The ominously named Skeleton Coast lines the Northern coast of Namibia, an area of vast sand dunes running straight into the sea for nearly half the coastline of the country. With the mix of warm air coming off the dunes and cold air from the frigid water brought up on the Benguela Current from Antarctica, an almost constant fog sits over the untouched area, causing very low visibility for ships in the area and leading to quite a few shipwrecks along the coast, left to slowly rust away in the harsh environment. In addition to the shipwrecks, if a sailor did manage to survive the crash, there was almost no hope of survival once on land, as the desert stretches for hundreds of miles in any direction with very little to offer in terms of food or shelter. According to my guidebook, some Portuguese sailors in the time of early exploration called the area The Sand of Hell (As Areias do Inferno) for that reason. Fortunately, we were travelling in the comfort of our nice truck and were just touching the very Southern edge of this coast, so our visit was a little less treacherous.
Getting to the coast from Brandberg, we passed miles and miles of flat, lifeless terrain of coarse sand and gravel fields, dotted with a few tiny rocks with not much else. Nearing the coast, we could see the distinctive fog bank and darker sky waiting for us, and we immediately felt the drop in temperature. Within a few miles of the coast, there are actually some brown and black spots on the ground that are lichen, coming out to bloom in greens and blues when the scarce rain does hit the area. Soon we got our first glimpse of the dark water of the ocean, marking a cross-continental trip for those who started this journey in Kenya and came from the waters of the Indian Ocean in Tanzania (though I started at the halfway point). Out of the isolation, we came across a tiny little settlement with just a few houses and a tourist center, the home to the Cape Cross seal colony.
Cape Cross is a haven for the Cape fur seals who gather here in groups of up to 100,000 at the peak time of the year for breeding. As we got out of the truck in the gravel parking lot, we were hit by the strong winds, a bit of a chill in the air, and a definite smell of animals nearby (though our guide said that the smell is often much stronger/worse). We walked along a purpose-built boardwalk lining the back of the beach, putting us just a few feet above the beach below, covered for about half a mile with seal after seal, occupying almost every available piece of land or rock. The brown lumps stretched off into the distance, some napping, a few young ones waddling around, and others jostling and barking, in what actually sounded pretty similar to a field of sheep bleating. Offshore, other large groups surfed the waves of the cold water, bobbing around like dark buoys in the ocean. After about thirty minutes of watching the seals, we headed back to the brief warmth of the truck before stopping at a nearby beach for lunch. Though very scenic, the beach was again a little cold and windy, but that was a nice change from the desert environment throughout most of the rest of the country.
Back on the road, we passed just a few tiny outposts, strangely put together towns of 10 or 20 buildings with oddly colored and shaped structures serving as factories and houses for some of the salt mines in the area. With salt being so prevalent due to the proximity to the ocean and evaporation in the area, the mines are common here, so much so that every so often you will find a random, unattended table along the road in the middle of nowhere, stacked with a few examples of the beautiful pink crystalline structure of the salt, sitting with just a small can for visitors to drop a bit of money in for taking some of the crystals. We also veered off the main dirt road once more, driving onto the sand and then walking out to one of the more recent, more accessible shipwrecks; a huge boat beached about 50 yards offshore, with waves constantly pounding against it. A bit more driving and we arrived to Swakopmund, a strange little city in the middle of nowhere.
(Cape Cross Seal Colony has something like 100,000 seals during its peak. Apparently it smells exactly as you'd expect 100,000 animals living in the water and eating fish to smell. Fortunately, the stench wasn't as bad when we were there, though the barking and crying did sound like a huge herd of sheep at times.)
(There were even a few little guys squirming around, looking much more graceful than the huge seals that are completely awkward when trying to move around on land.)
(Just down from the seal colony, we had a quick lunch on some windy picnic tables along the isolated coast. My thoughts on lunch - "Hmmmppphhhh." When I become a grumpy old man, I'll be using this face quite often.)
(This isolated stretch of coast where the desert meets the water is known as the Skeleton Coast. With the combination of cold water and warm air, there is almost always mist around, creating huge problems for ships navigating the area. In addition to the possibility of shipwrecks, there would be almost no way to survive in the harsh desert, hence the nickname. This shipwreck is a fairly recent one that we spotted from the road along the coast.)
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