Desert hikes and camping under the stars on a budget safari in Namibia

It’s a few too many minutes after midnight, and I really should be asleep. But instead, I’m binge-watching — live and screen-free. My current obsession, a YouTube sensation, has just waded into the water hole up to her belly, then out again. She’s now marked like a honey badger: her top half silver-grey from dust; lower half dark from the water. For a rhino, it’s a strong look.

Earlier, I’d watched a gaggle of leggy supermodels bend gracefully towards a mirror: wild giraffes, preparing to drink. And in an earlier episode there was a furious family bust-up involving a herd of elephants.

I’m in Namibia’s most-celebrated national park, Etosha, beside 50-metre-wide Okaukuejo Waterhole — a man-made lifeline in a brutally arid landscape. One of Africa’s best locations for nocturnal wildlife-watching, it’s equipped with floodlights and a YouTube webcam, designed to inspire the park’s supporters to plan a trip. While watching online is addictive enough, the real-life experience is even more so.

As well as delighting their fans with their animated comings and goings, the individuals I’m watching are ambassadors for a conservation success story. Thanks to tight security and water holes such as this one, Etosha’s endangered black rhinos are increasing in number. But their future is far from secure. According to data from Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, rhino poaching reached an all-time high last year, with 61 black rhinos lost to poachers — 46 of them in Etosha; overall rhino poaching increased by 93% compared to 2021.

All of which makes this viewing even more special. Time slips away, my fellow watchers pad off to bed, and finally, I decide to do the same. I’m in Okaukuejo, a village in the south of the park. As I creep past its upmarket chalets to the public campsite, it’s dark, but the Milky Way glimmers overhead. A week in the wild has worked wonders for my eyes, and it’s all the light I need. With the confidence of a rhino, I navigate the dusty 4x4s, with their tidy rooftop tents. Soon, our truck — my home for this nine-night overland tour — looms out of the shadows beneath a young camelthorn tree.

Call of the wild

I’ve always liked the idea of travelling overland in an African tourist truck, with tents stashed underneath and a cool box in the back — a set-up that, of course, comes with the expertise of a guide and the camaraderie of a group.

Before my trip, I tell people we’ll be wild camping in remotest southwest Africa — deep in the Namib Desert for  some nights, beneath bald, granite mountains for others — and do my best to reassure them when they quiz me, worriedly, about the practicalities. Come nightfall, will it be too hot to sleep? Or too cold? Uncomfortably rocky, or forbiddingly dark? How will we find water, and avoid scorpions? Or things that go harumph in the night?

Our briefing takes place in a leafy overlanders’ lodge on the outskirts of Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, where slender, grey mousebirds flit through the trees. United by anticipation, it doesn’t take long for our group to bond. “From this moment on, we’re family!” booms our exuberant driver and guide Samora Omumborombonga Hoveka, one of the Herero people. With an early start before us, our rhythm of convivial but judiciously short evenings begins. 

While some safaris are leisurely affairs, ours isdifferent. Bookable through Much Better Adventures — a travel company that promotes active exploration and empowering local operators — our itinerary was cooked up by Windhoek-based outfit Mabaruli African Safaris. Designed to celebrate Namibia’s extraordinary desert landscapes, it’s a fast-paced, high-energy trip.

The first half passes in a flurry of tent poles and cooking pots, predawn packing and heart-pumping hikes. We move to a new bare-bones campsite each day, gelling as a team along the way. In the Namib-Naukluft National Park, we stride through gorges scented with mint, rest under fig and kokerboom trees and cool off in spring-fed pools. One morning, we head up the pock-marked ridge of an ancient sand dune in Sossusvlei (a salt and clay pan), then canter, exhausted and elated, down into the parched valley.

As we travel between beauty spots by truck, we look out for desert-adapted wildlife, calling out when we spot oryx, ostriches or weaverbird nests up ahead. There are stops in towns, where we sample a slice of Namibian life that many safari-goers miss out on. Mingling with the locals at supermarkets and fuel stations, we shop for Namibian newspapers and South African biscuits, and buy purified water from high-tech refill points. In Solitaire, a remote highway pit stop, Samora pulls in at McGregor’s Bakery so we can sample its famously hearty, crumble-topped apple pie. 

Beyond the bustle, we witness poverty, and as we pass Spitzkoppe Village en route to Spitzkoppe — a cluster of granite peaks in the Erongo region — there’s time to reflect. The scattering of simple houses was founded by families from the Damara ethnic group who were forced to move to this water-poor region in the early 1970s by the South African regime. Pitching our tents at Spitzkoppe’s pristine campsite, tucked beneath truck-sized boulders, overlooking an endless plain, we learn that it’s run as a sustainable tourism project, enabling the community to eke a living.

Hiking trails twist around the peaks. On one, local guide Jeremy Muteka leads us up a knee-wobblingly steep rock face. In an atmospheric spot at the top, called Bushman’s Paradise, are fragments of shamanic rock paintings, created 4,000 years ago. Faded as they are, we can just make out something that could be a rhino. “We don’t find rhinos here so much now,” says Jeremy, “but thanks to these paintings our ancestors have left us, we still feel their presence. It’s a window onto the past.”

Inside Etosha

For the wildlife-watchers among us, it’s in Etosha National Park that our trip takes flight. Within minutes of the entry gate, we approach the Ombika Waterhole. Samora steers the truck into a prime spot and we squeeze up to the windows. 

Nature’s rush hour is in full swing. The local lions are noticeably absent, allowing relays of antelopes, zebras and giraffes to drink. Ombika is smaller than Okakuejo, however, and there’s stiff competition in the air.nThrillingly, elephants part the sea of smaller animals to take their rightful place. On their approach, they parade past, close enough for us to see every dust-crusted wrinkle.

At sunrise the next day, ours is the first vehicle out of the campsite. Our mission is to see those lions, and since we’ve no scouts or spotters, it’s up to us to find them ourselves. As we drive across the dry, scrub-dotted plain south of Etosha’s mighty salt pan, a glimpse of a honey badger feels like a good omen, and after hours of searching, there they are: a sleeping male and, further off, a lioness with cubs. “On safari, nothing arrives to order,” says Samora. “But often, it’s better than you expect.”

The end of the trip is emotional, but we say we’ll keep in touch. And sure enough, within days, we all log on at the Okakuejo Waterhole, toasting our screens as the elephants and rhinos wade in.