Southern Namibia Adventure Self-Drive

The Kalahari bushman experience

Kalahari Desert

Experience the ancient culture of the Khoisan community, semi-nomadic bushmen whose ancestors have roamed the Kalahari for over 20,000 years. At Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch, they have developed close ties with many of the local bushmen families and now work with them to run respectful tours of their villages. This helps provide income for the Khoisan community and gives visitors a glimpse into their traditions, beliefs and lifestyle.

The experience starts with a morning walk to the village, accompanied by the Khoisan bushmen, who’ll show you around their traditional grass-and-mud rondavels. During the tour, you’ll collect water in ostrich eggs, watch the villagers set animal traps and see how women make beautiful pearl and ostrich jewellery. A favourite part of the tour is learning how the Khoisan forage plants and identify which ones to use for food and medicine.

Guests really enjoy this cultural experience and the chance to learn about Namibia’s heritage. The Khoisan community are descendants of the oldest people on earth, so it’s incredible to come face-to-face with this historic way of life, hear the villagers’ distinctive clicking language and discover how they’ve survived in this barren desert landscape for centuries.

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Hiking in Fish River Canyon

Fish River Canyon

Adventurous travellers will love hiking down into the depths of Fish River Canyon. You'll be guided on a full-day trek through the aptly-named Jelly Legs Gorge, a trail that takes you past epic viewpoints. It’s a challenging hike that involves traversing rock-strewn slopes and scrambling over boulders, but the reward is getting to experience the world’s second-largest canyon. When you hike, you can see the changing layers of sediment up close, the different rock colours and elephant skin weathering.

Along the way, there’s a chance of spotting some of Fish River Canyon’s endemic wildlife, including oryx, kudu and springbok, Hartman’s mountain zebra and the shy rock hyrax. You’ll also notice birds swooping above, including black eagles. The main focus on the walk, though, is the views and the geology. You'll also learn about the flora, which includes over 100 types of succulents and quiver trees which can be up to 300 years old.

Eventually, you will reach the rock pools at the bottom, where you can cool off with a swim in the heart of the canyon. Enjoy a picnic lunch before making the long climb back up to the lodge – it’s a strenuous eight-to-ten-hour journey all together. If you don’t want to tackle the climb, there are flat canyon rim walks you can take instead from the lodge. Walk them in the morning and late afternoon when the light and shadows play across the rocks, it’s spectacular.

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Scenic drives in the remote Namib Desert

Tiras Mountains

Explore the remote Namib Desert on a scenic drive. You’ll travel with a guide in a converted Toyota land cruisers. Head out at sunrise or sunset for three hours to the reserve’s top spots. Along the way, you’ll be surrounded by vast grasslands, the Tiras Mountains and rolling sand dunes and you’ll rarely see another vehicle.

The landscapes are the main draw here but you’ll also spot desert creatures as you drive. You’ll stop at waterholes where oryx, springboks and ostriches sometimes gather. If you head out for sunrise, you’ll enjoy coffee and rusks at a scenic viewpoint or sundowner drinks and snacks in the late afternoon. Watching the sun rise or set over the desert is an incredible experience; the sky turns pink and orange and the landscape glows.

You can also take scenic dune drives, which take place on the other side of Kanaan Desert Retreat. The landscape here is covered with shifting sand dunes – the Namib Desert has some of the oldest dunes in the world – dotted with petrified trees. Guests love the adventure of bumping over the dunes in a 4×4. If you’re keen to see the desert after dark, take a night drive which allows you to experience the star-studded night skies and spot nocturnal creatures such as foxes, owls, and striped polecats.

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Hot Air Ballooning over Namib Naukluft Park

Namib Desert & Sossusvlei

The Sossusvlei region of Namibia is the perfect place to do balloon safaris. Take a 10-minute drive to the launch pad, where you can enjoy the spectacle of the balloon inflating and taking shape – a very magical event just before sunrise. After a briefing with your pilots, take to the air.

It’s an hour in the sky travelling wherever the wind takes you over oceans of sand and dramatic mountains. You will typically cover an average of 10 kilometres although some days as much as 30 kilometres depending on the strength of the wind. Meanwhile the crew sets up a beautiful champagne breakfast for when you land, including homemade breads, cheeses, smoked fish, salami pancakes, cereals and yogurts.

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Living Desert Tour

Namibia

Meet the unique creatures of the Namib Desert on this educational tour. The aim is to get people to see the dunes with a different eye and realise they’re not just a pile of sand, they’re home to incredible wildlife. Departing from Swakopmund, you’ll be taken in a 4x4 to the coastal dune belt just outside of town.

During the drive, your guide will be looking for tracks and signs in the dunes. Looking for scorpions, spiders and the group informally called the little five: the palmato gecko, sand-diving lizard, fog-basking tok-tokkie beetle, sidewinder snake and chameleon. These secretive animals are tough to spot without the help of an experienced local guide.

When something is spotted, you’ll get a closer look as your guide tells you all about the special adaptations each creature has to survive in this inhospitable environment. You never know what you’re going to encounter in the desert though. End the trip with some exciting big dune driving in custom-built safari vehicles, it’s like a rollercoaster ride.

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Sandboarding

Namibia

Soar down the Namib Desert’s dunes on this sandboarding adventure. The tour starts in Swakopmund, where you will be driven eight kilometres into the desert. The landscape is incredible, with dune-top views of the world’s oldest desert on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It’s brilliant for photos; sometimes, you’ll even spot palmato geckos, beetles and chameleons hiding in the sand.

Expert instructors start with a safety briefing and then teach you the techniques for lie-down and stand-up boarding, which is a bit more technical. Quality snowboards that have been customised to glide perfectly across the sand are used. It’s an exhilarating feeling, rocketing down the dunes - when you’re lying down, you can even reach speeds of 50km an hour!

Afterwards, head down to the beach to watch the waves and have a picnic. You’ll enjoy cold Namibian beers, sandwiches and a lunch platter. As well as an adrenaline rush, the tour also gives you the rare opportunity to get out of your car and immerse yourself in the extraordinary scenery of the Namib Desert.

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