada, for example, exceeds the size of the entire Namibian population. \u00a0But due to the criticism and the sensitivity of Namibia’s tourist industry, access to the site will be blocked certain times of the year, with only the activists trying to sneak in to take video and photos.<\/p>\n