Travel article: Waterberg Plateau

Namibia is not only vast arid plains and desert, from time to time stands a mountain or a massif, that can be observed for miles around like giants posed in the middle of landscapes without reliefs .

This is the case of the Waterberg plateau. At a height of 200 meters, this massif overlooks the plains of Kalahari.

On the side of the road we see women wearing strange outfits. Long colonial dresses and a hat with strange horns. We will learn later that these are Hereros women who wear the clothes of their German enemies (Namibia was German at some point) in protest and victory during the successive wars between them. Men wear military clothes with badges and so on. The Hereros are also present in Botswana (where they fled after their defeat ...) where we will go in a few days.

On the road for 40 days already, we are regularly stopped by the police. If we had avoided a corruption attempt in Lesotho, we would not be able to do it in Namibia. Arrested as we didn’t have a South Africa sticker on the car to indicate to motorists that the car comes from South Africa (useless rule therefore), we are fined 30 euros. We try as best as we can to avoid it but we soon realize that this is an official rule and not police racketeering. Without cash, the police offers to us to make a detour of 70 kilometers to go to pay it and return to show them the receipt. No thanks, we are negotiating to pay it in the next city. Deal, we continue the road having lost more than an hour. Fortunately warthogs on the side of the road cheer us up.

Let’s go back to our adventures at Waterberg! We will take a nice 3 hours’ hike on the plateau. At some point we climbed in tall grass and rocks but we do not regret, the view at the top is beautiful. Nothing on the horizon, we dominate Namibia from our point of view.

In the park there are many rhinos but we will not see them from our promontory. It is however possible to organize a safari with the Waterberg Camp.

We pick up the car for one last track (red this time) and that's the end of this great trip to Namibia. We loved the diversity of landscapes, landscapes really grandiose, the living conditions so different from ours, outdoor life and real change of scenery after these thousands of kilometers driving our city cars on the difficult and desert tracks. We recommend it!

Some recommendations:

# We stayed at Out of Africa Lodge for 45 euros per night. Hotel found on afristay.com which offers more choices than booking.com. Beautiful Lodge but we did not remain indifferent to the treatment of employees by management ...

# Hiking in the waterberg plateau for the day is free. It is also possible to make a hike of 4 days to be booked in advance.

# When you book a rental car in South Africa, do not forget to ask for the South Africa sticker from the rental agency at the risk of getting a fine of 500 Namibian dollars, 30 euros.

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Christelle & Cedric
Jul 2, 2019 - 07:19 AM

Oui! On recommande!

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