Why is Namibia one of the world's fastest growing tourist destinations?
The highlights of Namibia have taken millennia to reach their present state. Nowhere is the age of the earth more evident than in the ancient landscape of the world's oldest desert.
In Namibia, the layers of time are clearly marked and preserved: a dinosaur's footprints fossilised in rock; an ancient volcano worn by wind to its core; a 20,000-year-old meteorite; rock paintings over 26,000 years old; a river canyon 300 million years in the making. It took 5 million years for the dunes in the Great Sand Sea to get to their present state and the are considered young. Their petrified counterparts are over 20 million years old.
Despite its parched reputation, Namibia is one of the best wildlife destinations in Africa. Etosha National Park is a phenomenon unto itself. With a vast saline desert as its eye it is surrounded by tear ducts of natural springs that support an astonishing array of indigenous species. The Waterberg Plateau, Damaraland, The Kalahari and The Caprivi add fascinating and widely contrasting wildlife dimensions to complete the game viewing experience.
The people who inhabit this land, few though they may be, are no less captivating than their surrounds. San hunter-gatherers continue their ancient traditions in the area known as Bushmanland; the Himba are nomadic herdsman with proud traditions who live in the remote and rugged Kaokoland and along the Kunene River.
Coastal towns bear witness to the changing fortunes of an inhospitable shoreline. The ghost of a diamond-rush era remains in Lüderitz; Swakopmund and Walvis Bay thrive despite their desolate position and shipwrecks along the Skeleton Coast reveal the source of its grisly name.
