August 6-7: Twyfelfontein

We left Brandberg and the White Lady campsite and headed farther north, still within Damaraland, to Twyfelfontein, a UNESCO World Heritage Site renowned for its extensive collection of ancient rock engravings. 

You will be surprised to hear – not really – that we opted to take the track less travelled route from our White Lady campground to Twyfelfontein. It was only 65 km as the crow flies, but of course much longer on the winding desert tracks. Indeed, it took us most of the day to traverse the landscape, mainly in second gear 4×4. This was truly a lonely desert drive that took us across numerous washes, over hills, across almost endless plains, through miles of moderately deep sand, and through a few different conservancies. We saw no one the entire day except for the remote gate attendants at one of the conservancies and a couple of rhino rangers deep within that conservancy.

The log at the gate indicated that only one vehicle every 4-5 days drives the route we took, and this was confirmed by the very lonely gate attendants. Can you imagine, attending a gate way out in the boonies that sees only one vehicle every 4 or 5 days, with only a tent and no other amenities to help pass the time?

Here are a few pics to give you a sense of the landscape we traversed. I should note that the Green Dragon was in her element and loving every minute of the drive – as were we. One interesting thing to note in a few of the pics is the relatively lush grass in the plains. This is an unusual occurrence due to the high rainfall and flooding the region experienced this past February, which produced an amazing flush of grass in what would otherwise be in most years barren ground. We did manage to see a couple herds of springbok and a few scattered ostriches, both species well adapted to the dry desert conditions, and a few other cool desert critters (see pics below).

Interestingly, the conservancies we drove through are part of a network of conservancies (Red Mountain Joint Management Area) that boasts to be the largest in Africa – not sure if this is true, but it’s impressive nonetheless. The central conservancy we drove through, called Burnt Mountain, also boasts one of the densest concenrations of black rhino in Africa, which was shocking to me since the vegetation was so sparse. We looked hard, but saw none.

The Twyfelfontein UNESCO site we visited boasts over 2,500 San (Bushman) petroglyphs, some estimated to be over 6,000 years old, making it one of Africa’s largest and most significant concentrations of rock art; hence, deserving of the UNESCO status. Here’s a few shots of the site and petroglyphs, which are remarkably well preserved given their exposure to the elements (i.e. not in caves and under overhangs like they are in the American Southwest). Note, this site is all petroglyphs (engravings), whereas the White Lady site at Brandberg and the Bushman’s Paradise site at Spitzkoppe were all pictographs (paintings). Not sure why some sites are one versus the other, but there appear to be a lot more sites with pictographs, for what its worth.

At Twyfelfontein, we camped a couple nights at a nearby rather upscale campground called Mowani. Our site was quite deluxe by our standards, with all the amenities, including Nancy’s favorite feature, along with a hot outdoor shower, a loo with a view. We also had a couplel of fun campsite visitors. Check it out:

From our campsite, we did a couple of short day hikes. One was a cross-country (i.e., off-trail) hike around a mesa that involved some rock scrambling as well as some casual meandering up and down a couple of valleys – we felt like San Bushman, but with more cloths! Here’s some pics:

From the Wildside:

Next stop, WATER! See you there.

New Species:

• Hartlaub’s spurfowl
• Double-banded courser
• Monteiro’s hornbill
• Black-fronted bulbul