Category: Africa 2025

Regretfully, we left the Palmwag Concession and our delightful Elephant Song campsite and private lion encounter to head all the way north within Namibia, first for a one-night stand at the Kaoko Mopane lodge and campsite outside of Opuwo (the commercial and population center of Kaokoland, with a population of around 12k), then on to Epupa Falls on the Kunene River and Angola border, and finally east upriver to a campsite just short of the border post town of Ruacana.

Not much to report on Opuwo other than to say it was a nice place to resupply with food and fuel – actually, the only place – before heading up to the Kunene River on the Angola border. We found a decent lodge and campground for the night, but the only thing worth reporting was the clever use of recycled materials in the lodge, restaurant, and gardens. Here’s one example of what to do with your vehicle when it has died of old age:

We left Opuwo and drove north through more mountains, valleys and plains covered with, you guessed it, Mopane woodland, the ubiquitous tree of this region, and almost no people. We continue to be in awe of how extensive the Mopane woodlands are that seem to stretch across mountains and valleys for endless distances. On the human population side, I suppose it is not too surprising that there appear to be almost no humans throughout most of this vast landscape given the aridity and minimal productivity of these lands. Every so often, we will come across a cluster of a few to a dozen huts and natives living a subsistence lifestyle, mostly by raising goats and/or cattles, but otherwise the landscape is rather void of humans. Here’s a few pics to give you a taste:

After 4 hours or so of driving, we eventually made it to our destination at Epupa Falls on the Kunene River and Angola border. The Falls were spectacular in many ways, but most notably by the way in which the water flowed through more than 30 paths/channels and then over falls and cascades into the gorge below. The Falls may not be the largest in terms of water volume, width, or height of the drop, but they certainly are in the running for having the most character. Pictures, of course, don’t quite capture the quality of the Falls, but here’s a few anyways to give you an idea of the marvel we beheld:

But to really see the breadth and character of the Falls, you need to watch this 2 minute video, which better captures, but only partially, the magnificenc of the Falls:

Epupa Falls video (2 mins)

We spent two nights at Epupa Falls. Our campsite was right next to the river and just above the Falls, close to the spray and such that we heard the constant sound of the Falls, which made for nice backing music for my native American flute. Our site was not very rustic, as we were situated right next to the lodge owner’s house and close to the restaurant bar, but the proximity to the Falls compensated, as did the sublime sunsets and some of the campsite visitors. Check it out:

We did a four hour morning nature walk with a local guide along a beautiful stretch of the river upstream from our campsite.

We saw lots of birds, including a couple of new species for me, but what was most interesting to us was some of the insights we gained into the local Himba culture. Our guide was half Portuguese, half Himba, reflecting the cultural reality that political boundaries, including international ones such as the one along the Kunene River, don’t mean that much to the locals living a subsistence lifestyle.

We met a few local women and their children out foraging for Makalani palm tree seeds along the river floodplain and a deeper appreciation for the immensely difficult life they lead just trying to stay fed. Despite these hardships, though, the babies still look beautiful:

One of the more interesting factoids about the local Himba culture is their fondness for Palm wine. Why should we be surprised? All human cultures throughout time have found a way to produce alcoholic beverages. In this case, they tap the palm tree and drain the sweet sap, often killing the tree after the first tapping but at other times after several taps, and then add some Mopane tree bark as a fermenting agent and let it ferment for some unspecified amount of time. The palm trees are actually protected by law, but that does little good in the remote regions of the country, and thus we saw lots to tapped and dying or dead palms. Here’s a tree with a series of taps:

Our last night on the Kunene River was spent about 150 km upriver from Epupa Falls near the border town of Ruacana. The drive involved lots of ups and down, across dry washes and past numerous clusters of huts, mostly along the Kunene River floodplain, where the natives herded goats and cattle and grew maize. It was a great drive except for the fact that every child under about 15, when they heard our engine coming, ran out to the roadside to beg for handouts. Some of them had no clothes on. Heartbreaking to see all these kids so desperate for handouts and to have to pass them by because you quickly realize that it is impossible to stop for all the kids or you wouldn’t get very far – argh!. This kaoland region is apparently the poorest section of the country and the first-hand evidence surely supports that.

We did a one-night stand at a somewhat random campsite called Tjonkuvy Otjiruwo (try to say that one fast) overlooking the Kunene River just below the big Ruacana hydroelectric dam. Nothing to write home about, but I am going to do so anyways, other than to say we had the campground to ourselves and would have enjoyed it more if it weren’t for the troublesome Mopane flies – think black flies that like to get in your eyes, ears and nose.

Next stop, southward en route to Etosha National Park and some real wildlife observations! See you there.

New Species:

• Cinnamon-breasted bunting
• Carp’s tit
• Violet wood-hoopoe

We left Twyfelfontein and headed farther north into the heart of Kaokoland, inhabited primarily by the Himba people, to Ongongo Waterfalls located about 25 km south of the town of Sesfontein.

We spent a night south of Sesfontein at Ongongo Waterfalls and their community-run campsite just below the falls – we needed to be near water after so many days in the desert! The waterfall creates a marvelous swimming pool below the falls, albeit enhanced by a stone dam. We were the first campers to arrive at the campsite, which ended up being full at night, so we took advantage of the privacy and took a nice refreshing swim in the pool before others arrived. Good thing Nancy remembered to bring her bathing suit, although I suppose we could have done without!? Here’s a few pics of the pool, our campsite along the stream and the canyon above the pool:

After leaving Ongongo Waterfalls, we headed into Sesfontein for a resupply of cookies and wine – the two essentials – did a quick stop at the historic Fort Sesfontein, built by the Germans in 1896 while under their colonial control to serve primarily as an outpost to control rinderpest (cattle disease) and poaching, but later converted into a military base and then ultimately abandoned in 1914 at the outset of World War 1. Now it is a lodge and tourist attraction:

We drove an hour into the desert to the Palmwag Concession, which is a wildlife reserve, carved out of a few adjoining community Conservancies, dedicated to conserving the desert ecosystem and, most notably, desert elephants and black rhinos. They purport to be the largest wildlife concession and so forth, but we have heard that claim before, and to have the largest wild population of black rhino, but we have heard that claim before as well. Regardless of whether any of this is true or not, it is an expansive desert mountain landscape that does support a wide variety of desert wildlife, including the aforementioned, as well as lion, leopard, mountain zebra, giraffe and various antelope.

We had a delightful campsite called Elephant Song Campsite perched up on a bench above the Hoanib River (dry river bed this time of year, but with scattered pools) and valley floor. Unfortunately, we did not hear the elephant’s song, as the local matriarchal herd was at the time of our visit apparently about 25 km down river, having passed through our area a few days before. We learned, in contrast to savannah elephants, which are quite numerous in places (despite overall population having been drastically reduced over the past century), there are very few desert elephants left. Note, desert and savannah elephants are all one species but have some different adaptions, both physical and behavioral, for the different environments they live in. We read that there may be as few as only 150 left, distributed among 5 matriarchal herds across the 5 major river basins in northwestern Namibia. Had we known in advance that they were so endangered, we might have scheduled more time to seek them out. Indeed, most of the tourism (i.e., lodges and safaris) in this region seem to be focused on finding and observing desert elephants.

Here’s a few pics of our drive into the campsite along the Hoanib River, our Elephant song campsite and valley viewed from the top of the escarpment above the site (from our morning hike to the top), as well as the view from my lounge chair at the campsite during midday siesta.

Aside from the stellar scenery and peaceful desert environment, the most exciting activity came from an evening drive we took just a few kilometers upriver from our campsite to find a lone male lion that was reported to have killed an ostrich the night before and was likely still gorging and resting in the same location. Here’s what we found:

Here’s a short video of that close and intimate encounter:

Hoanib River lion encounter (3 min)

We left our Elephant Song campsite and head farther north to the town of Opuwa en route to Epupa Falls and the Kenene River on the Angola border. Not much to report on for this leg of the journey other than to say that on our drive to Opuwa from Sesfontein we only passed one vehicle in three hours – that’s some lonely road! In addition, despite my expectations, this part of Kaokoland is virtually uninhabited. All we saw in three hours of driving was mountains and valleys covered in Mopane (dominant tree) woodlands, and perhaps a few stick and mud huts and their associated goat herds.

From the Wildside:

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

After our brief but pleasant visit to Spitzkoppe, we headed northwest for a few hours along some more lonely gravel roads to the Brandberg Massif:

The Brandberg Massif is a giant granitic intrusion (which is typically created by magma that boils up from below but doesn’t emerge to flow as lava on the surface) that forms a dome-shaped massif, with a smattering of basalitc rocks (which form from lava flowing on the surface). It originated during the Early Cretaceous period about 130 million years ago during the rifting that led to the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Here’s a satellite image (borrowed from the internet) to give you the full impression of what this dome-shaped massif jutting up from the surrounding plains looks like – pretty cool hey:

Here are a few more pictures of the Brandberg and surrounding plains. Note the Green Dragon on the plains below in one of the pics, where it is thoroughy enjoying driving the sand tracks across the plains.

Like the Spitzkoppe, the Brandberg is a spiritual site of great significance to the San (Bushman) tribes. The most famous rock art is known as “The White Lady” located on a rock face with other rock art under a small rock overhang at the foot of the mountain. The White Lady, after it’s initial naming, was later determined to actually be a male shamen. Some of the monochromatic drawings in the panel are dated to more than 5,000 years old, while the polychromatic (i.e., multi-colored) drawings date to around 2,000 years old. There is even a penguin painting on the panel suggesting there was some trans-continental communication (nearest penguins are in southern South Africa) even during these early times. We have seen a lot of rock art panels, both here and in the American Southwest, and I must say this is one of the most impressive set of pictographs that I have ever seen. The ravine it is located in contains more than 1,000 rock shelters, as well as more than 45,000 rock paintings (although we have read and heard variations of from 20,000 to 100,000 paintings) – clearly, this was a very important place for the San! Of course, we did the 2.5 km trek up the valley to the White Lady rock art panel. Here’s some pics:

We camped in the Brandberg Nature Reserve at the White Lady Lodge and Campsite. Our site was situated under a huge acacia tree on a sandy floodplain. We had lots of avian visitors to the trees around us, which provided some good midday entertainment:

From the Wildside:

Next stop, a UNESCO World Heritage Site – you guessed it, because of the ancient rock art. See you there!

With Nancy by my side at last (see photo proof below), the two of us did NOT spend a comfortable night in Bella’s mini house near the Windhoak airport to give Nancy a comfortable bed to recover in after the long overseas flight BECAUSE her flight to Cape Town was delayed in Washington DC and she missed her evening flight to Windhoek. SO, I enjoyed – and I really did enjoy – Bella’s mini house alone – Argh!

After collecting Nancy from the airport in Windhoek, we left for a 3-week journey through the northwestern section of Namibia, traveling through Damaraland and Naokoland up to the Angola border. In stark contrast to southwestern Namibia, which you will recall was virtually uninhabited except for a few scattered small settlements, Damaraland, and to a lesser extent Naokoland, is supposedly where the bulk of the human population lives, although we have yet to see many people or inhabited landscape other than along the main highway north of Windhoek. Despite the relative density of development in this region, there are some remote and wild places that we targeted on this part of our Namibian journey. Our first stop after leaving Windhoek was the Spitzkoppe Mountains:

The Spitzkoppe (German for “pointed dome”; also referred to as the “Matterhorn of Namibia”) is a group of bald granite peaks or inselbergs (isolated mountains or outcrops, or what we might call “monadnocks”) located in the Namib desert. The granite is more than 130 million years old and the highest outcrop rises 5,669 ft above sea level and 2,200 ft above the floor of the flat surrounding desert below.

Aside from the stunning geology, the Spitzkoppe is renowned for its many examples of ancient San (Bushman) rock art. Another fun fact: photographs of the Spitzkoppe Mountains were used as backgrounds for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey in the “Dawn of Man” sequences. We did a short hike to a rock art panel that involved a chain-assisted climb of a couple of hundred of feet up a steep rock incline. Here’s pics of the climb and the cave with the rock art:

We camped for two nights at the base of the Spitzkoppe in one of the nicely private campsites nestled up against the rocks, and had one surprising campsite visitor, as seen below:

Unfortunately, despite my plans, we didn’t get the opportunity to do much hiking because it was all guided technical rock climbing, which was beyond our capabilities. So we simply enjoyed the landscape and the really fine camping weather. We had fun naming some of the rock features, such as this one:

We did manage to pick up several new bird species though, which was nice. OK< we are off to the Brandberg Massif for more rocks and rock art. See you there!

New Species:

• Sociable weaver
• Rosy-faced lovebird
• White-quilled bustard
• White-tailed shrike
• Feckled nightjar
• Chestnut-vented warbler
• Rupple’s parrot

This post is not my typical post because it has almost nothing to do with overlanding Africa – well not entirely nothing, I guess, since it is about a reality of this overlanding trip. Instead, it is a short post dedicated entirely to Laura! Why Laura, I will tell you.

Nancy’s flight to Cape Town was delayed and she missed the flight to Windhoek, or at least that is my expectation as of right now while I write this post. In any event, she is almost certainly going to miss staying in this really incredible mini house. Bella’s mini house is close to the Windhoek airport and I booked this place so that Nancy would have a comfortable bed and accommodation to recover from the long journey. Well, that’s not happening it seems.

When I arrived at Bella’s mini house and did a quick reconnaissance I immediately thought of you, Laura, and how this place was made for you. Laura, I know you would just be happy beyond belief staying here. Indeed, it’s almost worth a plane trip for you just to experience this place!

This place is a few kilometers into the bush with nothing and nobody around or in sight. There is a mini house and a separate mini-mini house – Laura, this is analogous to our (your) hobby house apartment at our home in Colorado. I will mainly let the pictures do the talking, but let me briefly say that this place is immaculate and meticulously aranged and has every conceivable ammenity, including covered verandas, outdoor bathing tub and loo, swings and recliners of all sorts, braai cook area, campfire seating area, stone walks to and from everything, and views out over the bush and a small reservoir. The frig and freezer are stocked with all sorts of foods and drinks too. There’s even a strong WiFi. Check it out:

This post is mainly a photo journey of my road trip up through southwestern Namibia from the South African border in the Ai/Ais-Richtersveld Transfrontier Park to Windhoek, mainly to give you a visual picture of what the landscape is like in this section of the country.

After leaving the Transfrontier Park, I drove about 6 hours north and overnighted at a wonderful private campsite called Tiras just north of the town of Aus. There were only two fully equipped sites nested in the rocks of a hill on the edge of the Tiras plains. I was the only camper and had the elevated site perched up on the rocks overlooking the plains and the mountains beyond. Check out this site – if only Nancy were here with me to enjoy a glass of wine on the deck:

The following day I drove another 6 hours or so to just north of the town of Solitaire (near Sesrium on the map) to another wonderful campsite called Bushman’s Desert Camp. This time I opted for the exclusive bush site in a little riparian oasis in the desert a few kilometers from the main camp. Check out this for desert solitaire:

I left campsite before sunrise to get an early start on my last 5-hour leg of the drive to Windhoek and look who I ran into just outside my campsite:

For the remainder of this post, I am simply going to upload random pictures of the landscape along my route. No descriptions other than to say that this area has some spectacular desert mountain landscapes almost completed uninhabited by humans. In fact, in the 16 or so hours of driving I passed a couple of small villages and perhaps a dozen vehicles. That’s right, less than 1 vehicle per hour! And these are on the main roads between the widely scattered “towns”. This puts to shame the “loneliest highway in North America” (i.e., Hwy 50 in Nevada). This is true lonely driving at its best:

Next stop, Windhoek and happy reunion with Nancy!!!

From the Wildside:

After leaving Namaqualand, having had to skip my intended visit to Namakwa National Park, I headed north to the transfrontier park known as Ai-Ais/Richtersveld National Park on the border between South Africa and Namibia:

This transfrontier park, encompassing 2,334 square miles, was formed in 2003 by combining the Namibian Ai-Ais Hot Springs Game Park and the South African Richtersveld National Park. Most of the Park forms part of the buffer zone of the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape World Heritage Site. The most distinctive features of the Park are the hot springs (Ai-Ais translates as “fire-fire” in the native tongue) and the Fish River Canyon, purported to be the largest canyon in Africa and is considered the “Grand Canyon” of Africa.

Fish River Canyon is the second most visited tourist attraction in Namibia, after the dunes of Namib National Park (to be seen later). The canyon features a gigantic ravine about 100 miles long, up to 17 miles wide in places and up to 1800 feet deep – nothing to compare with the dimensions of the Grand Canyon in the U.S., but spectacular nonetheless. Fish River itself is the longest interior river in Namibia. It only flows during the summer months; during my winter visit, it was just a series of long narrow pools.

The Park landscape is extremenly dry (~5 inches of precip on the high, but less than 2 inches in much of the park), stony and sparsely covered with hardy drought-resistant succulent plants, including some unique plant life, such as the critically endangered giant quiver tree (which I showed you in my previous post) and some other tall aloes sparsely distributed among the sem-desert shrub vegetation. Another of the so-call mega-succulants is the “half-mens” tree. The local Nama community hold the half-mens tree in high regard, believing that the human-like figure it assumes is their ancestors longing for the Namibian home. Here’s a not-to-great shot of one:

Given the aridity of the environment and sparse vegetation, it is amazing that this ecosystem can support much animal life. Amazingly, however, I saw 4 kudu, 1 gemsbok (photo below), 1 springbok, and 3 klipspringers on my drive between campsites this morning. I don’t know how these animals scrape a living off this barren landscape, but it demonstrates the incredible evolutionary adaptations of the animal kingdom. Not the best picture, because gemsbok generally like to only show you their ass as they move away from you, but here it is nonetheless:

I had orginally intended to spend several days in this transfrontier park to take advantage of the opportunities to get in some nice desert canyon hikes, but I had to reduce to two full days due to my delay in Cape Town. I spent my first night at the Hobas campsite located close to the Fish River Canyon. Here are some photos of the upper portion of Fish River Canyon, that is very reminiscent of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, but on a much reduced scale.

My second day I did a half-day hike up the lower Fish River Canyon and then move farther down canyon to near the confluence of the Fish River and the much bigger Orange River (which forms the border between South Africa and Namibia) to a campsite call Boplaas, which I had entirely to myself. The campground sits adjacent to the Orange River and I opted for a solo morning kayak trip on the river for a change of activity. Darn, another camper just pulled in – Europeans no doubt, as they seem to be the dominant tourists here, so it looks like I will have some company tonight. Here are some pictures of the desert drive to Boplaas, my campsite, and the river from the kayak.

Next, 3 day road trip to Windhoek to pick up Nancy!

From the Wildside:

New Species:

• Pale-winged starling
• Ruppell’s bustard
• Karoo long-billed lark
• South African shelduck
• Mountain wheatear
• Southern masked weaver
• Common reed warbler
• Lark-like bunting
• Short-tailed rock thrush

As the picture above reveals, I am “On the Road Again” – I can’t get Willie Nelson’s song (or at least his version) out of my head. Finally got that precious document that I needed (2.5 weeks later) and then spent last two days driving north to Namibia.

In addition to the hiking I reported on last time, I should note that I did use that extra time in and around Cape Town to work some more on the Green Dragon by installing a new solar charge controller (regulates energy flow from solar panel to liesure battery) and DC-to-DC charger (regulates energy flow from the engine’s alternator via the duel engine batteries to the liesure battery) and, of course, a new water filter and pump for the potable water tank in the vehicle. All good things to have and to have working well.

This is a short post just to catch us up on the past couple/few days before I go dark for the new few days – or at least I am expecting to be dark, but you never know. Now that I am in Namibia, I don’t know how well the cell service will be, so I could be surprised. BTW, I just crossed the border post and cruised right through in about 20 minutes. No other vehicles crossing at this early hour so it was a very relaxed and pleasant experience.

Basically, I just wanted to post a few pictures about the region I drove through known as Namaqualand. This the northwest corner of South Africa in the Northern Cape Province. Unfortunately, due to my delay in Cape Town, I had to bypass my planned visit to Namakwa National Park, but I did manage to glimpse some of what the Park is famous for. The Park and surrounding region is part of the Karoo semi-desert and is dominated by succulent vegetation. The succulent Karoo is dominated by dwarf, leafy-succulent shrubs, and annuals, predominantly Asteraceae, popularly known as Namaqualand daisies, which put on spectacular flower displays covering vast stretches of the landscape in spring-time (August–September) after good rains in the winter.

To my good fortune – and I needed some after Cape Town fiasco – I caught a few glimpses of early flowering in a few patches, which was a tantalizing tease of what will undoubtedly follow in several weeks. Here are a few pictures the tease. Note, it is possible that later in September, when Nancy, Steve and Ki are passing inland through the Tankwa-Karoo section of the desert we might catch more of the display.

Here’s a picture of my “wild” campsite my last night in South Africa. Simply drove a few km off the highway into the boulder-strewn hills for a nice hideaway.

New Species:

• Dusky sunbird
• Karoo eremomela

I am entering the country of Namibia for the first time on my African overland journey, so as per my custom it is worth sharing a few factoids about this country to put things in better context and to educate myself (and you, if needed) a little about this corner of the world. Here is what I learned from my research.

• As you can see in the map above, Namibia is a coastal country located on the southwest coast of Africa between the latitudes 18-28 degrees south, which in terms of distance from the equator is the southern hemisphere roughly equivalent to central and northern Mexico in the northern hemisphere. Namibia borders Angola to the north, South Africa to the south, and Botswana, and has a small border with Zambia along the Caprivi Strip – a very narrow strip of land along the Chobe River separating Botswana and Zambia.
• At 318,772 square miles, it is about 20% larger than the state of Texas.
• Roughly 3 million people, compared to ~332 million in the U.S., and is one of the 10 least densely populated countries in the world.
• English is the official language, but there are several other recognized national and regional languages. Only 3% speak English as a home language. Oshiwambo is the most common language spoken and Africaans is the most widely understood national language similar to South Africa.
• Government is described as a unitary dominant-party, semi-presidential presidential republic with both a president and prime minister and a bicameral legislature. The parliament has a lower house (or National Assembly) of representatives elected via proportional representation – just as it should be done in the U.S. -and an upper house (or National Council) comprised of members indirectly elected by regional councils, each with duties roughly comparable to our House of Representatives and Senate. There is an independent judicial system similar in structure and responsibilities as the U.S. system. 
• Currency is both the Namibian Dollar and the South African Rand.
• Major exports include diamonds, uranium, gold, fish, and petroleum oils, with China being the major receiver of exports.
• The unemployment rate is alarmingly around 34% and almost half the population lives in poverty. Not surprisingly, there is a huge income disparity between the rich and the poor, which not much in between – a disparity that is growing each year here and elsewhere throughout the world, including in the U.S.
• Like most of the region, it was occupied by humans for probably 10,000 years until it was “colonized” by the Bantu people in the 14^th century from west Africa. The country was ruled by separate tribal kingdoms until 1884, when the German Empire established a white-minority apartheid rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive campaign against the Herero and Nama which escalated into the first genocide of the 20th century. German rule ended during the First World War with a 1915 defeat by South African forces. In 2021, German and Namibian diplomats created a “reconciliation agreement” acknowledging atrocities from the German colonial period. In 1920, after the end of the war, the League of Nations mandated administration of the colony to South Africa. From 1948, with the National Party elected to power, this included South Africa applying apartheid to what was then known as South West Africa. In the later 20th century, uprisings and demands for political representation resulted in the United Nations assuming direct responsibility over the territory in 1966, but South Africa maintained de facto rule until 1973. That year the UN recognized the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) as the official representative of the Namibian people. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the South African Border War. However, a couple of areas on the coast remained under South African control until 1994.
• As of March, 2025, Namibia has its first female president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.
• Namibia is considered to be one of the most free and democratic countries in Africa.
• Namibia has one of the highest rates of literacy in Africa, estimated to be >92%.
• Namibia has a high HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, with an estimated 12% of adults aged 15-49 living with HIV!
• Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa and hosts the famous Namib desert along the coast, considered the oldest desert in the world, and the southwestern-most part of the Kalahari Desert.
• Namibia has the largest free-roaming cheetah population in the world and is one of only two countries to support desert elephant populations!
• Depending on the source, Namibia has between 17-40% of its total land area protected in some form, such as national parks, reserves and community conservation areas. Based on the World Bank’s estimate of nearly 40%, it is one of the highest rates in the world. Interestingly, Namibia was the first country in the world to explicitly include environmental protection in its constitution.