Driving 'The Beast' through Africa
Namibia
by Isabelle Demaeght, July 11th, 2025
After exactly one hundred days, we bid farewell to Belgium once again. We had taken a well-deserved break while The Beast was shipped from Ghana to Walvis Bay, Namibia. The break was timely: Floris' wedding was a great reason to take a breather. Besides, it means we miss the monsoon rains and two difficult countries (Cameroon and Nigeria). I experience fine, relaxing encounters and I work seven weeks with my ASD colleagues in home nursing.
Although The Beast's crossing was originally supposed to take a few weeks, African time and transportation realities proved more unruly: only after fifty days was it in the Namibian port.
We landed in Walvis Bay, each with twenty kilos (two pairs of pants, some T-shirts, a new lens, new sleeping bags and otherwise many spare parts) in our suitcases. Adriaan fixed the black, inexpensive Chinese/Ghanese suitcase with ducktape, and I picked up a gem in Hasselt at Okazi: a bright yellow Samsonite with a red DHL logo at 9€. Recognition will be easy: Adriaan's suitcase is missing a caster; mine is yellow.
With the exception of some delays, the trip proceeds without any significant problems. In Walvis Bay we are picked up by Peter, who has cleared and safely stored The Beast. The car looks fine - except for one detail: three months ago we left a plastic bag of fresh mangoes in the back of the car. What was once juicy fruit has now become a black syrupy mass. The fruit flies are overjoyed to be allowed out!
We arrange the first formalities: a local SIM card and car insurance - not obvious, it turns out. The insurance will have to wait until after the weekend.
As I am loading the car, I suddenly hear Adriaan shout “Shit!” A rare word from his mouth. It turns out he has taken a black, badly damaged suitcase (with three missing wheels) off the belt at the airport. Fortunately, the details of the owner are on the suitcase, and after one phone call, a relieved Anneline comes to pick up her luggage.
On Saturday morning, we return to the airport. Adriaan's suitcase (completely without wheels) stands lonely with the people in charge waiting for him. While I was thoroughly checked the day before, Adriaan walks away casually with a forbidden kilo of Dutch cheese in his battered luggage. Tip: leave your suitcase behind and collect it when the x-ray machines are not manned (if you have something to smuggle).
We stay in Walvis Bay for three days. We do shopping at the Spar and a Namibian drugstore. Along the beach we take a walk with a view of thousands of flamingos, followed by a delicious meal of oysters and seafood.
On Monday we succeed in: car insurance, a new refrigerator (finally!), and a ticket to the park we want to go to. The nights are cold - freezing cold. We notice other differences from West Africa: it's cleaner here, more organized ... and a lot more expensive.
At the campsite, we are initially alone. Saturday, company arrives: some campers as well as two large buses with a youth orchestra on tour. They stay until Tuesday morning, just like us.
Soon we arrive in the Namib-Naukluft National Park. The asphalt road gives way to gravel, like 90% of the roads here. The route through the park is quiet: little traffic, less “washboard.” At Gobabeb, a research center, we pause briefly. A friendly biologist advises us against taking the road I had chosen. “Many damage their car there, the track hasn't been maintained for years,” he says.
Adriaan decides to try anyway and was given the biologist's phone number. That leads us to a lonely camp site under a rock, with a wide view. Magical. As in West Africa, we are spoiled by very beautiful sunsets. Springboks are grazing in the huge meadow in front of us.
A day later we drive towards Namibia's tourist attraction: Sossusvlei. On the main gravel road we see lots of rented 4x4s with rooftop tents. We stop in Solitaire - a place that once began as a café owned by Dutchman Ton van der Lee and is now a regular stop for travelers. The parking lot is full of rented 4x4s.
“Did you come all the way from Belgium?” a West Fleming asks us in surprise. He sums up his itinerary: seeing all the Namibian highlights and Zimbabwe in two weeks. We spontaneously decide not to go to Sossusvlei. We must not have seen everything. The fact that we both agree on this feels wonderful. We have that luxury: ‘time’.
We turn around, toward Angola. An unexpected turn, but welcome. We climb to 1,700 meters altitude: the nights get stone cold.
Along the way, we find a campsite at the Spreetshoogte Pass. We are alone again, under an unparalleled sunset. In Belgium I had hardly been able to find vacant lodges - then everything seemed fully booked, but the reality is different. Wild camping is not an option for now: the roads wind endlessly between high fences. Namibia is the least populated African country. We drive for hours through uninhabited territory.
On our way to Windhoek, we see a sign to a 4x4 route on the grounds of a farm with a camp site in the middle. Owner Joachim explains that it is a tough trail, to be covered counterclockwise, the other way around requires more. The little boy in Adrian comes alive and decides to travel the route clockwise. I take no pictures - too tense - but see zebras and monkeys fleeing the roar of... The Beast during the very steep climbs.
The promised water source near the campsite turns out to be dry. Adèle, Joachim's wife, welcomes us hospitably into her home after a -6 °C cold night and offers me a shower, coffee and delicious cookies - a godsend.
In Windhoek we do some shopping and visit the Independence Museum, as we both have the impression that we know so little about the history of this country. It is a chaotic museum. We learn mainly that Namibia was a German colony until 1915 and then under South African mandate until independence in 1990. We see evidence of both the German and South-African influence.
Then we drove to a park to the west, but were forced to turn right around: a wildfire not yet under control made it impossible to camp there. On the way back we met small giraffe family.
On the outskirts of town we pass the slums: metal slab lofts in rows. We still find a place by a lake in Windhoek.
We take the highway - rare here - toward Wilhelmstal. I want to buy biltong there, but everything is closed after 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoons. Buying alcohol on Saturday after 1 p.m. or on Sunday? Forbidden. A relic of the strict Protestant farmers?
Via small roads, by chance, we reach a brand new campground with lodges. Once again, we are the only guests. That evening turns out to be the birthday of Martin, the owner. Erica, the manager, gives us a quiet place, away from the festivities.
After dinner, I ask Adriaan, "Shouldn't we take a look anyway? You don't experience a party like this every day." We go ... and party. The birthday boy provides abundant meat and vegetable dishes. Guests bring their own drinks in coolers. As Erica and Louis predicted: a slightly decadent, drunken affair.
I amuse myself on the dance floor and among the guests. The next day, everything is quiet. Everyone is gone. We linger for a while. This is a unique place. Quiet. Seriously.
About the route I want to take, Louis says firmly, “I wouldn't.” The Grootberg Pass, which I want to cross, he calls dangerous: narrow roads, steep precipices and, according to him, cars are in the ravine at every turn. With our usual stubbornness, we do decide to take the less easy road north.
On the way, we make a quick stop in Omaruru, where we score our first serving of biltong - deliciously spiced strips of dried meat. A perfect snack for the road. Or with the “we have arrived” appetizer.
For the first time, we also find two fantastic wild camping spots. Especially the last one, in the middle of the riverbed of the Huab, is downright breathtaking. Only the desert elephants, which should be wandering around here somewhere, don't show themselves. Quite frankly, if we had spotted the sign a little further on that said “no wild camping” (in reference to the presence of those elephants) earlier ... we probably wouldn't have stayed overnight here.
After an easy Grootberg pass over a pretty bumpy road, we reached Oppi-Koppi - a beautiful campsite run by Vital and Marian, a sympathetic couple from Limburg. Maybe it wasn't our best idea to hang out at the bar there too long... and those shots? Well, not really conducive to the morning feeling either.
We decide to stay a few days to plan the rest of our trip. (Which, of course, we later completely deviate from.) And to thoroughly tackle our mostly very dusty laundry.